gokusen ごくせん [series] [movie]

duuuh duh nuh nuuuuh! dun dun duh  da duuuuh!
(that was yankumi turning up in your smokey warehouse to beat you down!)

where on earth do i start... how do i review the almighty gok? there is no way to not love gokusen. even if you dont like it you actually do you just dont realise it. this has the potential to be the longest review with the most pictures im not even gonna bother putting all the main characters names in it would take me forever. look it up on dramawiki. 

http://wiki.d-addicts.com/Gokusen

ok, we first meet yankumi on her very very first teaching job. she is heir to a yakuza gang but wanted to be a teacher so off she went. hiding her yakuzaryness from eveyone was a little bit hard as she was put in charge of the rowdiest bunch of delinquent yankiis ever seen this side of the second series. kekeke

sawada (matsumoto jun) leads the group he's all moody ass and pouty (though its hard not to pout with that mouth youre never sure what's acting and what's just his face) also featuring in the main group are fantastic actors oguri shun and narimiya hiroki.

one by one the class comes to love yankumi as she sticks her nose (and fists) into their fights and disasterious attempts to stay in school her job becomes to just get them all to graduate without dying or getting expelled first.

yankumi storms into the abandoned warehouses (that apparantly japan has millions of) to save the beaten sh*tless boys when theyre in trouble she beats up any thugs that even sneeze near the tv program and all the guys come to kinda know she's a bit special.

the second series is exactly the same format just a new class. this time with kamenashi kazuya from kat-tun and his bandmate bakanishi jingrish sama akanishi jin. its got a great cast this time round too. the stories are exactly the same - but you just dont care!

they always get mixed up in stuff they shouldnt, nearly get expelled, all hell breaks loose every five minutes and yankumi must lose her job like three times every season.

the third series i have to admit i have a soft spot for. although really its too hard to have a favourite series for me as its all like one big epic movie (i lost a good few weeks just watching series 1 and 2 back to back while waiting for the 3rd one to come out)

this (supposed) final series has miura haruma (samurai high school, bloody monday) and lots of other lovely faces that once again get into the same old sh*t as the other previous classes. but hey - thats what teacher see right? kids go through a lot of the same stuff as their peers. just maybe not some of this sh*t. in reality.

if i say its far fetched, stupid, relentless, repetative, righteous, violent, farsical, unbelievable, corny, predictable, etc etc i may get slapped by the god of brilliant manga adaptation drama but i say it with love! i swear!

its jammed full of moral messages about not being a d*ck and standing up for your friends and all that sorta stuff - but in the nice way japanese tv does it not in the vomit inducing disney type way. yankumi talks the guys down while smacking them in the face. yay!

ok so i should mention yankumi and the other teachers for a minute. she is played by nakama yukie (she really has been in so many things i thought id just put in her dramawiki link http://wiki.d-addicts.com/Nakama_Yukie instead of bother to explain who she is if you dont already know her greatness)

the head teacher she butts heads with constantly in each series sawatari is played by namase katsuhisa. his character gets better and better with each series. the other reoccuring teacher is baba played by azuma mikihisa (he has the hots for yankumi from the moment they met but she only has eyes for unattainable prince on a horse type out of her bumbling clumsy league guys) also yankumi's yakuza family feature in all three series' playing a big part in the story lines. all those guys are great. and also bumbling clumsy idiots.

ok, so on to the movie.

this was supposed to finish off the lot. but im still hoping they do a final series and bring back sawada from the very first series to marry yankumi - lots of gok fans really wish for this.

the movie features a new class and also many of the guys from the third series as main characters in the film. it also has countless short appearances from past characters from all of the series'. (even nakamura yuichi is in there - yes i noticed that one you little scamp! - he was in series 2 if you didnt notice him)

                                                                    there he is ^

and like the three previous series kuma (waki tomohiro) is also around to be generally great and smiley. i really like that he comes back each time we get a new gok.

the best thing about this film? well along side yankumi who should come to work in this school but kamenashi kazuya! i mean his character from series two. aish he couldnt have been more cool. that jacket and the trousers tucked into his boots (^_^) the ever moody pout and quiet mumbling sarcastic remarks and getting beaten up all over again! just like old times right?

for me it works so well as i feel that out of all the students  he got to know yankumi the most somehow. having him there to remind her of what an idiot she is is just genius.

and for the hardcore fans of the drama (and there are almost as many as fans of the manga) we have gokathons where we just watch it all over again over a short period of time and walk around for the few weeks afterwards picking fights with randomers in the street who looked like they might shake us down for small change or pick on our comrade

but we dont back down from any fights do we?!

for this is the blood, sweat and tears of youth!

its also called psychosis caused by the over exposure to gokusen righteous violence.

it doesnt help when you have yankumi's big entrance theme as your ringtone.

if it goes off when you walk into a room... minutes later you realise youve just trashed the place by throwing everyone around and beaten the living sh*t out of them with steel poles that just happened to be laying there all around you.

and god forbid you go anywhere near the beach or a park or a long street you'll end up running or fighting or running and fighting. aish it never ends.

yeah thats right. gokusen psychosis.

there was a helpline.

but the 'on hold' music was yankumi's theme.

there were riots.

those dockyard warehouses never fully recovered.

...

kattun gok skit:

becky doing yankumi impressions on cartoon kattun:

i really want a clip of the bit right after when nakamaru does the impression too

its the funniest thing in the universe. aish nakamaru rocks.

hana yori dango 花より男子 [series] [movie]

how can you like a series where one of the lead characters is such a total pr*ck...


main cast:
inoue mao - makino tsukushi
matsumoto jun - domyoji tsukasa
oguri shun - hanazawa rui
matsuda shota as nishikado sojiro
abe tsuyoshi as mimasaka Akira

there isnt much to say on the 2 series and 1 movie
ball of frustration that is hana yori dango.

it p*ssed me off. it basically consists of domyoji being an absolute d*ck constantly makino shout and scream every five minutes, hanazawa being bored of everything and looking totally unimpressed, makino getting on the wrong side of everyone then everyone gettin on the wrong side of makino, no-one getting their act together and it all ending in tears.

all the time

its one of those series that gets refered to in other things as the manga was so popular. there are also korean, taiwanese and chinese live action series adaptations (kgotboda namja, meteor garden, lui xing yu)

hana yori dango is pretty over the top, its frustrating and ridiculous but thats not to say it is bad, it just wound me up. 

matsumoto jun seems to be a genius when it comes to making the viewer absolutely hate his characters and then just when he's wound you up so much you cant be bothered to watch anymore he starts showing some personality and then damn it before you realise you kinda dont want to admit it but oh f*ck when did that happen... you suddenly start rooting for him.

bear with it though, it takes half a series.

the real star of hana yori dango really is inoue mao. she was very funny and completely lovable. 

makino is so strong and hardworking that her respectable determination keeps the story worth following. 

inoue teamed up pretty well with matsumoto for this i think, both of their characters had such strong personalities that the show was never boring. infact it was an unbelievable farse in places.

i like the second series more than the first, and the film is just plain weird.

in the first series its really harsh to begin with. makino is the only poor girl in the whole school surrounded by snobs and the elite. makino, being the tough little monkey that she is, stands up for a bullied student and p*sses of F4 (led by domyoji); the elite group that rule over the school. 

But for f*ck sake - he paid some goons to trap her in a room and assualt her. I am i missing something here? How could she ever love someone that did that? It's disgraceful. But then i realise, two series and a movie later that I too had forgotten about that. 

...I'm not sure how that happened. 

its obvious where its all going, F4 declare war on her but makino in turn declares war on them. eventually they all in turn fall for her strength and personality and she begins to turn them all into proper humans with feelings and the such.

domyoji develops feelings for makino after she punches him in a kind of 'no-one but my sister stands up to me' type way but makino likes hanazawa due to the countless times he has had to save her from various rediculous problematic situations (usually caused by domyoji)

it gets all tangled and proposterous but its easy viewing if you dont let it wind you up

if you want to put in for the long haul of both series and the movie then go for it, but if you think you might give up then dont watch it. i really believe it got better with the second series and i did actually start to like domyoji enough to want it all to work out. i really dont know how matsumoto jun did it to be honest.

domyoji is a d*ck.

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kimi wa petto きみはペット [series]

so, if koyuki gets to have a pet matsumoto jun
does that mean its actually ok for me to have a pet taguchi?

momo is actually my favourite of all matsumoto jun's roles, i have a lot of stuff with him in and the only ones i liked were bokura no yuki, gokusen, myu no anyo papa ni ageru (man that was good - he was awesome in that), saigo no yakusoku, and maybe lucky seven. 

normally i love to hate matsumoto jun's characters. lately he plays a lot of retarded miss the point completely usless stubborn idiots. but in kimi wa petto he is adorable, manipulative,strong willed and unashamedly loving.

his character in kimi wa petto is basically a young guy who gets taken in by sumire (koyuki) when she finds him lying unconcious and injured in a box outside her apartment building.

when he recovers and plees with her to let him stay it is agreed between the two of them that he will live with her only as her pet so that there are clear boundries that will not be crossed - i guess that is a bit weird but seriously - chibi curly haired matsumoto jun asks to be your pet... what ya gonna do?

yes thats right. agree and call him momo. (^_^)

I would and I don't even like him.

there is something i cant really explain that i love about koyuki. there is somthing in her eyes that always looks a little bit sad and humble. 

i really rate her highly as an actress and i think she is absolutely beautiful aswell.

 i have a fair few of her shows and films; laundry, IWGP, antique, engine, she was also in mr brain, uh... unubore deka... im sure theres more...

actually her role in kimi wa petto may be my favourite role of hers too. hmm, i cant decide between this and laundry - love that film. and it has been so long since i saw either of them.

kimi wa petto is very funny, kind of uncomfortable, and thought provoking. who decides what boundries we should have with our relationships with people? finding comfort in someone can take many forms - the friendship these two characters have is such a close bond that it rivals most other types

of relationship.

the story becomes tangled and bizzare but only when in the outside world does the realisation set in again that it is a strange existence. all the time that it is just these two friends at home nothing seems abnormal. ...apart from the fact that momo acts like a dog and stuff. but to be honest its just too cute to be that weird. or maybe my tolerance for weird is a little off....

no, f*ck it, its not weird. im sticking to my guns here. he is really human and

there is only a bit of an age difference, who cares if they blur their boundries. And look how cute he is. curly hair and stripes. Not developed that fish beak yet.

lots of stuff unfolds with who momo really is. he turns out to have some problems in his life and decisions to make about how he wants to live.

there is also a spanner called hasumi (tanabe seiichi) thrown in the works when sumire starts to date him - he is an old flame she starts working with again. he really is a f*cking spanner aswell though. 

tanabe is so great at playing someone really annoying and it wound me up everytime he said anything soppy and kissed her. Yuck. eurgh. f*ck off horrible man. eeeewwwwwww. type thing.

one of the things tanabe manages to do is make his irritating characters still likeable (kami no shizuku is a prime example - although it takes a while to warm to him). as a bonus even eita and ishihara satomi (later paired up again in voice) have supporting roles in this drama.

there is a weird therapist sumire sees who also has an obscue attachment to his pet, so they become unlikely commrades after they begin to explain their inability to love a human to each other.

watching kimi wa petto made me feel better about being so devoted to my dog and not feeling any where near that kind of love for people. to be honest i think the message in this drama struck a chord with me. (although me and my dog dont cross our boundries, you know, because he isnt really a human.)

you can take it on a surface level and just be amused by matsumoto jun leaping around like a puppy for 10 episodes of genuisly cute and funny adorableness

or you can get deeply involved in the emotional journey they take together and feel all the pressure and strain they face as they try to come to terms with their lives an feelings.

ah i love it. im gonna go watch it again.








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