kittyflumpin

This is one of those movies that I can watch over & over again (and believe me, I have). So cute and romantic! No angsting over being gay-- it's just an accepted fact and no one cares (well, literally ALL the characters are also gay men so it's kind of an insulated world in that regard, but it's still very nice to see even if it's not realistic. IMO sometimes realism is overrated). This is one of my go-to feel-good movies. I've shown it to 3 other people over the years and they've all loved it.

Hmm, we must have pretty different taste, as the only titles where my Summer picks overlap with yours are Mozu 2 & Seijo. Other than that, I'll be watching (or at least sampling) Saikyuu Yankees, Asunaro Sansannanabyoushi, Nobunaga no Chef 2, Zero no Shinjitsu, Again!, and last but not least *drum roll* Magical Boy Cherry's (which I didn't see on your list-- is it not this summer after all?).

No, but that ending sure begs for it!

OMG I didn't even realize it was him! No wonder he looks so familiar!

I loved his bratty Cha Chi Soo in FBRS and then was amazed by his performance in TMTETS. I liked him more than the King in that, actually-- if I were Wol/Yeon Woo I would've picked him for sure. Though to be honest, I preferred the Prince/Woon "thing" (okay in my head it was a thing ^ω^ ).

I love Jikou Keisatsu and Satorare. I'm sure I didn't get half the jokes in the former (so many sight gags, it's almost like you have to watch it twice-- once for the subs and once just watching the action the entire time) but what I did get was hilarious.

I'm a little surprised La Maison de Himiko didn't get a film mention but then again he's got so much good material to pick from, it must've been difficult.

I think one of the things I like about him is that he doesn't always have to be the star of the show-- you'll be watching a movie or drama and suddenly there he is in a minor role, but you're so happy to see him! :)

(Also, how nice it is to see a Japanese actor profiled...)

I normally avoid any dramas that I know involve terminal illness (exceptions being Scent of a Woman and the wonderful Kisarazu Cat's Eye) but for some reason the organ donor angle intrigued me and I'm hooked-- even though I'm sure I'll end up bawling my eyes out at the end. I've only see the first 2 eps, and I don't rate shows before I've completed them, so I'm not sure if I'd rate it this highly yet...

Is Yuya ever going to do anything besides smoulder and make herbal tea for her? What I mean is, does this have any romance at any point? Maybe not, since it's not listed in the genres, but I'm going to be disappointed if the fiancé just shows up and all is forgiven at the end...

High school students again? *sigh*

I made the mistake of watching ep.01 late one night ("Oh, I'll just check out the first episode, see what it's about...") and 6 episodes later, around 4am, I understood why everyone loves this show.

P.S. I called into work the next morning and finished the drama. >_<

P.P.S. It was worth it.

This has all the calling cards of those direct-to-DVD BL adaptations-- 2 pretty boys, kinda awkward acting, lots of brooding (not bagging on them-- I've watch a ton of them myself-- but you have to admit they follow a pattern). So I kept waiting for the awkward pressing-of-lips that generally passes for a kiss... but no. Nothing like that. It's like someone decided to adapt a BL manga and just removed all the romance and/or sex. Not that I wanted them to go at it on screen (they never do in these films anyway) but I felt like I was missing something.

Just a warning-- I ended up really disliking this show so if you love it and reading contrary opinions upsets you, you may wanna skip this...

Well I finally finished it and wow I found it incredibly boring overall. Not even the Lee Jong Suk/Woo Bin bromance (what there was of it) could save this show for me. (Really what they should've done is left out all the teachers/other-student BS and made a short 4-6 ep minidrama just about those two.)

And the trying-to-be-super-dramatic way so many of the lines are delivered... (I know this isn't the only drama to suffer from this but when I'm also bored by the story, I start to notice the little things that grate on me too). I have to imagine the director specifically told them to do this because I refuse to believe they'd all choose to act in this manner. Seriously, putting a dramatic pause in front of what seemed like every line of dialogue makes it lose all meaning (and conversation scenes were made all the longer & more tedious by cutting to reaction shots of everyone in earshot, I swear). Out of desperation I started to amuse myself by imagining them going full-cheese and delivering their lines a la William Shatner and omg how that would've improved this show.

At the end, it made me crazy that they spent like 2 episodes on crap like getting jealous over an essay contest or a stolen cellphone or whatever, and then the issue of Jung Ho GETTING BEATEN BY HIS FATHER and feeling pressured to drop out of school to support the abusive a-hole is like a half-episode afterthought at the very last second. Seriously?! And the ending they wrote for that character-- I wanted to scream. All the other students, the teachers would just keep trying no matter what to help them, and at the end when it comes to Jung Ho it felt like they just sorta shrugged and said, "Oh well, can't win 'em all" and gave up without a fight. Yes, I understand it was the last episode and they were out of time, but then they shouldn't have even started addressing the problems with his home life if they were going to just dismiss it so quickly in (literally) the last few minutes.

I could not delete this drama from my harddrive fast enough.

I just watched this last night and... it was sort of different from what I'd expected based on synopses both here & elsewhere. Like them, I won't spoil it for you by saying how it surprised me, but it really did.

As a French production the dialogue is primarily French (duh), with a little Japanese and English throughout. When journalist Ada speaks with her interview subject Kenji (Abe Hiroshi), it's in English. And when she talks with her translator Okabe (Nishijima Hidetoshi), it's in French. (I remember being impressed when NH breaks out the French in a later episode of Yama Onna Kabe Onna and it didn't sound like he had memorized it phonetically; so it seems he's pretty fluent and it was quite cool to hear him acting in another language.*)

Anyway, I bought the Canadian DVD release in the Amazon Marketplace and found that, aside from a few Japanese phrases, only the French dialogue was subtitled. I kept finding myself searching for the subs at the bottom of the screen. I understand why the Japanese wasn't subbed, since Okabe translates almost all of it into French (which is then subbed) and it'd be a little redundant. But quite honestly I could've used subs for the English dialogue too. It's not that Abe Hiroshi's pronunciation is bad, but at times his inflection was unusual enough that it'd take an extra few seconds for me (a native English speaker) to process it and I'd have to back up and rewatch scenes at times. It's a minor quibble though.

(*tbh, at least one of the stars I gave it is probably due to the fact that NH speaking French is pretty damn hot, not gonna lie...)

So... I plan to watch the Ooku J-drama and I'm wondering, should I bother with this afterwards? I mean, is it just a condensed version of the same story, or is it a continuation where the drama leaves off?

I thought the same thing as everyone else seems to have-- won't he look a bit odd in a HS uniform? Like when a drama does a flashback scene and just puts the adult actors in uniforms (though those are brief and usually meant to be somewhat humorous). But it's just one of those conceits you'll have to grant the show if you want to watch, I guess.

WOW... I said "Oh my god!" out loud to myself out of shock twice in the first 15 minutes. I don't usually do that. I'm totally hooked.

(I said it again later when Nishijima was doing push-ups in that tank top, but for an entirely different reason...)

Will there be hands-on learning?

I starting out rolling my eyes-- a LOT-- but held on because I knew Nishijima Hidetoshi would eventually show up. He did, but by the time he entered as a character I had already found myself enjoying the time spent with this group of characters, and I ended up finishing it over the course of 3 days. I think the first few eps were heavier on the boob-obsession (by everyone, not just the men-- it was ridiculous!) than the last half of the drama, probably just to hammer home the superficial "joke" of the show right away, so I'm glad I stuck with it. (Either than or I started to ignore it, which works too.) So in the end I surprisingly rather liked this drama, though I definitely wouldn't recommend it to anyone as their first foray into J-dramas. Rather I'd recommend it to someone who had seen enough to understand that even though it's about breasts, it's not really about breasts, if that makes sense.

I'm nearing the end of this and I'm "rationing" out episodes because I don't want to finish it too soon (despite the fact that I also want to marathon it at the same time). I find myself wishing I could hang out with Tada and Gyoten and just, well, do nothing alongside them. The best part is, I get the impression that Eita and Matsuda Ryuhei had a genuinely good time filming this; it comes through in their easy interaction. I'm so glad I somehow stumbled upon SayItAintSoJoe's 2013 article about "The Best of 2013" and gave this drama a shot.

Hmmm, No Breathing... It was visually appealing but the story was unremarkable. It's entirely possible I was expecting too much since I, like a lot of others, had been looking forward to this ever since it was announced. The girl didn't have to be there at all because imo the romances were not that developed, and when they awkwardly crammed in that musical performance-- well, I said to myself, "She must be in an idol group or something they're trying to promote," because it just didn't fit.