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.

~

tumbling タンブリング [series]

its basically gokusen with leotards.
im sure it was terrible but i was too distracted by nisshi and fuchi to care...

original tumblers:

yuta - seto koji (atashinchi no danshi, rinne no ame, koizora)

mizusawa - yanagishita tomo (takumi-kun, akai ito)

kaneko - tamoto soran (furuhata chugakusei)

hino - nishijima takahiro (ghost friends, delicious gakuin, ai no mukidashi)

tsuchiya - tomiura satoshi (hana yori dango, taiyo to umi no kyoshitsu)

yankee tumblers:

wataru - yamamoto yusuke (antashinchi no danshi, hana kimi, rinne no ame,)

ryosuke - miura shohei (gokusen, giragira, school, koizora)

nippori - kaku kento (samurai high school, taiyo to umi no kyoshitsu)

kiyama - daito shunsuke (hana kimi, nobuta o produce, rescue, shibatora,

               futatsu no spica) [i call him fuchi so dont get confused]

others:

natsuko (wataru's mum) - otsuka nene (tokyo dogs, saigo no yakusoku)

kashiwagi sensei - akira (hana yori dango, yamagata scream)

mari-chan - okamoto azusa (moyashimon)

akabane (wide jaw skunk hair boy) - isaka tatsuya (water boys)

tashiri shigeo - sato jiro (gokusen 3, densha otoko)

ezaki sensei - kuninaka ryoko (hotaru no hikari)

the main cast is quite large so i thought id get that out the way in one go.

also, i want to point out that this is a totally biassed pointless review. most of my shots seemed to be of nisshi so i had to go and do them again. bear with me and my minor obsession and i will try and explain as much as i can around my fan girl moments.

right, its bad. its really cheesey. its like a gokusen wannabe with jumping and leotards. it completely won me over though.

i couldnt take yamamoto seriously at all doing his joey from friends acting. the way he threw is bag down all the time became funnier and funnier to me the more he did it with those permenantly flared nostrils. and sato koji didnt stop crying throughout the whole program. literally a few minutes break then he was off again. every damn episode.

tomiura satoshi's soft high voice commically lept out against the yankii's grrrrrring, shouting, and yakuza wanna be talk. but i do think he's great. dont get me wrong.

yanagishita plays another flakey gay which made me sigh: ah bless you useless takumi-kun. it was hysterically bad but he does it so well.

daito looked so stunning i squealed fuchi! everytime he came on screen.

seriously, bruises and a split lip really suit some people so much that its

almost a shame when they havent been fighting.

i was just screaming team moody ass hino! through the whole thing even though i had to wait untill the end episode 7

before nisshi cracked a smile! its just cruel.   ひどいよ!

and when nishijima smiles its like the sun coming up, he cant do them small, its like his whole being is made of smile. the contrast was hysterical. (it wasnt meant to be).

absolutely adorable. big squee for nisshi right? yeah you know it.

ah i should probably tell you what its about.

it centers around a gymnastics club basically. a load of yankii sh*t heads (who are really nice guys at heart as they always are) join in and it begins to save the angry nutters one by one in gokusen abandoned warehouse stylee.

wide jaw skunk hair boy ^ wants to f*ck everything up so he does and all the guys change into better people through their own trials and their friend's dilemas.

it has some bizzare camera angles, lots of sitting on the beach at sunset, and, of course, those token abandoned warehouses have perfectly placed steel poles to beat the sh*t out of school boys with as is the way of things.

but seriously people - you get to watch nisshi prancing about on a gym mat -

do you really care what its about?

ah and also fuchi's character goes 'nanas and beats up people quite a lot with scarey eyes and major serious face - which is awesome - and slightly more believable than yamamoto   :p

it was funny that lovely miura shohei basically played the same character that he played in gokusen. but with some leaping about in shiny pink clothes.

it was very funny. sometimes because it was meant to be (baka sato jiro) sometimes because i was just plain laughing at it . (the wataru and ryosuke making friends flash back. god that was bad)

i think it would have made an amazing stage show though. i'd truly love to see it onstage. it is perfect for it i think. im useless. i havnt said anything about it really have i?

its about kids finding somewhere they belong, finding their morals, understanding true friendship... yeah its basically gokusen without yankumi plus jumping with shiny clothes.

one of the things i did notice is how good their bad tumbling was. these guys are all pretty accomplished in leaping about like pros, so doing bad falls and not landing flips properly is quite a skill.

the good tumbling was stunning aswell. from all the teams you see thoughout. i would have like to see more dancing and stuff - thats kinda of why i think it would have made a good stage show. less d*cking about on the beach more shiny clothed jumping beans.

truth be told, i only watched it to see nisshi doing acrobatics and fuchi beating people up, i wasnt expecting award winning tv. so i quite happily squeed (not a real verb) all the way through.

its completely predictable, lame and cheesey. but you will have fun watching it. i did.

massive nisshi smiles all round.

~

voice ヴォイス [series]

with friends like these who needs autopsies?

eita and ikuta toma - what a brilliant pairing! for a potentially typical format of mystery drama the casting of these two was an inspired decision.

there is a lot of banter between all the main characters and even quite a lot from the supporting cast too. 

it was well written with sensitivity to a sometimes somber subject matter.

the setting is medical school and the five main characters are students taking a seminar on forensic pathology. this, they come to learn, is about conveying the voices of the dead to those left alive.

in confusing cases where the cause of death is unknown or suspicious, forensic pathology listens to the signs the body shows in order to hear the real story of those last moments on earth.

all taking the seminar for their own different reasons (often something in their past that has haunted them) the five work together to understand how dead bodies can explain the life that once was attached to them.

kaji daiki (eita) is actualy unwillingly drafted into this course by the lecturer who can see something in him that would surely flourish in forensic pathology.

his friend ryosuke (ikuta) is avoiding the pressure of his dad's high position, 

kanako (ishihara satomi) lost someone in suspicious circumstances, 

teppei (endo yuya) and akira (sato yuki) who have a great argumentative banter with each other from day one, also appear to have their own reasons for joining this usually fairly unpopular and misunderstood course.

the second great pairing in this is endo and sato. i would never have thought to put those two together but it was a stroke of genius. 

its always quite fun to see endo getting beatings and playing the nervous geeky fool, and sato is great as the scarey looking, angry but soft hearted idiot akira.

each episode has a new case for them to solve and they are all pretty interesting. 

but it is the banter between the main five plus akira's mum that i like best about the show. it keeps it all rolling.

all the boys seem to pick on kanako and she stubbornly keeps them at arms length for quite a while. ishihara is another actress who can play many different roles well. 

one minute a closed and focussed young girl and the next a frantic, rude, sneaky teacher as was her role as in puzzle.

ikuta looks beautiful in voice i have to say. he is a little slapstick (how we like him best) and a little serious too. and not many people look good in puffa jackets so thats one to be proud of.

kaji daiki is basically riding on his exceptional intuition and has Galileo style flashes of genius when he is in deep thought - he usually saves the day with his soft focus psychosis epiphanies.

its kind of cheesey i guess but eita's awsome expressions and that messed up

mop of hair he has just makes it fun to watch. i could watch him in the worst program ever created and i probably would still like it due to being blinded by his greatness. his thinking face is awesome. haha, it sounds funny to say that. it really is though. cant help but love that man in whatever role he is in.

and that big green/blue coat was another inspired piece of casting. it was like the 6th member of the team.

~