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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Welcome to the quiet room クワエットルームにようこそ [movie]

Touching your bum makes me feel calm. How about you?

Not really. My legs ache.

Cast:

Asuka - uchida yuki

Tetsu – kudo kankuro 

Miki - aoi yu

Nurse Eguchi – ryo

Komono – tsumabuki satoshi

Nishino – otake shinobu

Sae – Takahashi Mai 

Nurse Yamagishi – Hiraiwa Kami 

I had only seen Uchida Yuki in kami no shizuku and maybe one other thing with a similarly reserved and elegant role, so when I first got this film I didn’t realise it was her for a while. When I finally sat down to watch it I was exited to see how she would play a wayward comedy writer, committed into a psychiatric ward for a suicide attempt, knowing that her character was to be not only troubled but also very textured and quite off the wall.

It is a very colourful film with a disjointed timeline and unique pace with some hallucinatory scenes and flashbacks.

Asuka is admitted to a secure psych ward with a place of isolation they call the quiet room. She wakes up to find herself bound to a bed with restraints, with an oxygen mask and on a drip. We follow her memories as she tries to trace them back to the incident that led her to the hospital but there are missing fragments uncovered much later in the film. Most of our time is spent with Asuka in the present (in the main ward) with the other patients, battling demons she was not even aware she had.

Most of the characters we meet are quirky, obviously you expect the psych ward to host a few interesting personalities but also Asuka’s circle of friends is full of idiotic comedy writers, she surrounds herself with idiots – as she puts it.

A few other really good familiar faces cropped up in this movie.

Ryo (Alive, code blue, casshern, zeni geba, suppli),
Tsumabuki Satoshi (IWGP, long love letter, sabu, waterboys, orange days),

Takahashi Mai  (Boku to Kanojo no XXX, sky high2),

Hiraiwa Kami  (Love my life, otakus in love)

And a liked Aoi yu’s character Miki a lot. She is one of the friends Asuka makes in the ward. I was kind of shocked to see Takahashi Mai, she plays a girl with an eating disorder, who has very rich parents who pay for her to have her own room and Lolita dresses. Having just watched the very stupid Boku To Kimi No XXX where she plays a wimpy boy who is trapped in the body of the tomboyish girl he loves, I was happy to come across her again. And man did she look beautiful. God she’s cute.

Visually, it is an interesting film, but also I think it has a really good gentle unfurling of the story – if that makes sense. It does leap backwards and forwards as she regains the odd piece of her memory from the week before her overdose, and we have the story pieced together along with her progression through her stay in hospital.

Well I thought Uchida Yuki was great, I loved to see her dressed with colourful tights and short hair, being scatty and unkempt. It is a far cry from her role in kami no shizuku for sure and I think it shows her off as an actor really well. She’s damn cute as well.

It isn’t a huge tear jerker, it isn’t very difficult to watch and it is surreal and funny in places (where it is supposed to be) but it does convey enough sadness and loneliness necessary to accurately describe the situation even in amongst the odd humour and twitchingly peculiar characters.

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orange days オレンジデイズ [series]

chibi eita and ueno juri again

orange days is a great drama for those about to go to uni (which i am - yes im a little late with that but shut up). the group of friends form somewhat haphazardly and begin to center around the pairing of kai and sae.

sae who is deaf uses sign language and lip reading to communicate, kai already knows how to sign as does her friend akane. 

a close bond is formed between sae and kai through a bikering volatile friendship and kai's busybody current girlfiend is pushed to the side.

as the group become much closer the series follows their ups and downs involving university, thinking of their future, and their relationships.

cast:
orange society:
kai - tsumabuki satoshi (long love letter, IWGP, lunch no joou)
sae - shibasaki kou (sora kara furu ichioku no hoshi, galileo)
shohei - narimiya hiroki (yankii-kun to megane chan, gokusen)
akane - shiraishi miho (suppli,nodame cantabile )
keita - eita (voice, nodame cantabile, last friends, sunao ni narenakute)

maho - konishi manami (shoni kyumei, anitque)
ayumi (shohei's sister) - ueno juri (nodame cantabile, last friends, sunao ni narenakute)
yuriko (sae's mother) - fubuki jun (sunao ni narenakute, fuurin kazan)

orange days has really made me want to learn JSL now, i picked up quite a bit just from watching the show. i liked how the others in the group who do not already know how to sign pick it up quickly and try their best to use it for sae.

it is quite an emotional series. sae's character has been through a great deal of trauma due to losing her hearing (she is a musician so it was a huge distress) and kai tries to soften her closed prickly personality enough to become a person she can trust and rely on.

akane and shohei have a kind of will-they-wont-they thing as (obviously) do kai and sae. eita's character is the "nice guy" that never gets the girl :(

this series ads to the endless amount of things eita and ueno juri have been in together though in orange days they dont have any scenes with each other.

this drama is very funny and sweet but it is one of those sort of series' that takes you through all the frustrating hardships that friends face together. it isnt hard going, it isnt all fated to end in complete disaster - though it comes close at times.

with the emotional rollercoaster sae has to ride due to her disability and the seat kai takes next to her in that journey, there are many upsetting moments to go through, but overall this is an uplifting fun series that makes me want to be closer to my friends and not waste the time we have together.

and it really makes me want to learn JSL.

and my god, shibasaki kou is so beautiful. have you seen her pocky adverts? 

she is so adorable i cant even explain. she did the milk pocky ad once, i saw it on youtube and nearly died of her cuteness. 

i know that tsumabuki satoshi has done some pocky ads too (who hasnt?) if they havnt thought of this already and ive just missed it, they should have them do one together. orange flavour pocky! they missed a trick there. damn it i want pocky now.

anata wa watashi no pocky!

yawarakai fuwa fuwa + shibasaki kou =

*dies of cuteness*

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