long love letter ロング・ラブレター[series]

not the usual premise for a japanese series

it has been a while since i saw this so forgive any vagueness i might have. the wiki description doesn't really tell you anything or do it justice so i will try to explain what it is about without giving too much away.

looking like an adorable poodle, kubozuka yosuke plays Asami a teacher at a high school, Tokiwa takako plays Misaki a girl who works in her father's flower shop. The two had met a year before and taken a liking to each other but when Asami's phone was stolen after they had met he could no longer contact her.

The pair meet up again at the school when Misaki has to deliver some flowers and as they start to have a bit of an argument the ground opens up and the school disappears into a crater formed by a huge earthquake. If the earth moves even when you argue i guess it is ment to be (^_^)

The people left behind can only see the massive hole, but inside the school the pupils, Asami, and Misaki are still alive but thrown into a different time. The school materialsed on an endless sea of black sand and as they struggle to survive they begin to realise where they are. Finding wreckages of their old city they understand that they have been thrown into a bleak future where the world appeared to be dessimated by human destruction.

A few people left behind hear the echoes of the lost school and are determined to believe that they are still alive somewhere but are helpless to do anything about it. Back at the school the group are concerned with keeping themselves alive with no water or food, and trying to understand their situation. 

It is a really hectic, sad series, lots of people die, it is a hopeless situation after all. it ends with as much unexplained confusion as it begins which is just glorious fun - leaving you totally lost as to how to feel about the whole thing. I love it when japanese tv steps into sci-fi. they really should do it more. it does not end how you think it will, it spirals off into madness but then does offer a unexpected resolution. im not sure that it is really all that happy of an ending - but more of a mixed bag of feelings. like when you wake up from a bad dream, you a relieved to know it was only a dream but the feelings are still there all the same. it was that kind of sense. (and no it wasnt all just a dream)

Yamapi plays one of the class (who i really liked actually) and he is still at his fluffy gold hair stage - always hillarious. Yamada Takoyaki (i should stop calling him that - i forget his name is atcually takayuki sometimes) and Mizukawa Asami are also good. The class stuck in the school is quite large so there are a nice amount of students we get to know thoughout the hardships. And of course, we watch a good fair few of them die. It is not the happiest of dramas. I was actually shocked at some of the characters they picked off. So sad.

Interesting drama though. really quite different to anything else i have seen. Love kubozuka yosuke and will happily watch him in anything. He will always be The King to me. I would totally be in his gang. When i eventually review IWGP im sure it will just be countless pictures of that man's crazy hair. Seaking of which, he totally looks like a poodle in LLL, it is so cute. Between his poodle-boof and Yamapi's gold fluff there is more fuwa fuwa than a boy love film.

 the king

 

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laundry ランドリー [movie]

can i add teru to my list of pets please? im sure that taguchi tamagochi,

jeremy anjell, demon gay, and momo wont mind...

i love this movie. so much. when i first found it ages ago, i saw the movie poster and i just saw some cute [possibly crazy?]  guy on it and thought *looks interesting, ah i'll grab that as i want something to watch tonight* not noticing it was kubozuka yosuke who i love love love love love so much! i was all exited when he came on screen and i realised it was him.

i had no idea what it was about [clearly also who was in it] and to my absolute joy of joys koyuki suddenly appeared on screen and i KNEW this was going to be genius.

kubozuka plays teru - the most adorable puppy of a person you could imagine. koyuki plays mizue - completely utilizing those sad eyes of hers to the absolute maximum. it is a very quiet lonely film with so much sweetness and love, it is heartbreaking but warm and hopeful. i just love this film so much.

teru is 20 years old but an accident in his youth stunted his mental growth. although he is very capable he has some trouble distinguishing fantasy from reality. the way it manifests in teru though is the way most of us would like to be. he is loving and honest - his job is to stop creepy men from stealing underwear at the coin laundry. he sits guard all day on his chair at the window and knows all the regular customers by name. 

one day mizue visits the coin laundry looking as if her heart had been shattered. she leaves an item in the machine and with adorable determination teru manages to catch up to her and return it. their unlikely friendship grows from there.

thinking about this movie makes me exited and sad all at the same time. it made me cry in floods - i cant even explain. koyuki plays her character with such epic loneliness - i just adore her. i really just love her sad eyes. 

it is a quirky film due to the characters but the pace and feel is very quiet and sad. there are some extremely funny moments and certainly an unusual story develops later on.

sally, played by naito takashi, is a man teru meets at one point on his second search for mizue (she runs off a lot). he keeps and trains pigeon doves for ceremonies. when things begin to look uncertain for the pair, teru and mizue turn to him for help and end up becomming involved in the rearing of the birds.

mizue has an uncomfortable past - and one that teru probably would not be able to comprehend - but he manages to comfort her inspite of that. feeling unworthy of his love mizue's problems surface even though she is desperate to be happy. gutting situations arrise and it looks as if it will all end in tears.

i cant really say much other than the whole cast (however small it is) is wonderful. i could gush on and on about it but that wouldnt do much good to you i suppose. i like lonely sad films, but i also like ones that dont make me want to die at the end of it because everyone is destroyed and doomed or dead. this is perfect really as it made me sad but in that way where even when things are looking up im still crying because it is so sweet.

i love the dude that sits in the machine all the time. so funny.

i feel kind of weird when i watch things with kubozuka in. because he sort of semi-retired and i know he isnt in much else these days; the more work of his i watch the less things there are for me to see him in.

i first saw him in the movie ping pong ピンポン years and years ago (that was actually made 2002 the same year as laundry) and then later when i came to watch long love letter ロング・ラブレター「漂流教室」 i remembered him and looked him up. i loved him in LLL so much and while watching that i found out about his retirement from dramas and the reasons for it. it is obviously sad and unfortunate and i would rather he was out of the business if he is happier that way, but from a personal standing i just wish i could see him in more things. he is such a great actor. i dont want to mention this everytime i review something with him in but in a way i guess it is hard not to. i also loved him in his early dramas strawberry on the shortcake [SOS] ストロベリー・オンザ・ショートケーキ and IWGP 池袋ウエストゲートパーク (which i still havent finished becuase i keep forgetting about it).

koyuki i adored from kimi wa petto きみはペット  but she was also in IWGP and a few other things i started watching a while back. she is the main reason i loved kimi wa petto so much - aside from matsumoto jun's hair (the only time i can ever say that!) and she always offers those sad watery eyes to whatever role she plays.

aish what can i say. i love them both. so glad they made this lovely lonely movie.

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strawberry on the shortcake (sos) ストロベリー・オンザ・ショートケーキ [series]

takkey and kyoko - making incest ok

alright, its not really incest - there's no blood relation it is fine but my god, takkey plays manato so uncomfortable like. he has got the school boy perv down pat.

i know a lot of people didnt like this series. but i did. 

i love both takizawa hideaki and fukada kyoko loads from more recent stuff and it also had another favourite actor of mine kubozuka yosuke who i have loved since the movie ping pong many years back.

f*cking ABBA is played constantly throughout so that gets in your head for ages im afraid. be warned.

takkey plays this proper weirdo manato fukada plays a whole other type of on another planet weirdo and they meet on a bridge one day.

they become brother and sister when her mother and his father get married and that woud be fine except for the fact that manato falls in love with that free spirited weirdo girl he met on the bridge before.

saeki tetsuya (kubozuka yosuke) is having an affair with a teacher, yui (fukada) falls for him even though she knows this, and manato's neighbour and childhood friend is in love with him. so like most japanese dramas everyone is in love with the wrong people

its a little twisty turny and everyone seems to be a strawberry short of a cake here but i loved it because of how unintentionally weird they all were and how accidentaly pervy it felt. it is subtle though, you might not view it in the same way.

i thought the ending was superb and as corny as you could possibly imagine.

and even if i thought it was sh*t i still wouldve loved it for posing the question *when you get a piece of strawberry shortcake (like cheesecake with a strawberry on top) do you eat the strawberry first or save it for last?*

im a strawberry first girl like yui.

she is so unbelievably beautiful. and man i really want strawberry shortcake.

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