Last Friends Ep 02

So I figured I should give a basic summary for each episode, mostly just to refresh minds. If you’re looking for a more extensive summary, sorry, you won’t find it here, since these are mainly my thoughts on the episode itself. I don’t know if I would even call it a basic summary, just highlights or an outline maybe?

So highlights/outline of episode 2 of Last Friends:

• first off, no after-math of THE kiss
• Ruka walks Michiru from the house to the train station so she can go to work
• Michiru sees Sousuke watching her through the window at work and then goes home with him after work
• Ruka’s motocross coach tells her she might win the next motocross race with her current lap time
• Ruka’s dad comes to visit her and she takes him to where Takeru bartends for a drink
• Michiru finds her graduation year book behind the first-aid kit at Sousuke’s house
• Ruka does some internet research about surgery on Jyunshin Medical University Hospital’s Urology Department website
• Eri brings home the 5th housemate, Ogura Tomohiko, who in turn brings a TV from home
• roommates and Takeru watch movie, Takeru leaves in the middle during a steamy potential sex scene
• Michiru comes home late from work after telling Sousuke that she’ll be home by 8
• Takeru goes to Michiru’s work to drop off Ruka’s motocross ticket and to get a hair cut
• Michiru gives Takeru a protection charm (?) to give to Ruka and tells him she probably can’t make it to the race
• Sousuke watches from outside and watches as Takeru leaves on his bike
• Sousuke asks Michiru to cut his hair and silently threatens to cut his ear until Michiru says she’ll never cut another man’s hair
• Ruka is sad when she doesn’t see Michiru in the stands before the race, but then immediately becomes happy when Michiru arrives just before the race starts
• Ruka gets pushed off to the side during the race as she attempts to defend her lead and ends up at the hospital
• Ruka wakes up and as Michiru is about to leave, Sousuke shows up and introduces himself to Ruka
• on her way to the bathroom, Ruka overhears Sousuke and Michiru arguing, and comes in between them when she realizes that Sousuke is going to throw a chair at Michiru

I actually like the first episode more than this episode. There are too many things about this episode that bug me a little bit. But overall it is still a good episode. This episode is definitely more melodramatic then the last one. Hopefully the drama builds slower than its current pace, because I feel like the climax is going to be ridiculous if this is the set pace.

So something that bothers me, but also something that makes me really happy is the acting and the interactions between the characters. This is twofold and a sort of double-edged sword I guess. What is beginning to bother me is Nagasawa and Nishikido’s acting, but what I’m beginning to love even more are Ueno and Eita. For some reason I’m just not buying a lot of Nagasawa’s facial expressions. I don’t know what it is. I don’t think she is a particularly bad actor, but I’m just not feeling a strong resonance with her character compared to the others. Maybe it’s precisely that Ueno and Eita are doing so well that her presentation seems a bit shallow?

While Nishikido’s acting still bugs me a little, it is definitely growing on me. His creepy factor was bumped up a few notches with the cute wave just seconds after glaring at Michiru when he sees her and Takeru from the window. The hair/ear cutting scene also made me squirm a little bit.

On the flip side, I love the interaction between Ruka and Takeru. Their conversations are some of the only pieces of sunshine in this depressing landscape, especially this episode. Some of the scenes and lines I loved involve Ruka poking fun at Takeru. Her dad says that “he looks a bit weak” at the bar. Ruka says that Takeru rides sloppily as she talks about flying through the air on her bike. My favorite one though is Ruka’s reason for inviting Takeru to the house: to take away any man smell that Ogura might bring. “What do you think am I, an air freshener?” HAHAHA ^_^

Another double-edged sword of this episode was the music. There were parts I loved but others where I thought it was a real miss. I loved most of the piano work of this episode and have decided that the piano version of “Prisoner of Love” is so beautiful and heart-wrenching that I might just cry. There was also that creepy electronic music when Michiru finds her graduation album behind the first-aid kit. I thought it was pretty fitting. But what bothered me was the pseudo ‘80s sounding victory music that plays a little before and during Ruka’s race. What is that?! I’m serious when I say that it was distracting! The beautiful mood that was “Prisoner of Love” was just ruined by a bad part of the ‘80s! At least pick something good from the ‘80s to imitate if you must… T_T

Remember before how people were speculating that Ruka might be dead? Well, part of the narration of this episode leads me to think that isn’t true, but this is still a theory. After Ruka walks Michiru to the subway station (it might the train station… I’m not sure), Ruka’s narration talks about seeing Michiru’s tears that night and then she says, “if I had known maybe I could have done something. Michiru, if only I had known…” This is definitely Future Ruka talking, but is it Future Ruka during Pregnant Michiru timeline or Ruka in a week?

Another question I have is concerning the importance of the keys. As I was taking notes on episode 1, I noticed a key in the box that Michiru opens in the beginning of the episode and then in the opening sequence there is a shower of keys. I wonder what that is about…

There seemed to be more things that bugged me than things I loved in this episode. When Michiru meets Sousuke for the first time after leaving home, he doesn’t say sorry or anything. Rather she’s the one that says sorry. Meanie. That and buying the new lamp. It’s like he’s saying that his abuse of her didn’t happen. GRRR. Evil Sousuke. Well, I guess it’s more character development and not really anything to be really annoyed about. But the one thing in the plot that did seriously annoy me was the fact that after Michiru is asked to stay longer at the studio, SHE DOESN’T CALL SOUSUKE TO LET HIM KNOW THAT SHE WILL BE HOME LATER THAN 8. Are you serious? Even if Sousuke wasn’t abusive, isn’t it common courtesy that if you know that someone is waiting for you to come home at a certain time you tell them if you’re going to be late? And it’s not like she was told in the middle of her shift. She had just gotten off the phone. She could have texted him or something. That was seriously a dumb move on her part. That doesn’t excuse Sousuke’s following actions, but I wanted to shake her for putting herself in the line of danger.

The appearance of the 5th roommate is fun though. He’s kind of pathetic in a funny way. I like him. I loved that he jacked his LCD TV and brought it to the house as a house-warming gift. Too funny.

This episode definitely opened a lot of mysterious doors. They touched upon Takeru’s sex trauma a little and I’m curious to see how that will pan out. Rape? Molestation? Man? Woman? I’m guessing it’s a woman that traumatized him though. I remember the close-up on his caller ID as he was going to work in the first episode. For some reason I remember thinking that it was a woman’s name and that it had something to do with his trauma. Then there’s the question of how Sousuke will react to hearing Ruka call Michiru “my Michiru”. The possessive Sousuke DEFINITELY will not like that.

But for me the biggest question is Ruka looking at Jyunshin Medical University Hospital’s Urology Department website. “Surgical Operation Details”? “Access to the Hospital”? “Register for a Second Option”? “Gynecologist”? HUH?! O_O At first I thought that maybe she was sick. Then the preview for next week throws in a bomb with Sousuke saying, “this person is not a woman” and a close-up of Ruka’s face marked up in the graduation album. Then I thought sex-change and other possibilities along those lines. But there’s also the possibility of that line being taken out of context. He might just mean that Ruka doesn’t act like a stereotypical woman. But part of me thinks that it is definitely bigger than that. I knew that urology deals with the kidneys, the urinary tract and the like, but then I looked it up on wikipedia and it says that urologists also deal with the reproductive system of males. The other part that stuck out to me was that they also deal with “surgical problems such as the correction of congenital abnormalities and the surgical management of cancers.” So many theories on what I currently see as Ruka’s BIG secret.

So, I’m gonna watch episode 3 after my stress levels drop a little. I swear watching this show stresses me out a little…

Geez this post is long…

BECK album parodies, ch 01 – 09

So I these past few weeks I’ve re-watched and re-read some anime and manga that I really like but haven’t seen and read in a long time. I rewatched Noein ~toward another you~ again and remembered how much I loved it, even though the art quality near the end of the series really suffers, it looks artsy enough that it could possibly pass as experimental and not just plain shoddy. I really loved the music for that too. And I watched bits and parts of the Full Metal Panic series. I saw all of Full Metal Panic! and Full Metal Panic? Fumoffu because I hadn’t watched them for so long that I was having a hard time remembering what actually happened. But I only watched my favorite parts of The Second Raid since I basically remembered what happened.

Similarly, I re-watched my favorite parts of BECK, like the ending of the Greatful Sound sequence, and then re-read the manga afterwards because I liked the sequence of them in the US that didn’t get animated. Reading through the manga I remembered how much I enjoyed the album parodies that Harold Sakuishi does. I’ve looked around for a list of the parodies that he does, but either a list doesn’t exist or I just haven’t looked hard enough. So… I thought that I would make a list. But it is still incomplete as my knowledge of music album covers doesn’t really span all of time. Also, I don’t think that all the chapter title covers are album cover parodies, although a good amount of them are. Some of them I knew immediately and some of them took a little research. So I thought I would share the fruit of my labor with you all. I’ll also post the pictures of the ones that I didn’t know, granted they are album cover parodies, and maybe some of you will know them. Enjoy!

Chapter 4 bothered me for so long. I swear that I knew the cover, but I just couldn’t place it. And then boom! I found it…

Pearl Jam, VS., 1993

Sadly, chapter 4’s title page was the only one I could figure out. This first post doesn’t really show all the other covers I figured out. I swear I know more! These first nine chapters were just really hard because I’m not even sure if some of them are covers at all. Chapters 1, 2 and 8 didn’t have title pages, or at least the scans I’m working off of didn’t include them if they existed.

So here are the ones that I didn’t know:

Ch. 3, 5 & 6

I’m pretty sure that chapter 6 is an album cover but not sure about the other two… actually I’m not even sure if the chapter 3 one is a title page or just a credits page for Mangascreener.com…

Vol 3 Colored Page, ch 7 & 9

I don’t think that the colored page is a cover, but I could be wrong. Chapter 7’s cover page looks really familiar to me, but I just can’t place it. Chapter 9 has the potential to be an album cover, but I’m not sure.

Well, that’s all for chapters 1-9. I’m gonna look around some more to see if I can fill in these chapters and some of 10-19 before I post. If you know one, please share!

Last Friends Ep 01

So I don’t usually blog anime or drama because I find that I usually don’t watch anime or drama when it first comes out and I just end up watching the entire series in one go. But Last Friends was something that I saw was coming out and was really looking forward to it. I think looking up some Nishikido Ryo stuff was what led me to this drama, but after looking at the cast, I was really excited because I loved Ueno Juri and Eita in Nodame Cantabile. Not a particular fan of Nagasawa Masami but that’s okay. I also find that I can get a bit lazy and if nothing particularly exciting happens in an episode, I find it hard to write about it. But after watching this first episode of Last Friends, I had so many things that I wanted to say and talk about that I figured I should blog about it. Hey, that’s partly what this blog is for right?

So Last Friends is about the complicated relationships between five people: Michiru (Nagasawa Masami), Ruka (Ueno Juri), Takeru (Eita), Eri (Mizukawa Asami) and Sousuke (Nishikido Ryo). In terms of summary that’s all, because summarizing the entire episode would just take too long and wouldn’t do it justice. Just go watch it!

I think one of my first impressions of this series is that the style and essence, I guess is the word, reminds me of NANA. The narration style was what really gave me that notion. There is constant talk about “If I had known…” and “I wonder…”. Plus there is some sort of looming tragedy that is going to happen which is similar to the plot of NANA. The characters themselves and some of their relationships also remind me of NANA. Ruka, embodies a kind of classic tomboy-who-looks-strong-but-is-actually-really-fragile but with a twist and I feel has a similar vibe to Nana. But Michiru doesn’t really remind me of Hachi so I guess the analogy would break down there. But that’s okay. Actually while I love NANA I hope it’s not too similar because that would negate the point of calling it Last Friends, they should just call it NANA and get it over with.

I’ve read some theories that the death that Michiru talks about at the beginning is either Ruka or Takeru’s. My personal opinion is that Ruka is still alive at this point because Michiru talks about her leaving Ruka and not the other way around. That and she is shown writing a letter during the beginning monologue which leads me to believe that it is a letter to Ruka. Why would you write a letter to someone who’s dead? I think Takeru being dead is a much more plausible theory. His character seems really fragile.

I’m also sure that many of you know that this is Nishikido Ryo’s most scandalous role to date, especially for a Johnny. Playing a domestic abuser doesn’t really give you brownie points with the younger crowd who sometimes can’t separate actor and role too well. Some people applauded his acting when his abusive side came out, but honestly I wasn’t too moved. I’m sure his character is supposed to be a little schizo and bi-polar, but in the few scenes before his personality changes, there is no indication whatsoever of his obsession/possessive streak. No suggestion. I think he is supposed to have a 180 degree change, but for some reason, I’m not buying it at this point. Hopefully it gets better.

In terms of other people’s acting, can I just say that I love Ueno Juri. I first saw her in Nodame and loved her in that. This role just really shows her range. I was also impressed with her voice. I was thinking that she was like a seiyuu with the voice changes from cutesy Nodame to serious Ruka. And I know this sounds really kind of mean, but I love her pained expression at the end of the episode; it’s really believable. On the other hand, I feel like I don’t really have anything to say about Nagasawa. It feels a bit mediocre at this point, so hopefully her acting pulls me in. I also love Eita. He has such weird fashion sense but he carries it well. His scene with Ueno at the bar was too cute. I feel like he’s a real strong supporting character actor. I haven’t seen anything where he’s the lead so I can’t say about that, but I feel like in all the dramas that I’ve seen him in, I really love him. Mizakawa is also super cute as Eri. Her hyper nature is so different than that of her serious Nodame role. Love it.

The music cutting in this series is also awesome so far. “Prisoner of Love” might have been overplayed just a tad, but I still love the song at this point so it’s okay. The instrumental arrangement of “Prisoner of Love” is beautiful too. And random question, do all Japanese people take their coffee black? Because no one seems to add creamer or sugar to their coffee in dramas…

But getting back to the drama, the ending scene was definite confirmation that Ruka is in love with Michiru. That was already kind of obvious when Ruka first sees Michiru for the first time, but definite confirmation at the end with Ruka kissing Michiru.

Hopefully this drama goes well. Things have been looking good so far, but you never know. Hopefully the drama is about the subtleties and complications of the relationships of these people and doesn’t get too overly dramatic. I feel like there is already enough drama to work with: abusive boyfriend, developing love triangle between Michiru, Takeru and Ruka and Eri’s drama hasn’t even been touched upon. Unfortunately I can see this happening in this kind of drama. Hopefully murder isn’t involved. Ruka murdering Sousuke because he’s abusive would just push this drama into the realm of All My Children, and honestly, soap operas need to stay away from doramas.