Tag: tv drama / tv series / miniseries

  • Hikari Mitsushima for NHK’s The Pioneers

    Oh, I guess I gotta watch NHK all day to get fed all their upcoming series — at least for January. We all knew that Kenichi Matsuyama would be doing this year’s Taiga (Time really does fly!), but who knew Hikari Mitsushima (Love Exposure [1], Sawako Decides, Villain) is ending up on NHK?

    The Pioneers, which is wayyyy easier to type than Kaitakushatachi (開拓者たち), showed a small clip while I was watching and seemed pretty good. According to Tokyograph:

    A special “documentary drama” mini-series to commemorate the launch of its BS Premium channel and the 40th anniversary of the restoration of diplomatic ties between Japan and China. […]

    The story is set in the region formerly known as Manchuria and is based on the groups trying to resettle there in the years after the Manchurian Incident. The central characters are a family of four siblings who live there, but who are forced to flee due to the Soviet invasion of the region and Japan’s defeat in World War II. As a result, they return to Japan and attempt to forge a new life on a farm in the Tochigi prefecture.

    The clip looked really good. We all know Hikari Mitsushima is a pretty good actress and this seems to be one of those projects. But as anything Japanese, no clips online to embed so I stole these:
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  • Kenichi Matsuyama on Taira no Kiyomori

    Kenichi Matsuyama looks so grown-up now… promoting his upcoming NHK Taiga, Taira no Kiyomori — all I know about Kiyomori I learned in Yoshitsune [1] haha. Anyway, as you know I was pretty pumped [1][2][3] for Gou and I defended Juri through it all [1], but I knew Gou’s fault.

    Anyway, I’m pretty pumped for Taira no Kiyomori, and this promo for it with a manly Kenichi Matsuyama is kinda… really inspiring haha. I kinda really love that photo.

    are you going to be watching?

  • WOWOW’s Shokuzai Stuff

    I got some Shokuzai pics used on the official WOWOW site.

    It seems like only the first episode is going to have Yu-chan in, or at least that’s what I got unless all this “First chapter” business on Yu’s photo means nothing.

  • Yu Aoi for Kiyoshi Kurosawa x Minato Kanae’s Shokuzai

    I hope everyone is as excited as I am.

    First… of course, I love Yu-chan. It seems like when my fandom is faltering, she throws a bone at me. LOL

    Then… it’s a Minato Kanae revenge story. Kokuhaku wasn’t mind-blowingly amazing but it was pretty good, so I can’t complain from a revenge story about a woman who’s lost her kid and tries to get her now-grown friends to remember and seek atonement.

    There’s also Kiyoshi Kurosawa, who directed Tokyo Sonata — which, you know… I wasn’t really as blown as everyone seemed to be with him. But it’s always exciting to see new people coming together to make projects. Especially since WOWOW is involved. I tend to like their off-beat dramas that get a lot of indie J-film flare.

    Kyoko Koizumi — who has actually worked with Yu-chan in the play Gakuya — stars as the mom, and the four friends of her dead child are Yu Aoi, Chizuru Ikewaki (Josee, the Tiger and the Fish), Eiko Koike (Paco and the Magical Picture Book, Wool 100%) and freaking Sakura Ando (Love Exposure, 1).

    The four women are being played by Aoi, Koike, Ando, and Ikewaki. 15 years earlier, when they were elementary school students, they had been playing with Emiri up until just before her death. They were the first to discover her body, and although they saw the culprit’s face, they were unable to remember it well enough to identify the person. As a result, Emiri’s mother (Koizumi) demanded that they find the killer, or else find a way to atone for themselves to her satisfaction. Now grown up, those women find her words coming back to haunt them as tragedy begins to befall them.

    via BionicBong.com

    Lasting only five episodes, the drama starts on January 8th, 2012.

    Hope a fansub group subs this as soon as possible.

  • Power Rangers in Space: The Bad Character Complex

    I recently was watching the Latino dubbing of Bones, when I heard Bones’ espanol latino speaking and racking my brain as to where I had heard her voice, until it hit me — Cordelia Chase (from Buffy) was speaking Bones dialog. I was in shocked at the personality clash of that as my brain turned to mush from all that pop culture.

    I ended up in Doblaje Wiki, in which I discovered Clemen Larumbe was doing the voice. It’s an amazing thing Latino dubbing.. of course, it used to be better because dubbing took longer before, and now you’re on a tight schedule as to not keep fans waiting. In my search of Latino dubbing, I found out that Laura Torres (who voiced KidGoku on Dragon Ball, Tommy Pickle on Rugrats, Daria, Gabrielle on Xena, Catherine on CSI) had also voiced Kat (the 2nd Pink Ranger)… which made me look for other Power Rangers related news.

    Then it hit me even harder: Amy Jo Johnson (the original Pink Ranger — from the American version) is turning forty-freaking-one this year. I was downright depressed at how old I am.

    I’m not so ashamed to say that I watched Power Rangers until Zordon was gone — because I’m a loyal fan, I even watched a few of the eps after that. But to me, Power Rangers was truly ended when Zordon’s capsule was destroyed… which takes me back all the way to Power Rangers in Space.

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  • The Three Main Gays in my Life

    Here’s another confession for the LGBT Blogathon~

    —

    What was once changed through literature, shaping individuals through writing, is now — kinda sadly — shaped through what we watch from television (and movies) because nobody reads anymore.

    And so the medium of television becomes the ever important outlet for LGBT themes.

    Television is free — though some people beg to differ — it reaches millions and millions of people through different channels around the world in many languages. Unlike film — you know, the one you pay for to enter a theater or catch at your local film festival — a lot more people watch television, and through it, sometimes watch film — see, television is so powerful even if you don’t watch it.

    It is now, in our day and age (without counting the interwebs), that television plays a strong role into shaping the minds of the future generation of adults — that’s counting me, by the way… I’m not that old — who will hopefully grow into people who just won’t care whether you’re gay or straight or bi or transsexual. A generation that will ask about the need to add a “LGBT” genre tag when… it’s all normal!

    Pride Bunting

    This is my case. I came to know about LGBT issues because of television, which later prompted me to search online and then my world exploded with LGBT entertainment.

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  • The L Word: Shane + Carmen – Fix You

    Hmm… not really in the mood of talking (or ranting) now.

    I don’t need to say that nothing on The L Word is really “safe for work” right? It’s not like you see much in here, but just to be safe, knowing you won’t get caught watching something… even if just a fanvid, that may look to some people like something else~

    I re-watched sporadically the 3 first seasons of the show, and I just got sort of nostalgic about Shane and Carmen. You know I like Shane a lot, I liked Shane with Molly a lot too because of how fluffy their development was. It was different for the character, they had somewhere to go… but they never made it there. Meh, oh well~

    So re-watching Shane and Carmen, I had almost forgotten how intense they were. Partly in a good way, but as the end of the third season came upon… it became more and more destructive.

    You know that bit when Carmen dreams that Shane is giving Cherie Jaffe their tattoo, and then Carmen reveals she also cheated on her after Shane slept with Cherie? That bit when Shane’s all mad but nonchalant, looks at her and asks her whether she feels better now that they’re even. It was awful in a really good way.

    So I guess Coldplay is their perfect fit. LOL

  • How Jdrama Made me a Lazy TV Viewer

    I have been ruined by Jdrama xD

    Can you believe it’s been three years since?

    It’s probably the longest fictitious relationship I’ve ever had with anything. LOL

    You can read all about it on YAM Magazine.

  • Ten Actresses that Should Move to Cable

    Re-pimping this old list~ xD

    It’s always been tough to be a working actress on the big screen, as you turn a little older, offers often seem to be linked to “being someone else’s mother,” but cable television seems to be becoming more and more attractive to not only writers – because they get to write more challenging stories and skip censors – but also to women who were movie actresses and have found new complex roles to take on.

    you can read the whole thing on YAM Magazine~

  • Ryomaden Goodbye Interview

    I told you there were a few posts…

    Anyway, did any of you watched Ryomaden last season? I did try to watch it at the beginning but wasn’t that into it, so it was really troublesome to gather the energy to find a subtitled version of it. Plus, there weren’t any small files, and I didn’t feel like download HD versions.

    So I watched on TV with no subs.

    Until the very last episode that Yu was on… and then till the very last of the year.

    I remember that when I saw the preview of episode 44 with Yu’s character Omoto saying goodbye, I thought to myself — well, what bad number of episode to leave the show xD and it ended up being her 13th guest appearance — pretty sure about that.

    Anyway, for those who didn’t watch the show — Yu played Omoto, a geisha who’s a closeted Christian (oh, the irony!). She plays the shamisen, does some traditional dancing and performing, and has some non-explored sexual tension with Ryoma. She was good in it, but I understand that Taiga dramas are a long-term commitment.

    Here’s the capture of the interview with photos for those of you who won’t touch a Taiga with a stick xD

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