orthros no inu オルトロスの犬 [series]

scarey eyes staring contest round one; tackey vs roro.
the winner is...     - no-one knows. we're all too scared of them to look.

fstarck you shift key, i wont have any capital letters or asterisks then. didnt want them anyway. star sulk star. 

ok i was already crapping myself at the thought of watching nishikido ryo in something else after last friends but really wanted to see orthros. 

takizawa hideaki plays the bad guy and yes he's pretty damn threatening but roro's scarey eyes still sent me reaching for a pillow to hide behind.

ah he's great though. i cant believe how much his face changes when he smiles.

when he is messed up and frantic he looks like he could kill you in a second and he spends most of the series looking just like that because of the

power his character has had to live with his whole life.

aoi (nishikido) can kill with a touch of his hand and a murderous intent. 

this guy is not evil though. he is tortured by his power and the things that have happened with it in the past.

the guy we have to be careful of has the opposite power. 

ryuzaki (takizawa) can heal with a touch and intention but the demand for his 'godlike' power has made him bitter and faithless. we first meet him on a roof top being all rained on and saying some profound stuff while he's staring down into the town below looking all evil and menacing.

both these guys are not really evil or good - they never really knew what to do with their powers, and morality is something that changes with context and circumstance. 

the two men enter into a journey with each other of breaking down their ideas of what is really right and wrong and it ends up exploiting many power hungry people along the way.

i wasnt expecting this series to be so deep, it did get very emotional. the relationship between the two guys was intense at its lightest.

mizukawa asami plays a head strong police detective who becomes entangled in their savage world and has her own ethical code broken down by the events that unfold.

it has a fantastic cast and a really good story line with lots of twists and dramatic turns that push the characters to their limits. 

it has a pretty epic ending and yes yet again, i cried like a complete girl.

both takizawa and nishikido were suitably f*cked up and derranged in their roles in orthros, but all i wanted as an onlooker was for them to find a way to be at peace with everything and each other.

i wasnt sure what it would be like having these two going head to head but they worked well together. their characters were both pretty messed up but in different ways. 

ryuzaki strutted about like he saw no worth in any humans at all, while aoi was desperately trying not to fall into the same bitter and angry state. but with both of them that wasnt all there was to them.

sometimes you really didnt know if there were any sides to take  - it was such a blur of misunderstood and abused morality and everyone involved became lost and desperate. i found it quite gripping. im sure i watched the last 5 episodes back to back.

basically it was pretty heavy. it was kind of like death note in a way, and it has a sort of maou-like - dark history coming back to haunt - element. 

also in the same way maou's story ended up with two guys destroying each other in a mess of confused and desperate emotions, orthros had these two characters manipulating each other to the point of devistation.

i would say orthros has a much less depressing ending though. that is, after the crazy epic bit that you think is the ending.

how great to see tackey be all scarey and loony tunes though. he does the emotionless pychopath thing beautifully and gave such convincing strength and confidence to ryusaki making him a truly intimidating character.

both characters had a lot of underlying stuff going on that was all implied with expressions and mannerisms - as you watch both of them become more unhinged and desperate you just lose track completely of who is calling the shots.

the more ryuzaki puts aoi through the more they seem to switch roles; ryuzaki becoming emotional and aoi becoming darker.

the breakdown of aoi was a nervous one for me. roro, i really need to see you in stuff where you dont scare me. smiles and fuaa fuaa please. you sh*t me up too much dude.

( i wanted to get some more screen shots but my computer hates me

and i couldnt be bothered to fight with it anymore tonight.)

~

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.

~