Kami no Shizuku 神の雫 [series]

I wanted to do this review like, wine red, but it doesn’t really work on black does it.

Cast:

Kamenashi Kazuya – Kanzaki

Naka Riisa – Shinohara

Tanabe Seiichi – Tomine

Toda Naho – Kiryu

Masu Takeshi _ Kawarage

Uchida Yuki – Saionji Maki

Taguchi Hiromasa – Honma

This series is a bit of a weird one. I was fully prepared to find myself bored and uninterested, when I read the synopsis I really didn’t think it would be my cup of tea. But as did most of Japan with the manga, I really got into it straight away and ended up really respecting the program.

Basically, Kamenashi looks beautiful in this drama, and he is paired up with Naka Riisa who is gorgeous and hysterically funny, there are a bunch of over the top melodramatic characters and plot progressions (including Tomine going kind of …blind through the stress …of drinking wine…?) and lots of good old fashioned will they wont they – oh for god sake they’d better – awkward slow build friend turn to love type stuff.

The plot starts with Kanzaki’s father dying and leaving a huge wine collection up for grabs to his two benefactors. The first being Kanzaki, the second being a wine critic called Tomine whom Kanzaki’s father adopted right before he died. These two have to fight it out for the immense collection through a series of tasks to find the so-called ‘drops of god’ all orchestrated by the dead father.

Reluctant at first, Kanzaki takes up the challenge in order to learn the truth about his estranged father, finding even more secrets and new friends along the way.

Now, I assumed quite a lot from the beginning about who Tomine was, and it is kind of obvious. But really it doesn’t matter how and when you cotton on to all the secrets, it is more fun to get carried along with Kamenashi and Naka and their character’s quirky friendship.

The best, or the worst, thing about this drama is the cheesy phrases and excruciatingly painful description of wine with all the relevant pretentious words and devotion to a f*cking drink. It really does make me want to drink wine though – even though I can’t stand the way people talk about it.

It is only a short drama really, running at 9 full length episodes, responsible for Kamenashi’s constant prattling on about wine throughout Cartoon KAT-TUN when he was filming Kami no Shizuku. I can see why, it did have a lot of nice appreciation for sentimental attachments – not just stuff wine buff lingo.

If Naka Riisa had not been in this drama there would have been no light relief from all the melodrama and epic theatrical performance made of the simple act of sipping a bit of wine. It was laughable in places, but would have been more so if there hadn’t been the real humour coming from Naka Riisa and her dorky character Shinohara. She absolutely made this series for me. I literally couldn’t have bared it – born it – uh, wouldn’t have been able to bare it without her.

It is worth watching if you’re a Kame fan on the fact that he is so pretty – though 1 pound gospel is still my favourite type of role for him (as brilliant as his boy love pouty moody monster style is in Youkai Ningen Bem at the moment) I just prefer him when he has comical characters.

But he does slut around in a suit *ahem* sorry – strut around in a suit for the whole show, and doesn’t crack a smile for a good long while, so many fans of Kame’s slut face – I mean strut face – will be happy.

Hmmm, I think it is actually way better than I’ve made it sound, I’ve kinda not done my job with this one have I? Well, I liked it; I don’t care if you do. And I watched it not that long after it aired which was too bloody long ago now to remember enough of the story to give an accurate review. Pointless much?

promo poster:

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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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