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The main character is Shinnosuke, born Japanese but brought up as a “cowboy” in Arizona, USA, who is sent to Shibuya, Tokyo, by his Native American friend Geronimo III (Furuta Arata, always a pleasure), to search for a girl named Imoko. This is the overall story arch that keeps the whole thing together. Imoko is supposed to be 17 years old, but Shinnosuke soon learns that Shibuya is full of girls that age. Some of them have dropped out of school or even left their homes and they only live for their club, Angel Hearts, where they do the “para-para” dance. (This too looks very strange to me but I’ve read that this is a thing that exists!) He befriends them, and also meets other people in the neighborhood, along with Geronimo’s daughter Momo.
In the beginning I even wondered if it was watchable at all. “What is this?!?” I thought to myself, but soon I realized that it’s not meant to be taken seriously. The drama is full of very strange things that can’t even happen in the real world, and it’s full of repetitions (stuff in one character’s shop always gets knocked over in the exact same way once or twice ever episode, and things like that). It’s completely over the top all the way. Nobody can be like that. Why the American characters all speak fluent Japanese is a mystery, for one thing. Only Shinnosuke’s speech is sometimes sprinkled with English. It’s just one of the things that you have to accept and let go to enjoy this... The way they dress and act, too. The writer of this drama has clearly been looking too much at old children’s books about “cowboys and Indians”, and no other characters ever change out of their work clothes…
Of course, there are “serious” topics thrown in, too. Each episode deals with a certain issue one of the characters has to deal with, and “the cowboy from Arizona” helps them gain new insight. Mostly it’s the girls in Angel Heart that he meets. He helps them “grow” and “learn from their mistakes”, and even if the girls get angry with each other and fight a lot, they make up before the end of the episode. This is the part of the drama that makes me roll my eyes. Shinnosuke’s speeches about respect and compassion may carry good messages, but these “life lessons” are a bit too much sometimes! At the same time this makes them kind of funny, too. Just when you think it’s getting way too cheesy, it falls back into the silliness again. At least sometimes. (And at least you can watch Fujiki Naohito’s face while he talks and forget the rest…)
That’s one reason why I didn’t give it a higher rating, and one reason why I watched this drama slowly. One episode every now and then to make me laugh, that’s fine. On the plus side is that there is very little romance and only in the last few episodes – this feels like a good thing to me, in this kind of drama.
At least I think that Shinnosuke was a cute character. A strange mix of seriousness, silliness and naiveté, but it sort of works once you accept that that’s just how he is. (To be honest, at some point I suspected that his true identity was not that he was Japanese, but from another planet…) Some of the girls were pretty interesting, but the main character among them, Erika Toda’s character Saki (the one who gets most attached to the cowboy), can be a bit annoying. (Or maybe it’s just me that for some reason never really like the actress that much, even though I accepted her in LG…) The Patrolman (Sato Ryuta) was a character that developed a little bit. And I liked how they Skyped with Geronimo and how some of the characters sort of bonded with him online!
The music – I got very tired of the song that Angel Hearts danced to. It was a boring piece of music, and they always practiced the same dance to the same song. The ending theme was kind of cute and fitting for the drama (and sung by FN, “Hey! Friends”) but not something I would actually listen to.
So, what do I say, finally? I think it was a pretty good comedy drama after all; it made me laugh, so there’s that. Not every episode was hilarious but sometimes it actually was. The ending was incredibly stupid, but again in a good way to really follow through with the overall silliness of the drama. But it’s not one of the really awesome comedies that you’ll remember forever. It’s the kind of drama that put a lot of emphasis on friendship, being honest and trying hard, and find something to do with your life.
I don’t rewatch dramas, so I don’t know about that, but I don’t really think there’s a lot to rewatch this for. Fujiki Naohito is cute here though so if you’re a fangirl like me you might find this worth your time (but he always wears his cowboy outfit and even though the character kind of suits him, I’d only give this drama 8 for eye-candy). That is, if you can stand the speeches about what is right and good and how to treat other people, etc…
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Saigo no Bansan~Keiji Tono Kazuyuki to Shichinin no Yougisha~
3 people found this review helpful
I’m not going to lie; I watched it for two reasons: 1) Arata is in it, and 2) I was hoping for some backstory for the drama Hi wa mata noboru that I watched and enjoyed a couple of months ago. In both respects I got disappointed, because Arata has even less screentime than in the drama, and as a background for the events in the drama, yes, it makes sense, because it provides us with some explicit reasons for Tono’s later actions and behaviour… but it doesn’t really go in depth. If you have already watched the drama, then you’ve already figured out the backstory as far as Tono’s personal life goes; if anything, I feel that knowing the drama makes me understand the special better. What I really wanted, though, was to get to know Anzai and Natsumi better since I felt that their relationship (as well as Tono’s and Natsui’s) was the drama’s weak point. I probably just had the wrong expectations, though.
If you haven’t watched the drama and just want a crime story, well, you’ll get what you want. There’s a crime, there are suspects, there’s a detective burdened with a troubled personal life, and people in his workplace who doesn’t like him, and a young colleague whom he dislikes... In other words; the usual.
I found the plot to be decent. Some of the things were too easy to figure out, the only mystery that remained until the end was what the perpetrator’s actual motivation was. I also found it hard to believe that such a scheme would be possible…
As for the acting, it was good. Nothing that stands out, really.
I found this special rather pointless, and I would have preferred if the drama were two or three episodes longer instead of having this prequel.
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This drama is not in any way a masterpiece or anything really "special". It's just that it's special in the way that it gives you warm and fuzzy feelings in a simple and pure form without anything to make it complicated, annoying or draggy. Yes, there are characters who act as "bad guys", there are complications that makes you feel sooo upset and frustrated on behalf of the characters; it's dramatic in that way and keeps you emotionally connected. If you are susceptible to the feelgood genre, this story rubs you the right way and tugs at your heartstrings in a way that is… just right. It has a touch of comedy to it, and the amount of comedy is also just right. Some themes are rather serious, even if they're not dealt with in a very deep way, and the different sides of the story balace each other well. Some episodes are actually very funny.
Some people say it's predictable and I'm not denying that. (How can a story with this kind of plot not be? What would be the point?) It has all the usual things for a school and sports drama! Even if you can figure some things out right from the start, there are enough little surprises to keep you interested but it's not even about the plot mainly. This is the kind of drama you want to watch for the characters, their inteactions, the friendship, the teamwork, the loyalty, the emotional bonds, the forming of new bonds and re-discoveries of lost ones. Watching this drama will make you root for the characters, not only on the soccer field. That's why my overall rating is higher than the individual rating for "story". One minor flaw is that I think several scenes were cut from this drama. It doesn't take away anything from the understanding of the story but some things feel a little bit rushed in the last parts of the drama.
The acting is good overall; actors and characters are very well matched. The principal pulls of being a powerful woman/silly girl very well. The vice principal on the other hand is a little bit too ridicilous in his appearance; too much of a "type"… but it's okay in this kind of drama. He serves his purpose. The female lead is convincing and is only annoying sometimes; the young actors are mostly really great. Especially Wang Jingke and Qin Minghao (two of the main ones) are convincing in the different kinds of situations they face and grow through.
Hu Ge though is one major reason to watch this apart from the feelgood effects of the drama itself. I have to discuss him a little bit here, because I do find him so good in this role. He plays the part so well, a very believable "Mu Shuai" (the nickname his character goes by most of the time). He was perfect as a very kind and (too) noble man in Sound of the Desert, truly amazing in Nirvana in Fire, and in Disguiser he did very well in a role that wasn't really good for him - it's even more obvious in retrospect now that I compare with his portrayal of Mu Qi. Here, we can see him every now and then bring out a bubbly, playful side of the character. Ming Tai was definitely also playful but Hu Ge tried too hard there, simply because Ming Tai was very young so Hu Ge was not acting his age. With Mu Qi on the other hand, he is in time with his character so the overall impression is more convincing. (It's not just his problem, I think many actors have this problem when they have to act younger than their real age.) He goes through the usual journey from a somewhat grumpy, sad and "I don't really care" coach to someone who grows as a person, etc, etc (as can be expected from this kind of story), making plans and smart schemes, always bickering with young teacher Pei Duo… It's fun! It all seems to come naturally for him. And our two main leads do have enough chemistry to make you care! (Also, he's really hot here... but it should be just a side note!)
The music is nice and it fits in with the drama and everything. I liked it when I watched; I won't be listening to it later on.
I always struggle with the rewatch value when I write a review, because I don't rewatch, no matter how great a drama is. I'll have to pretend I am a rewatcher and imagine in which ways this would be worth watching again. Well, I do think a feelgood stoy you enjoyed has some kind of rewatch value (in the past I have rewatched movies and reread books so I'm not a complete stranger to it), but even though you don't really watch it for the plot you'll already know which games the team wins or loses… so I'd say if you really liked it and if you really don't have anything else to watch you could go back to this at least for a while.
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The plot… well, this needs to be said: The plot is based on some unbelievable things. As you can read from the synopsis, the male lead has had a facial surgery to the point of being completely unrecognisable even by his loved ones. Can you believe it? No? Well, are you at least willing to pretend to believe it for the sake of entertainment? If the answer is yes, then go on and watch this! This drama is long, but it took some time before finally all pieces of the puzzle were put together, and I was genuinely interested and curious about what was going on. They really did create a mystery that grabbed my attention. Some people say it is confusing but I disagree - the story was easy to follow and it was very easy to remember who all the characters were. I wasn't bored while watching this, except once or twice in the last few episodes! Well, there were too many flashbacks where characters were in deep thoughts about something that very recently happened... such things are a bit annoying.
I liked the main characters and their friendships and romances. For the most part of the drama, I really appreciated that there was very little of the usual annoying things like love rivalry, meddling parents and other things. I like it when characters are good friends who support each other! It's just that they did add two completely unnecessary characters that took up screentime, added drama and made this longer than necessary in the second half. They could have skipped that. Well, there are more "surprise! I'm a new character in this drama!" additions in the later half or even the last third of the drama, but most of them are essential to the major plotline. And there was one character that developed in a kind of strange way. The motivations should have been explored more to make what happens more believable, but at the same time it was nice... So I'll call it okay.
The cast of this drama wasn't familiar to me before I started it, except Yang Shou whom I've seen twice before. This drama has made me appreciate him more as an actor. I think he really nailed it with all the different emotions. The romance was believable and the tension between the two leads - especially before she knew! - was tangible. Overall the acting was good.
On a more superficial level, things were nice to look at for the most part. French scenery... Interesting fashion (mix of beautiful, weird and hideous) and yes, the people, too.
Most of the time I don't care a lot about the music in dramas, but here there was a song that I really liked! The rest of the music was also okay.
At some point, I think my enjoyment was up there at level 9, but some things in the plot were just way too hard to believe in. I was more forgiving of some things than some previous viewers on Viki, but when things get too over the top you just can't take the drama seriously enough to love it unconditionally. Some things in the last episodes were stupid, to be honest, but with all these pros and cons, I thought this drama was worth 8.5 as my overall impression. Not as good and as lovable as some, but definitely good enough for me to appreciate the time I've spent on it. I posted a version of this review on my feed right after completing it, but as I found myself thinking about the drama a week later, I thought I should post a review, so I edited my notes. I don't rewatch, but will I remember this a couple of years from now? I think so… maybe because it was a kind of crazy story, but also because it was a pretty nice watch.
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If you like a typical coming of age story this might work for you. A character from a small town comes to Tokyo and learns to be more humble while learning a profession. It worked well for me with the drama Bambino! but not here. An apprentise and a master with a tragic past... it's almost painful how uninteresting it is, which is a shame because with good writing such a story can be so heartwarming. The movie begins with a sort of love story that is over early on, it's just the promt that starts the whole thing. The hero who steps in and saves the day is anothe obvious cliché... it was totally fine in Dinner, but here it was just meh. I realized as I was watching that I was thinking: "So much crying and shouting just for one bakery, why?" I should not think that. I should root for the main character and feel what she is feeling and share her passion when I watch a movie! Another thing that annoyed me was that the character Mariko made absolutely no sense at all. Poor girl. I'm sure there was something about her, but I could not figure out what.
If you're thinking about watching this movie just for Eguchi Yosuke, don't bother. What a waste, anyone could have played that role and it wouldn't have made a difference.
BUT I have to admit that I LOVED the cakes and the scenes where the characters were seriously working hard in the bakery. It was absolutely beautiful. (In fact, as soon as I have finished typing this I'll google to see where there are ant bakeries in the city where I'm staying right now!) If you like this kind of eyecandy, this movie is not a complete waste of time. I had high hopes for it and it didn't disappoint as far as the cakes are concerned. It's almost worth rewatching just because of that. Or not. I really wish this had been a drama instead of a movie.
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