About a week ago I finished watching Yasuko to Kenji, a drama that aired on NTV last summer. After watching Yamada Taro Monogatari where I first got to know Tabe Mikako, I decided to give this one a try too. While I did like the drama itself, I can’t say that I was fully satisfied with Tabe Mikako. She did her part well, but the thing is that she’s too much like her part in Yamada Taro Monogatari, with her imaginations and stuff.
Well, all in all it was a pretty good drama, nowhere near my top list though. The highlights were definitely Oki Kenji (Matsuoka Masahiro) and his two assistants, Mosu and Ajidasu, they were incredibly funny. And then of course, the beauties, Yamaguchi Sayaka (Shimokita Sundays, Abarenbo Mama) and Hirosue Ryoko, they’ll provide satisfaction in that factor.
The drama tells you the story of the ex-biker gang member and brother Oki Kenji and his little sister, Oki Yasuko. When their parents died in an accident 10 years earlier, Kenji decided to support his little sister, and to do that, he became a famous manga artist going under the name Sakuraba Reika to hide his past. On the outside he looks just like a normal guy, but when he gets angry, he reveals his yakuza-like character, often in a weird and funny way. The drama is in a way divided into two parts, one love story between Yasuko and Tsubaki Jun, the little brother of a former female biker gang member. And one (pretty one-sided) love story about Tsubaki Erika (Tsubaki Jun’s older sister) and Oki Kenji.
I didn’t realize until now that I completely forgot to write about this drama when I finished it. I watched it a long time ago but today I got to think of something interesting. Even though people watch old doramas you don’t see many writing about them. I.e. if I recommended an old dorama to a friend today, he probably wouldn’t write about it after finishing it. I think that is kind of sad, cause if no one writes or continues to recommend old doramas, people who are new to it won’t watch the good old stuff. So that’s why I’m going to write about the doramas I’ve watched but not yet written about.
I’ll start with Shimokita Sundays, another great Ueto Aya dorama.
This drama portraits the nostalgias of “the good old days” and youthful hopes and dreams.
Yuika Satonaka (Ueto) is a freshman in university who came to live in Tokyo to continue her studies. Although she had a brand new start before her eyes, she was somehow at a loss. Nothing seemed to interest her and her hopes and dreams were distant. One day at the school orientation, her eyes are glued at a sudden performance of a group of unsuccessful actors, “Shimokita Sundays”. Their unique play made her laugh… something she has forgotten for a long time. Yuika takes a chance to visit Shimokita and goes to see their play only to find how unpopular and how very few audiences they had. But still, their performance touches Yuika’s soul… great enough to make her try out for their audition. –TV Asahi
Who can get enough of Ueto Aya? Probably no one. I personally like her most when she plays an odd character, like in Attention Please where she’s the lead singer in a band and has a cool punk-ish style. And in this dorama she plays one of those odd characters again. This time she goes from being a well-dressed girl who’s serious about her education, to being a member of a group of unsuccessful actors, who’s kind of poor, moneywise. She wears shabby clothes (not sure if shabby is the right word for it, it looks kind of like modern normal stylish clothing to me, maybe a little boyish. You’ll have to decide that yourself.) and lives in a shabby small apartment. However, this is a view you don’t see very often.
Shabby or “normal”? What do you think? The first picture is before she changed, obviously.
Shimokita Sundays is a very funny dorama. Aya’s clumsiness and jokes are really funny, there’s also two geeks who follow her around at her school who definitely will make you laugh out loud.
Other than Ueto Aya there aren’t many actors I knew from before in this dorama. We have Sasaki Kuranosuke who I know from Yasashii Jikan and Summer Time Machine Blues. He’s a good actor, can’t say more than that cause I don’t know him very well. Then we have Sada Mayumi who I know from Hana Yori Dango, or well, actually I know her from Shimokita Sundays since I watched that one first. The third actress I’d like to mention is Yamaguchi Sayaka who I don’t know from any other doramas, but I can’t wait to see her in Abarenbo Mama (a new Ueto Aya dorama). She really reminds me of Nakazawa Yuko (from Morning Musume), because of her mother like character but also her way of talking and acting.
