i thought this was a really good final episode. i cried throughout the sequence where everyone said their goodbyes. well, it started with Sekime who is so adorable. this episode didn't leave me wanting more, so it felt like a good way to end a series.
my favorites were Nakatsu and the doctor, of course. although... how is it possible for him to go out with the photographer if he's gay??? that made me go, "okay, Japan, that's messed up." i guess they wanted everyone to have their happy ending, and his is somehow turning more straight? WTF?
i also liked Sekime and psychic-guy. oh yeah, what was with the totally Superbad-esque scene with Nakatsu and psychic-guy?? was i the only one feeling the homoeroticism there? (the one where psychic-guy comes and tells Nakatsu that Mizuki's secret's out, and then Nakatsu finds out that he knew the whole time and says "You're the best!" and psychic-guy's like "You'll find someone better for you than Mizuki" with a big smile. it was so sweet, i really loved this show with moments like these.
thoughts on the series
the minor plot arcs revolving around the three dorms and their various activities came off as kind of trivial, and i would've been tempted to fast-forward if not for my devotion to the show. it was nice that the other dorm kids were there to send Mizuki off at the end and one of them actually asked "Do you know my name?" i was like, no, haha.
Oguri Shun was a disappointment. he had very little charisma as Sano, such a shame! i watched the show for him but ended up liking everyone else better. i couldn't see his emotional transformation from sort of a recluse to the more open guy that we saw at the end of the show. Wu Chun did a better job in the Taiwanese rendition.
Nakatsu's actor... great.
Tamaki Hiroshi (Nodame Cantabile) CAME TO NEW YORK??? TO FILM "HEAVENLY FOREST"????
as did the cast of HYD2.
as did many other people, I'm sure.
*wants to die* *but will stay alive until the next celebrity sighting*
a line from Naoyan's blog:
稽古をする度に掘り下げていこうとする役者の考えに反して、この台本はシンプルにやればやるほど面白い。
instead of the idea of an actor who tries to investigate further with every rehearsal, this script was more interesting the simpler you made it.
there's my wordy and possibly very flawed translation. it took a good fifteen minutes to google やればやるほど, and it was Yahoo!jisho that provided me with this example, "The bolder you are, the more likely you are to succeed. 大胆にやればやるほど成功の可能性は高くなる," so that I could sort of tease out the meaning of the phrase.
school's starting soon, and I need to review my kanji and pray that I'll make it into 3rd-year Japanese.
aka My Hate for the Other Woman
i really can't stand characters like Nishino. she's shameless! aware of how attractive most people deem her and uses it while pretending to be a good person! i can understand when someone falls out of love with one person while in..to? love with someone else; it's not really anyone's fault in that case. but here Papa does NOT like her in that way. okay, maybe she misunderstood. that's fine. but she is trying her best to wreck his marriage and break up his family--he has a DAUGHTER. and what's hilarious is her going to talk to that very daughter explaining that she and Papa are in LOVE. WTF.
i wouldn't be this outraged if it weren't for the scriptwriters trying to push us to sympathize with Nishino when she's clearly messed up in the head (and heart).
i don't know the actress' name, but it's also frustrating that she always plays characters who can get away with anything because she's supposed to be beautiful and the only reason is because she looks foreign. Mama in this show says something like "i wish i could be like Nishino-san... young and beautiful..." and well, Mama isn't too bad-looking herself. she's just Japanese. which somehow makes her not as pretty as Nishino, who is either a halfie or had foreigner parents. argh Japan when are you going to understand that your women don't need to look European to be beautiful???
this show is too angsty for me.
Ahhhhh Joe Cheng.
More like "Ahhhhh Kui" but I still think of the actor when I see his face.
His character development reminds me a little of Nuriko in Fushigi Yuugi, actually. Except hopefully he won't be torn to pieces by a beast.
His relationship with his sister Bai He is really interesting. In the last few episodes, we found out that Bai He isn't related to anyone in the family except Kui, with whom she shares the same father. The man that Bai He thought was her real father had tricked her [fake] mother (his wife) into taking her into custody, pretending that Bai He was his daughter with another woman. In reality he had never cheated on his wife. It's all very complicated. So basically the only pairing that I'm interested in this series is actually blood-related. What are the odds?
It's sad for Kui, it really is. In one episode he brought up that the two people he had feelings for were both related to him. It made me realize that his family is really messed up and he's more sheltered than I had realized. It probably all goes back to what an awful mother they all have.
So there are plenty of scenes where Kui and Bai He sleep in the same room and he leans close over her sleeping face and just looks at her or kisses her and maybe I am biased but I thought they were done nicely. Not overkill. This show has surprised me with its subtlety, which is uncharacteristic of Taiwanese dramas, I think, which are usually over-the-top no matter sad or funny. But as I said, I am biased toward the actor and actress playing Kui and Bai He, so switch the cast and I'd probably be complaining that Kui doesn't need to kiss Bai He in her sleep like a perv all the time.
Oh yeah, so I interrupted this episode (9) to write because I was feeling particularly amorous of Joe Cheng/Kui, and this little inner monologue is so cute. Bai He has just run away after believing that her older brother (who is not actually her brother) Jin has taken up with a new girl who looks exactly like his dead lover, played by none other but Selina of S.H.E! No derailing. Point: Kui is looking for her. And this is what he's thinking.
He calls her "little meat bun" because she's supposed to be fat. -____-;;
Little meat bun. Little meat bun, where are you? You'd better show up soon. [Angrily] If not I'll . . . [Sad] Where are you? Who will make my meals for me if you're not there?
Before he ran out of the house and hopped on his motorcycle, he also told Jin that if Jin now has a new lover, he doesn't need a little sister to look after anymore right? So here on afterwards Bai He is now his own.
IT'S SO CONFUSING. dfsaklfjelkfj but I like Joe Cheng. Which means I'm destined to be pining after gay guys forever.
Just wanted to say that Joe Cheng is growing on me. He's not a bad looking guy, not entirely unlikable in It Started with a Kiss, but his role in The Rose as the long-haired androgynous boy looking for incest is what reeled me in. My cousin, when I told her this news, said that she now knew my type: funny girly men.
Also I am going officially on a diet. I say this every time, but episode 3 has convinced me that it is of absolute necessity that I lose weight. In this episode, Ella's character Bai He attempts to slim down in time for her friend's wedding, and Joe Cheng's character Kui helps her by playing the role of slavedriver. He makes her do ridiculous weight-loss exercises and demands that she eat only apples. Before tuning in to this episode, I'd finally given in to temptation and opened the fridge door to have a bowl of the newly bought (by my dad, who has never listened to me when I tell him to stop bringing home ice cream. Even though he insists that they're for him and my mom, he always ends up buying my favorite flavors.) Breyers vanilla with fudge swirls ice cream. Little did I know the anguish and guilt that would ensue.
At one point Kui makes Bai He weigh herself and finds that she--shock--has not lost any weight in the three weeks he's been training her. She's still 56.7 kilograms. Um, at this point I do a mental check (just kidding. Am no human calculator. Googled it.) and find that she's 125 pounds. Hm, I weighed that much in, let's see, tenth grade. While I wouldn't call 125 pounds skinny by Asian standards (and trust me, Ella the actress was definitely much less than 125, but let's just pretend), she's far from FAT. Definitely undeserving of the insults that Kui likes to hurl at her every time they're in a scene together, which was quite often in this episode. But if he calls her, Ms. 125 lb, a fat pig, what would that make me? Some species of fatness unknown to the Asian continent?
I'd like to say I put down my spoon right then and there and stopped drowning my sorrows in ice cream but the truth is I not only finished it but licked the bowl as well.
HOWEVER, the diet starts now. As of 11:48 PM Eastern time tonight. I need to be at least five pounds thinner by August 5th, when I may potentially meet and shake hands with several of my idols XD and definitely by August 11th, when I might meet for the second time the one to whom I shall give the rest of my life... only he doesn't know it yet.
two pieces of news (to me):
1. Nishikido Ryo has dyed his hair brown.
2. Nishikido Ryo might be playing Sano in Hana Kimi.
the last one is a rumor but it's a MIGHTY FANTASTIC one!!! Maki Horikita might be the main character. i don't really have any feelings about that, haha.
so it looks like i update this blog three months out of twelve :D
i'll be here for two more weeks, so that's fourteen days of spam. look forward to it!
actually more like thirteen.
i'll be back august 7th!
anyway, a bit of a tangent. i've been listening to a bit of Fahrenheit, the band that Jiro Wang and Wu Zun of Hana Kimi are both in. "Only Have Feelings for You" with Hebe of S.H.E is good.
i've also been in the mood for shows with nice music or featuring pop singers. it's nice when they give the audience
material to fangirl over. successful singers-turned-actors or singer/actors don't really exist in the States. you have to choose. i think Asian standards are totally in a category of their own... i mean, that's why you get things like Japanese musicals where the actors can't sing but still have hordes of screaming girls trailing them. and that's why you have Taiwanese dramas where everyone thinks aloud to themselves just in case you couldn't tell from the acting, and very convenient plot devices in Korean dramas that somehow always cause the main girl to fall injured into her hopeful lover's arms. i'd say something about Chinese dramas, but i don't watch any that take place in the modern world. :D basically, i think Asian shows are full of CHEESE. but that's not so bad, if you forgive the millions of disillusioned fangirls they've created. i like watching a show where the guys are handsome, well-groomed, and know how to treat a girl, even though their real-life replicates would probably be gay. if we can't have them in the real world, why not on my computer screen then? XD as long as i don't start stalking Wu Zun...
oh yeah. the ending of ISWAK can be summed up in two words: DRAG WEDDING. if you're on the fence as to whether to check out the show, watch it for the moob-less Joe Cheng in a white wedding gown. i don't know what they were thinking o_o;;; but found myself laughing aloud a couple times. Zhi Shu (Joe Cheng's character) was much cuter and more likable after he realized his feelings for Xiang Qin. i feel like i watched the entire series for the last two episodes... but it was worth it! although Megaupload was a bitch throughout... the acquiring process.
time to check out The Rose with Ella!!!
why does Jiro Wang never get the girl?
i feel so bad for Ah Jin, the guy he plays in ISWAK. he finally gets to take Xiang Qin out on a date, and she's mopey the whole time. he's so good to her. he told a story about his elementary school crush and how he made breakfast for her and delivered it to her house every morning anonymously until he found out that she was being walked to school by one of his sempai and even then he still made breakfast for her after that. it was so sad.
*distracted by them playing around with animals at a farm*
i personally would hate to have a date involving animals. XD
anyway. the main guy, Zhi Shu, is really such an ass. but it's also her own fault for letting her world revolve around him.
.....
HOLY SHIT HE JUST PROPOSED.
oh my god. but she's going to say no (SHE HAS TO, THIS SHOW IS NOT ABOUT HIM AND HER IT'S ABOUT ZHI SHU AND HER :( :( :(). this makes things really awkward. i knew it was coming but... not at THAT moment.
haha and they just did a flashback to his proposal even though i can still remember it from half a minute ago... >_< taiwanese dramas, man...
