Archives For Television

Ohmahgosh~ Nounen Rena

July 9, 2013 — 1 Comment

nounen-rena-amachan-001

I remember how it was. The introduction to NHK’s newest morning drama played and I wondered what happened to Jun to Ai, I thought Asadoras lasted all year — I guess not. Anyway, the intro to Amachan seemed pretty funny, and of course it was. Apparently, it was written by Kankuro Kudo, so I stuck around for an episode. Aki (Nounen Rena) had forcefully decided — against her mother’s (Kyoko Koizumi) wishes — to become an Amasan. A photographer had been shooting pictures, and Kyoko Koizumi was running off to Koike Teppei’s lighthouse screaming “HENTAI!!!!” and he apologized for it LOL. I was laughing too much already.

Then, of course, I saw Nounen Rena’s funny face when falling into the water, and her funny expression when she was not-so-much as deep-sea-diving, but she was stranded in the middle of the ocean. I wasn’t hooked, but I was peeking my interest. Damn, Nounen Rena is so charismatic… at least in the role of Aki.

I want to see some of her other roles to figure out whether or not this charisma is hers or if it’s the role, and if it’s the role… then maybe she’s one hell of an actress. She seems super dorky too, and she has an aura that you kinda just can’t help but to root for her.

Oh, man~ Liu Huan is gone from The Voice of China, and I thought he was the one elevating the show to a more professional level. Have no idea why he’s not there, but I hope he’s back later on.

And my prediction of Wang Feng being on the show [1] kinda became a reality, except not replacing who I thought he should be replacing. LOL

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LE3Tkvg2-8A

Happy to see A-Mei, though I would prefer her releasing new music instead.

I have nothing to say about Harlem Yu xD We are just not compatible. LOL

National Geographic programming usually shifts from interesting to completely eye-roll worthy, but this particular special on these three particular transgender people — simply titled American Transgender — is something I’ve seen a couple of times. I think that when it first aired, I saw it twice in a row. I think it might have been because LGBT media, especially in regards of transgender people, is just really downright depressing, so it was surprising to see something quite uplifting. I mean, Claire, Jim and Eli are damn lucky and it’s so good to see.

How many times do you get to see a wedding? A boy became a woman, and the girl became a man. They met, fell in love, and got married. How perfect is that? Overcoming struggle, and the importance of the support of family. Fiction will never be as good as that.

I still haven’t been able to locate a photo of me as a child in my family’s house garden waving the yellow and lime green plastic Sword of Omens I had as a child. However, these guys are designing weapons or designing pretty awesome real props, and have made my dorky childhood dreams come true.

Its amazingness is beyond words.

And YES. Even though Thundercats aired in the mid-80s, I saw them in the early 90s in their dub version, and it was still pretty goddamn awesome.

You know, since Yu’s Itoh website re-vamp, the site sucks. They haven’t updated since forever, and they took out the section where Yu sometimes did short postings. However, the biggest drawback has been the lack of updates, and this is why I found out that Yu was on one of the episodes of Galileo 2 through tweets mentioning it (on June 3rd). So… nobody knew, I suppose?

So I had to catch up with Galileo 2 episodes, since I wasn’t watching the show due to the lack of much Shibasaki Kou, and was conveniently waiting for the subtitles (and a blank space in my schedule) to actually watch Episode 8.

I had missed Yu-chan so much.

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Busted!

As you know, or maybe don’t, Yu’s been improving her cold-heart crime-committing girl persona. She did pretty great in her guest in Unubore Deka, and was great in Shokuzai. She’s actually been doing her bad girl characters a lot more interesting that her good girls (Double Face, Mottomo Toi Ginga). In Galileo 2 she’s playing an actress who’s obsessed with- hmm… let’s call it ” hardcore method acting,” so she’s obsessed with recording every bit of conversation she has in every day life, as well as her experiences, including how it feels to get away with 1st degree murder.

Though the episode seems to play straight-forward with a locked-room case and Yu’s character having the motive and access to commit the crime, there’s a twist- which is pretty obvious when you re-watch the show haha (the framing shots give it away), but with Yu’s acting going from calm to elated (for getting away with it), from elated to poker-face, to poker-face to complete hysterical satisfaction and landing in cruel reality… I don’t think I’ve ever seen Yu go through so much in one single sequence.

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A dose of Ashida Mana’s cuteness pick-me-up~

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I know she’s growing up so quickly, and she’s got a small role in Guillermo del Toro’s Pacific Rim — probably that one small scene for which she got papped in Toronto. I suppose she’s playing a kid version of Rinko Kikuchi… I never though they would look like each other, but I guess it works for Hollywood.

I swear, every time I search for photos of Ashida Mana, I end up cooing and awing. She really melts all my sorrows away. It doesn’t matter if she grows up because we will have Mother, and hopefully (giving much much good vibes for that) she will have a good childhood and grow up to be a sensible adult and not be effed up by this business. Those are my wishes. Will always be.

My mother says that she could stop wars with that smile.

Who grew up watching the Street Fighter II series?

I used to tape this every afternoon because I was never on time from school, they used to show it after Gargoyles on Frecuencia Latina, and then after we got cable for the first time- actually a few years after that, I think — Cartoon Network Latin America got all big on showing anime series, and among the Inuyasha or Rurouni Kenshin episodes they used to broadcast, they also had some of this.

I remember they also used to show Sakura Card Captor and Corrector Yui [1, with latino audio].

Around that time, it was when I was trying to google this song online but back then it was nearly impossible to find song information if you had very little info, especially if you didn’t speak the language. I did eventually find that this song was called Kaze Fuiteru (aka. The Wind Blows, 風吹いてる – by Yuki Kuroda), and that my friend had a CD with songs that were anime themes that contained the track.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pOqYuKIGZo

Of course, the Spanish version they did [1] is not as good as the original. But I’m glad that they at least kept the original music, instead of changing it to something “hard rock” like in the American broadcast.

Lookie 1, lookie 2

When I translate things, I usually go from Spanish into English, so when I listened to (and obsessed a little) over Neil Patrick Harris at the Tonys, I thought that it’d be good practice for a quick English to Spanish translation exercise.

Lyrics in English taken from Playbill.com

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Is this the resurrection of Broadway?

Neil Patrick Harris just pulled off a massive introduction for last night’s show, not only including fellow show nominees, but they also included some snarky blow at Shia LaBeouf, whose theater scuffle made it outside Broadway circles. I have no idea about Broadway news and the who is who, but I knew about it. Go figure.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=danBaPWT09A

I know tickets have been down for Broadway shows- all shows across all media, I believe. So I hope last night’s award show boosts the popularity, because if the numbers keep going down, there’d be no place for…

There’s a kid in the middle of nowhere who’s sitting there living for Tony performances. Singing and flipping along with the Pippins and Wickeds and Kinkies, Matildas, and Mormonses. So I might reassure that kid, and do something to spur that kid. Cause I promise you all of us up here tonight. We were that kid.

When Hannibal started airing, I gave the show a watch (the first two episodes seemed like a lot) but since it seemed to stressed me a lot, I decided to stop watching and not be waiting for the latest episode, like I used to do for some of my now-not-so-current television watching. And though I had decided to not watch the show, I found myself catching the episodes on the weekend showings on AXN Latin America.

Two episodes a sitting- it doesn’t even matter if you skip a week, since you can catch up the next week! And it’s perfectly timed with my dinner on Sundays, so I don’t get eerily hungry whenever they show Hannibal cooking.

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During the commercial for tonight’s episode, Dr. Alana Bloom talks to Will about her decision to not pursue him as a love interest… because he’s unstable. And obviously, as a Wonderfalls fan [1], I immediately though of Jaye as a crazy person. It’s like a perfect conversation!

wonderfalls-clinically-insane