Made for those special times after midnight that dont exist anywhere else in the world other than on Japanese TV like 26:47 and 25:20 (the latter of which just happens to be the showing time of this idiot drama),
this show is the epitome of late night budget yankii stupids that frequent my TV screen at ungodly hours when I should be sleeping - When I'm living in Japan next year I will be doing this real time. Real 20 stupid hundred hours and 36 minutes past the hour o clock and a half nano second past the minute.
For some reason just those sentences above will not justify. F*cking blog spot formatting. So stupid.
So, I know I tend to rant about how terrible these dramas are and that I still watch them any way even though I can feel my life ebbing away every second past the 26th hour that I continue to watch... but... I am going to do it again.
Let's get the ridiculously long cast list out of the way first shall we? Before I start slating them all for the terrible joy they bring me in their awful acting choices.
Gokurakuchou
Nakajima Kento - Kiriki Tsukasa
Iwamoto Hikaru - Kawanaka Yoji
Fukasawa Tatsuya - Iwami Eiji
Watanabe Shota - Nakamura Hisao
BEAST
Nikaido Takashi - Danno Hidenori
Morita Myuto - Takama Kazutoshi
Morohoshi Shoki - Harada Kazunari
Sakurai Reika - Miyashita Mariya
Takayama Kazumi - Momose Haruka
Wakatsuki Yumi - Nitta Mio
Nojo Ami - Karatsu Rina
Yagami Ren - Sakuragi Yusuke
Nights
Hashimoto Ryosuke - Hiro
Yasui Kentaro - Nakagawa Kenjiro
Hagiya Keigo - Funamoto Jun
Shimekake Ryuya - Kenjou Juri
Akimoto Manatsu - Kamijo Mariko
Ito Marika - Mikami Miyu
Ito Nene - Sakuma Mina
Others
Itano Tomomi - Nakai Kaori
Triendl Reina - Sato Erika
The cast consists of members of Sezy Zone (I shudder every time I say that name -THEY ARE CHILDREN!!), Snow Man, Kis-My-Ft2, PureBOYS, A.B.C.-Z, and AKB48 - but I couldnt tell you who was who from what band at all. Its full of everyone from everything but I dont know them because theyre all 12 years old.
Gone are the days where I'm close enough to the age of the popular people in these shows that I can relate.
These baby faces having punch ups and trying to look like tough ass yankii, hosts, and yakuza wife wanna be weirdo gyarus ...was just laughable to me because I'm so stupidly old. And the distance is just too big now, I see these kids as kids... Its a real shame.
Gokusen was perfect for me. Most of them were played by people who had left high school no later than me in real life; I love the way Narimiya Hiroki could probably have played a high school student right up into his 40's and no-one would really care, but now these little scraps have come along there is a new class in session - none of my old favourites can ever go back.
So this time its a team of yankii verses a team of hosts with super fighting skills (supposedly) wanting to be top of the town and having many a fight to get there.
There is always some melodramatic backstabbing, changing sides, and not to mention past friendships coming to the surface to cause unwanted feels.
Someone is always pulling the strings behind the scenes somewhere, the groups fight each other mindlessly then get a clue and knock off their leader, then realise theyve been tricked by a member who really wanted the top spot - oh I could write these premises in my sleep.
Yes its all trite and over done but it never gets old somehow. I always enjoy these stupid school age dramas.
Its all about the morals, and the feels, and the good guy not wanting to fight but being unwillingly in charge of everyone and ... yes.. even though he is a tiny tiny child in a leather jacket and purple eye shadow bruises on his lip... he's actually quite good.
I really warmed to him (it would help me a lot if his band wasnt called sexy zone - it really would) and his acting style is one that finds its way through this poorly directed (although not too bad considering the budget) cheapo show.
Actually there were a few guys that really became - i dont want to say believable but - at least interesting. I think there is potential here for some good actors to emerge.
And there were definitely some fantastically funny stupid moments that remind me why I watch this ridiculous stuff.
It should be more embarrassing watching this and liking it. But I have no shame it would seem. It was no Gokusen but it was a good time filler. I started to really get behind some of the characters and willed them to have a Holyland style all out stamina punching fest, which they did, but the fighting isnt quite up to the same level. Nothing could touch Holyland for me though, we all know how much I adore that drama.
This show did have a few similar themes and the fact that the main guy didnt want to fight and just wanted to be a good guy was not insipid as it might have been in a higher budget drama.
For some reason I think those kinds of characters work best in these cheap late night shows. Maybe because you're so tired when you watch it your gauge is completely off.
I cant remember much of the details now, it was a fair while ago when I watched, but I do remember some great twists of new characters coming in to throw everything out of order.
And I did like almost all of the characters apart from this guy without a top lip from the end.
Well he was ok but just a bit too f*cking crazy eyed and no top lipped in the facial expression department. Some serious mood lighting and anti gravity camera angles following him everywhere. His story was good though.
I'd have loved this so much if I had watched when I was younger, at school this would have been my favourite thing in the world maybe.
Its all the lame ass fighting, terrible over the top dialogue, and bad make up bruises you would expect from this kind of drama, but the story is not too bad. Just completely over the top - exactly how you would want it.
And as this is a complete rip off of crows zero it comes ready with a crows style end fight where everyone is all matched up equally with the equivalent bad guy so that the top of the good guys and the top of the bad guys can duel it out.
Tsukasa manages to befriend all his foes along the way - I guess they all really understood the phrase 'if you cant beat them join them' because by then end... wel you'll see, but his rabble of dewy eyed minions has grown quite a bit since the first episode. Every badger hair cut toting, shiny shirt wearing, R rolling idiot is won over by that little grinning bastard.
When all their furrows of worry and super serial serious facing are like him up there ^ who can blame them really.
~
No comments:
Post a Comment