So I’m back. I can’t believe I plowed through five episodes this past week. Watching them wasn’t hard, it was resisting the itch to move on instead of rewatching and blogging. Well, hopefully I can finish and catch up before episode 11’s subs come out, or did I miss the memo and they’re already out? Oh well, onto episode, which was quite the tear-jerker at the end. T-T

• Ruka goes to look for a new apartment
• Sousuke ends up in the hospital with a broken leg and arm
• Michiru makes bento boxes for her and Takeru
• at work, Michiru apologizes to Takeru for asking something as troublesome as whether or not she could like him
• the curry & bread boy comes to the sharehouse to deliver a letter to Michiru
• Eri and Ruka intercept the letter, read it and agree not to show Michiru
• Eri goes to the hospital to pay a visit to Sousuke, returning his letter
• Sousuke asks Eri to bring a drawer full of letters to Michiru
• Ruka’s therapist says that Ruka has Physical Gender Identity Disorder
• Ruka’s therapist reveals concerns when Ruka says she wants to go overseas to have an operation; he thinks Ruka might be rushing things
• Ogura asks Eri if she wants to go to an onsen and sees Eri reading through Sousuke’s letters
• Michiru spots her ex-co-worker at the bookstore looking up books about domestic violence
• Eri goes to look up other onsen bookings on Ruka’s computer and sees a webpage about sex-change surgery and about people with Gender Identity Disorder
• Eri talks to Takeru about it
• Ruka gets nervous when she notices that her computer’s been used
• Takeru finds out about Ruka moving when he sees a letter from the realtor company addressed to Ruka
• Ruka and Eri burn Sousuke’s letters
• Takeru is absent-minded and strange at work, when Michiru asks him about it, he tells her about Ruka moving
• Michiru comes home asking Ruka about her moving and so the whole house finds out that Ruka is leaving
• Takeru and Michiru are unable to sleep thinking about Ruka’s situation
• Michiru asks Takeru if he likes Ruka and he replies no
• after work the next day, Michiru goes home without Takeru to prepare for Ruka’s farewell party
• after work, Takeru goes to the racetrack to ask Hayashida about Ruka’s situation
• Hayashida tells Takeru that he didn’t know about Ruka moving to Fussa and that Ruka being in a slump is a lie
• Hayashida tells Takeru that if Ruka is upset, it is probably because the slandering flier
• Takeru finds a copy of the flier sitting next to the trash can
• Michiru comes home to find out that Ruka is already packed and ready to leave
• Michiru and Ruka walk towards the train station, they walk through the park where Ruka found Michiru drenched in the rain at the beginning of the series
• Takeru comes home to an empty house
• when he sees that Ruka’s cup is gone he rushes to her room and realizes that she’s gone
• Takeru sees a letter addressed to him on her desk and he reads it
• after reading it, Takeru rushes out of the house
• the letter tells about her secret that she was unable to tell any one else
• Michiru and Ruka say goodbye, shaking hands
• Takeru shows up just as Ruka has turned to leave
• Takeru asks Ruka not to leave
• he tells her that he read the letter and that he loves her
• he says that despite how she may change he wants to be by her side
• Takeru hugs Ruka, Ruka cries
• Sousuke has secretly left the hospital

I honestly need to find more adjectives for Sousuke because using creepy all the time has become a little stale. Eerie maybe? Well, anyways, it’s amazing how Sousuke can emit this oppressive aura even when he’s not on screen. The first thing I thought when the curry & bread boy showed up at the sharehouse was that Sousuke was really cruel sending a child out at night to do his bidding. He’s so manipulative, using the sympathy card to get Eri to at least take his letters out of the hospital room. Then those letters that he wanted Michiru to read. That guy is so twisted. But the scary thing I find myself thinking, I guess similar to Eri, is that if Sousuke wasn’t abusive, he probably has all the qualities of a love obsessed shoujo manga perfect leading male. The letters that he wrote were so sickingly sweet. It’s reminded me of school girls writing “I Love ____” fifty million times in their diaries.

I was actually surprised that Sousuke was moving up and about so soon. I thought he broke his arm too, but maybe not. Then again, this is an 11 episode drama, the villain can’t sit in a hospital bed any longer than necessary. But it looks like from the previews of the next episode that he is up and kicking (Takeru, I might add T_T). It seems like Sousuke really reaches the peak of his sadistic and sinister nature next episode.

At first, I wasn’t really sure about this episode. Watching it, I felt like nothing was really happening. After the last episode I wasn’t sure how they were going to devote an entire episode to Ruka moving. Actually, I originally thought that Ruka moving would only take about half the episode. When it became obvious that it would last longer, I was just waiting for Takeru to come stop. It’s funny how that’s one of the first things you see in the preview and yet it’s the last thing to actually happen. Which is fine. The wait for Takeru’s second confession was worth it. ^_^

I’ve always loved Takeru, but he was especially great this episode. Maybe it was the lovely ending. Probably. I really liked how they set up the letter reading at the end. The omitting of the most important parts which I’m guessing explicitly talked about her Gender Identity Disorder was a nice touch. I thought that it reflected how hard Ruka found it to tell people about it and that those would literally be for Takeru’s eyes only. That and I think the ending scene was nicely done in an elegant kind of way, which having too many words explaining how Ruka felt would have destroyed. Once again, I loved the instrumental “Prisoner of Love” playing in the background.

Well, randomness about Takeru. I always found it funny that Takeru seems to be omniscient and omnipresent. It felt uncanny how Takeru just sees through people and I thought it was hilarious that Takeru just kind of shows up just as Ruka is leaving, even though there are probably more than a few ways to get to the train station from the sharehouse. It’s like he’s a mini-Jesus or something. Takeru knows. Well not really, that comparison is really a long-shot. That and can you imagine the Son of God sporting Takeru’s emo hair? Or conversely Takeru in a cheap polyester Jesus costume made for Halloween? The images are actually pretty funny…

Since last episode, I’ve been wondering whether or not Michiru really likes Takeru and on a similar tangent how deep Ruka’s love runs for Michiru. I really honestly think that Michiru has been ill treated by men beginning from her father and so being supported by a male in this fashion is new for her and something that attracts her. Then, I really don’t know what to make of Ruka’s attraction to Michiru anymore. The four year separation bothered me a little, even if Ruka wanted to suppress her feelings for Michiru, I’ve always had the feeling that Ruka would never confess but would always keep her feelings in the shadows and just take care of Michiru. But I guess that was before the diagnosis of Gender Identity Disorder. I understand that Ruka was especially afraid to show her true self to her family and to Michiru, but that just brought her closer to someone who she now finds is one of her closest friends. I’m not sure that Takeru and Ruka would ever becomes lovers. Even though the ending made my inner fangirl jump for joy, I think that Takeru and Ruka will continue to have this ambiguous relationship which might become painful for Takeru especially, since he likes her. Well, that’s granted that their relationship survives Sousuke, which unfortunately, I don’t think it will. I think I’ve essentially bet my money on the fact that Takeru is the one that doesn’t survive, especially after seeing the previews, unless they’re made to be purposefully misleading, which is a pretty good chance.

Well, I believe Michiru’s attraction to Takeru much more than I believe Ogura’s attraction or what not to Eri. Honestly, what are they trying to do there? He’s married for goodness sakes! What kind of marriage did he have if he’s still with the woman but in an ambiguous relationship with Eri? That and having drunk sex with Eri didn’t seem to make a dent on his conscience at all. I understand that his wife was the one unfaithful first, but that doesn’t make it okay for him to just go out and do whatever. Why make this messy situation with his wife even worse by beginning… something with Eri? If he’s serious about Eri, then he needs to finalize his divorce and move on. He talks about still being married as if it doesn’t really matter. Ogurin, I like you as a comic relief character and when you showed your weakness the first time, but now you just confuse me and you honestly piss me off a little. Just a little though. Maybe “annoy” is better.

I know this is a real nitpicky and kind of practical thing that has no place in a drama that doesn’t hinge on these kind of technical issues, but how is the rent paid on that sharehouse? I mean someone has to cover Ruka’s rent right? Which, by the way, I have no idea how she pays. I find it hard to be believe that she makes enough as a racer to cover rent and such. Rent must fluctuate once a month with the merry-go-round of tenants that the place has been seeing. That and if Takeru doesn’t get paid much how does he pay rent? More importantly how does Michiru pay rent? And pay for her mom’s rent? She just quit her regular job and I can’t see working as an assistant making much money. Oh well, not really important, but I needed to vent that out.

Once again, thanks for reading to the end. I think I got a little screenshot happy at the last post so I tried not to over do it this post. Thanks again! See you at the next post!

This was a frustrating episode to watch, especially after that bomb that Takeru dropped at the end of the last episode. I usually love Ruka, but I wanted to smack her a few times this episode. Well, let’s cover the episode before we talk about it shall we?

• after hearing Takeru’s confession, Ruka tells him that she is unable to return his feelings
• Ruka begins to walk away and Takeru asks what she wanted to tell him
• Ruka tells Takeru to like Michiru more because she needs someone to support her
• Eri wins 6 tickets to the zoo and so the entire sharehouse goes
• Ruka invites Hayashida along as her date, he announces that they are dating
• Takeru sees his sister at the zoo and is shocked, walking off alone
• Michiru realizes that Takeru isn’t feeling well so they go home first
• Ruka, Eri and Ogura bring a cake home to celebrate Michiru coming back to the sharhouse, Hayashida brings bento boxes
• Michiru walks over to Sousuke’s apartment, calls him and breaks up with him over the phone
• the same flier sent to Ruka’s parents is taped up at the racetrack
• Hayashida asks if what is written is true, Ruka denies, but cries in the shower
• the child whose mom is always gone, and who asked for some bread, meets Sousuke in the park
• the boy leads Sousuke back to his apartment
• Sousuke finds that the apartment is a mess with dishes in the sink and empty cartons of food everywhere
• the boy announces that he’s eaten everything in the house
• Sousuke takes the boy back to his apartment where he makes curry for the two of them
• Takeru comes home to a dark house, with Ruka following a few seconds later
• Takeru asks Ruka what happened and tells her that she can tell him anything because their friends
• Ruka responds that “some people, there are things they don’t want to say even when they die”
• Takeru goes back to his room and has flashbacks about his sister
• Takeru wakes in the middle of the night to see Michiru crying in the kitchen
• The next morning after an awkward breakfast, Takeru tells Michiru that even though she is in pain right now, it gets better
• Takeru reveals to Michiru that he understands how he feels because he went through a similar experience
• Michiru hugs Takeru, asking if it is okay to like him
• Takeru looks unsure, but puts his hand on her shoulder
• Ruka sees the scene when she came back to get her cell phone
• a flowerpot is knocked over when she leaves and it jolts Takeru and Michiru apart
• when Takeru sees the missing cell phone, he realizes that Ruka saw what happened
• Eri looks upset as she sees Ogura talking with another woman (his wife?)
• the boy Sousuke was babysitting runs into the middle of a train crossing, complete with an approaching train, when he sees his mom on the other side
• Sousuke runs into the crossing himself to grab the boy

It is rare for me not to like Ruka, but she did some things this episode that really upset me. I understand that she finds Takeru’s feelings for her a little troublesome but I didn’t like the way that she dealt with it. Last episode I speculated that she would ignore him for a while, but I thought her cruel treatment of Takeru was too much. I found her question “we’ll be like before” to Takeru misleading as they are obviously not like before. Ruka deliberately going out of her way to crush Takeru’s feelings was pretty harsh. First, she asks Takeru to like Michiru more right after he just confessed to her. Hearing those words come from Ruka’s mouth, Takeru looked like he wanted to cry. But inviting Hayashida to play-act as her boyfriend was pretty harsh, that and she picked up Takeru’s cup to serve coffee to Hayashida with, instead of her own. Their fight later in the episode was also painful to watch. Takeru attemps to reach out to Ruka and Ruka just closes him off and denies him access.

Takeru seriously got the short end of the stick this episode. Cruel treatment from Ruka, seeing his sister at the zoo and having all those images come flooding back, then dealing with Michiru. Sigh. -_- But I guess Ruka didn’t have it any better. She was cruel this episode, but I think she’s just about to explode. She had readied herself to essentially bare her soul to Takeru about her Gender Identity Disorder but realizes that she can’t bring herself to tell Takeru at the moment. Her outlet for those feelings is essentially closed off. Then she has to pretend that she’s dating Hayashida. If that wasn’t enough Sousuke’s flier is taped up at the racetrack where her insensitive coach asks if its true. I’m sure seeing Takeru and Michiru together was just the last straw. I could understand her pent-up frustration, but I just wish she wouldn’t take it out on Takeru.

Michiru was interesting this episode too. I was glad that she decided to stand up for herself and finally break-up with Sosuke, but her line of thinking scared me a little. Why would you go to meet with your abusive boyfriend alone? I wish Ruka would have insisted that someone be in the vicinity when Michiru would be talking to Sousuke so that if something happened then someone would be there. I was really afraid that something was going to happen to the girl, but I’m glad it turned out okay. I’m glad that I’m actually enjoying and believing Nagasawa’s acting now. I found Michiru reaching out to Takeru and Ruka, telling them that they can come to her, was a bit forced, but I thought that was because it was Michiru that was saying it and not because it was Nagasawa. Michiru’s character doesn’t really lead one believe that they could truly confide in her. I think it’s because her character is always doing the confiding. I thought her line about living with Sousuke showed how much she understood the situation though. “When I think about Sousuke and how I definitely can’t go back to a memorable place that I seem to remember as being beautiful, it makes me sad. It’s strange isn’t it. Even though in reality, it was hell.” I feel like Michiru understands a lot more than she lets on. I’m glad she has been fleshed out more. She was feeling a little 2D in a the 3D world shown by Ruka and Takeru.

I wonder how the Takeru/Michiru romance is going to pan out. Takeru is fond of her, but he doesn’t love her, and I don’t see him loving her any time soon. I’m not sure Michiru really likes/loves Takeru. I feel like she has just gotten out of (well… that remains to be seen) a relationship and Takeru has just given her so much comfort that she is latching on to him. He’s just so different than Sousuke. I’m confident that the writers won’t take it any farther than unrequited love; if they do I feel like it would go against who the characters are and what they’ve built up to this point. Actually, I’m not really expecting a happy ending at all. Bittersweet maybe, but not happy. If they give me happy ending, it’s going to feel like such a cop out.

Sousuke definitely showed more of his gentle side this episode. Him taking care of the boy was sweet and really confuses me how he can be so aggressive with Michiru. I definitely think that the young boy reminds him of his own childhood and it seems that he is more gentle and understanding with children as a whole. His running into the line of fire for the boy and probably being injured seems to set up a potential reunion with Michiru. I wonder what he was looking at with binoculars at the beginning of the episode. Spying on Michiru? Maybe. But after that shot, there really aren’t any other shots of him that don’t involve the little boy.

Okay, onto little nitpicky things, which I found a lot of this episode. Is it just me or did they use the same kid for the little curry boy and for young Takeru in his flashbacks? I swear it’s the same kid, they even sound and run the same. Talk about being economical. Sorry about that. I checked again and they aren’t the same kid. They just really look alike, and talk alike, and for some reason I even feel like they run alike. Maybe its just because they’re kids.

And Ogurin is relegated to comic relief again this episode. Not that I really mind, I enjoy his antics, but the Eri x Ogura pairing they seem to be pushing still bothers me, especially since Eri looks upset at the end when Ogura is talking to another woman (his wife? Maybe, I don’t really remember what she looks like). That and it seems that he never really convinced the relationship between them to be one of an affair. It looks like the next episode will address it some so looking forward to that. He cry of “I’m not Ogurin. I’m Wario.” was funny and so was his “Ehh!? What? There was that kind of connection?” when Ruka mentions things going well between Takeru and Michiru.

Another thing I loved about this episode was the prominence of what I see as an epic version of “Prisoner of Love.” I’m not really sure what else to call it. The piano part is gorgeous and then the strings come in. T-T I feel like I should be seeing some amazing landscape à la Lord of the Rings.

Hm… Ruka looks up plastic surgery too. That should be interesting. It seems like she is really considering sex reassignment surgery. I’m not really sure how they’re going to run with that.

Well, there you have episode 7. I decided to add some screenshots to break up the huge blocks of text. That and I finally learned how to do those, not that there’s a long learning process at all, but I finally figured out how do them. -_- I’m looking forward to episode 8, but I think I need to take a little break. Staring at a computer screen for so long hurts my eyes. That and the cake and curry this episode makes me hungry…

I needed to talk about something other than Last Friends for a while so I wouldn’t get so burnt out on the subject and then I realized that I hadn’t posted any more BECK album covers so I thought I would do that. I figured that I would post three volumes at a time, so about 9 chapters at a time. So here’s the next batch, chapters 10 – 18.

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Volume 3’s Color Page

Led Zeppelin, Led Zeppelin IV, 1971

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Chapter 14

This actually isn’t based off an album cover, but rather a production still from the movie One Million Years B.C. I thought it looked familiar, but I’m actually really proud of myself that I found this picture.

Rachel Welch, One Million Years B.C., 1966

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Chapter 16

Nirvana, Nevermind, 1991

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Chapter 5

Well, I wasn’t sure if this one counts or not and looking back, I do notice that Sakuishi does change some things about the cover to suit his needs, but this one is a long shot. The addition of the guitar is pretty big, but I thought that the vibe of the cover and the influence of The Smiths might work. I guess you can decide.

The Smiths, The Smiths, 1984

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Here are the ones I didn’t know:

Chapter 11, Volume 5’s Color Page and Chapter 13

I thought I knew Chapter 11, but I couldn’t find it at all. I’m not sure if the color page is an actual album or if it’s just fan service.

Chapter 15, 17, and 18

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Well, that’s pretty much all I got for this batch. As always, if you know any of these other ones drop me a line and I’ll post them. Thanks! Enjoy!

AAAHHHH… getting through this entry is going to be really hard… if you’ve seen this episode you know why… T_T… I just need to get through this entry so I can watch the next episode. If I don’t I might die from all the stress that ending gave me. But I’ve calmed down considerably since last night. But rewatching this episode to take notes got me worked up again… so without further ado, let’s do this.

• Michiru rushes back to the apartment and finds Sousuke sitting on the couch
• Sousuke burns Michiru’s yearbook in the sink, saying that he won’t let anything come between them
• Ruka gets drunk and is helped back to the sharehouse, and she sings nursery schools about bears in the door way ^_^
• Ogurin is back and requests to stay at the house, saying that he and his wife have decided to leave separately for a while
• Ruka finally agrees after Eri says it doesn’t bother her
• Takeru goes to Michiru’s work and finds that she has quit
• Takeru shows up at Sousuke’s apartment and finds a beaten and weak Michiru in the living room
• Takeru takes her to a coffee shop and asks what has been going on
• Michiru tells Takeru that she spends her day doing laundry, ironing, cooking and watching TV
• Michiru reveals that Sousuke calls home every two hours and that she’s wearing an eye patch to cover the injury to her eye that Sousuke gave her because she took too long at the grocery store
• Sousuke calls Michiru asking where she is, Michiru lies saying she is taking out the trash
• Takeru convinces Michiru that she needs to get away from Sousuke and that none of it was her fault
• Takeru spots Sousuke while crossing the street and Sousuke follows them, banging on the window of their taxi as they leave
• Takeru takes Michiru to the bar so she can recuperate and later to the hospital to treat her wounds
• Ruka goes in for a counseling session and the doctor suggests for Ruka to tell someone she trusts about her feelings so they don’t remain bottled up inside
• Shirahata Yuuko calls the sharehouse but doesn’t say a word, hearing a child in the background Takeru realizes who it is and says… “Nee-san?” and hangs up the phone
• Sousuke comes to the sharehouse and asks Takeru where he hid Michiru
• Takeru tells him that if he attempts anything else he will call the cops
• Michiru comes back to the sharehouse
• Takeru calls Ruka, asking her to bring tools to fix his bike
• Ruka shows up and sees Takeru and Michiru
• Ruka greases the brakes and Takeru says that there is someone wrong with the front wheel and convinces Ruka to get on the bike
• When Ruka is on Michiru gets on too and Takeru pushes the bike
• After racing around, Ruka, Michiru and Takeru have a picnic
• Michiru reveals that it was because Sousuke said horrible things about Ruka like “that person is not a woman” that she thought Sousuke was going to far
• Sousuke puts fliers in her parents’ neighborhood’s mailboxes saying that Ruka has the body of a woman but the heart of a man
• Ruka calms her parents saying it was done by someone jealous of the fact that a female racer won and broke a record
• Michiru tells Takeru that she feels that Ruka has put up a barrier in her heart that she can’t get through
• Ruka overhears Michiru and Takeru’s conversation and goes outside for a breather
• Takeru finds Ruka by the swings and Ruka tells Takeru that there is a secret that she wants to tell him
• Takeru tells Ruka that before she tells her secret, Takeru tells her that he wants her to know something too
• Takeru proceeds to tell Ruka that he likes her

I think this was definitely the most stressful episode that I’ve seen. So many things happened that I did not expect and have really left me trying to figure out what’s going to happen next. The ending of this episode just about gave me a heart attack. -_-

I’m not sure what I was thinking when Sousuke called last episode saying that he was going to kill himself. I knew it was part of his ploy to get Michiru back to his side, but for some reason I thought he was psycho enough to cut himself, even if it was just a little, to get some blood running. I never thought that his attempt at suicide would be real, but I did not expect him to be calmly sitting on the couch. You could tell that Michiru realized how far into his web she was caught when rushed in and realized that Sousuke was alive and well, sitting on the couch like nothing was wrong. His facial hair bumped the creepiness factor too. But this definitely revealed a whole other level of Sousuke’s sadistic nature. Stuffing fliers about Ruka around her parents’ neighborhood was a low blow, even for him. You knew that something bad was going to happen when he appeared in front of her house, but I did not expect that. For some reason I thought that something would happen to her brother, but Sousuke seems strangely fond of children and treats them so kindly. Sousuke’s plotting seems to take itself even further the next episode, so I’m looking forward to being pissed at Sousuke the next episode too.

Why is it that no one thought to call the police before it got this bad? You would think that if the police were involved at least something could happen. At least Takeru said something concrete about having evidence of her abuse after going to the hospital, but even after that, it doesn’t seem like they took any legal action. I’m not sure how different the laws are in Japan than in America concerning this issue, but she needs to get a restraining order or its equivalent because it’s obvious that Sousuke is not going to let go of her. I wonder how many lingering feelings of love Michiru still has towards Sousuke, if any? I’m sure she still has some, but if she gets any closer to the guy I’m going to be really upset.

Michiru’s appearance in this episode really broke my heart. She has seriously become the poster child for battered women. When Takeru first finds her I seriously wanted to cry. She just looked so broken and mentally tired from all of Sousuke’s tyrannical actions. That eye patch was also concealing on nasty injury. I’ve always had romantic notions about the eye patch. Pirates and especially Japanese yanki stories hold a certain place in my literary heart, so seeing the eye patch used in such a traditional and practical way was a bit of a wake-up call. I felt bad for her when she tries to talk to Ruka after she comes back from her house. Michiru caught her at a bad time and Michiru still thinks that Ruka doesn’t particularly like her. But I would agree that the barrier between Ruka and Michiru is in some sense stronger than it is with other people. Michiru is the one person that Ruka wouldn’t want to hate her and so is even more scared of opening up to her. That and Michiru made that comment before about Sousuke saying that Ruka wasn’t a woman and how she found that to be extremely cruel. It sad that Michiru is unknowingly hurting Ruka. Sigh. I hope that Michiru can be strong and get away from Sousuke because it looks like that he’s going to continue to make it hard for her to leave him for good.

So I guess it’s onto the really stressful events of this episode. To start off, the call from Shirahata Yuuko. Was not expecting that at all. At first I was thinking, “crap, the crazy stalker lady found Takeru” then I was thinking “HIS SISTER?!” That revelation was not what something I thought would happen. Well, I guess I thought about it. No, I really did. But it was a fleeting notion. At the end of episode 4 when Takeru is telling Michiru about his family, he mentions an older sister. When Michiru asks if they’re close, Takeru smiles and says “Hm… I wonder.” When I was making notes for episode 4, the fleeting thought that the one who traumatized him was his sister did come to me, but I shrugged it off because I didn’t have anything to back it up. My gut feeling for it wasn’t strong enough either so I didn’t say anything. But it ends up being true?! What is this world coming to?! Takeru, I’m amazed that you turned out to be such a nice guy. I mean look at Sousuke, it seems like his trauma twisted his personality into something practically irreversible. Honestly, these characters should be nominated for “most likely to break the bank paying for therapy.”

But the event so far that is nominated for “most likely to give me a heart attack” is definitely Takeru’s ending confession. Shiroja, you mentioned a while back that the confession at the end of this episode left you “sitting on pins and needles”. I know what you mean now! I sympathize with you having to wait for the next episode to come out. I guess the nice thing for me is that I can watch it when I finish this entry, but the suspense is killing. I had to restrain myself from pressing the button to watch the next episode. And since it was so late I couldn’t even calm myself down to blog this episode and ended up reading Paradise Kiss to relieve some stress so I could go to bed. T_T But seriously. I wanted to shake and yell at Takeru for deciding to confess to Ruka right then. Did he think that Ruka was going to tell him that she is in love with Michiru and so he thought he should say someone about his feelings before hand? Ruka! What are you going to do? I’m pretty sure she was planning on talking about her Gender Identity Disorder, but now after hearing Takeru’s confession, I don’t know if she can bring herself to do it. I think it would be too awkward for her and she might not even want to see Takeru for a while. None of the previews for the next episode even show Ruka and Takeru in the same frame. This episode was not a happy episode for Ruka. She deals with the flier at her parents house and comes to the realization that there is no way that she can tell her parents how she feels at this point. Michiru unknowingly says things that hurt Ruka. Takeru’s confession is just the cherry on top. Poor Ruka.

I feel the need to be reminded of the happiness that this episode showed before I move to the next episode. I know I’m going to be really stressed watching the next episode so here is my happy image of this episode: Ruka, Michiru and Takeru biking through the park. Loved it. Takeru is such a little plotter too. He really knows what Ruka is feeling and takes care of people really well. And a happy Ruka is always nice to watch. I loved her yelling after Takeru, “I won’t be left behind! Wait! Takeru!” That and it really hit me this episode that Ruka is seriously the epitome of a bishounen. I thought that before too, but for some reason (maybe the outfits?), I really was hit with that notion this episode.

This post is honestly really long. Thanks to those of you who read to the end! Here are some pictures of Ruka . Tell me that Ueno isn’t a bishounen there… these pictures just scream bishounen…

I don’t really have anything to say as a prelude to this episode, so let’s just jump right in.

• Ruka sees Michiru and Sousuke’s reunion
• Michiru takes Sousuke back home in a taxi while telling Ruka that she would be visiting the hairdressers
• Michiru drops Sousuke off at home and tells him that she can’t be with him unless he changes
• Michiru apologizes to the manager at work, and is allowed to keep working at the salon
• Ruka invites Takeru and Michiru over to her house for dinner
• Eri and Ogura skip dinner and instead go to Ogura’s house to deliver divorce papers
• Ogura spends the night at his house because confronting his wife is taking longer than expected
• Michiru spends the night at Ruka’s house and Takeru goes home
• Takeru arrives home to a drunk Eri who then makes a move on Takeru and kisses him
• Takeru reacts violently to being kissed by running to the bathroom, rinsing his mouth and gagging
• Eri apologizes and asks if Takeru is “that” to which he replies yes
• Ruka tells Michiru that Sousuke can’t make her happy and instead suggests someone like Takeru
• Michiru asks if Ruka has someone she likes to which Ruka replies yes
• Michiru visits Sousuke after finding out that he hasn’t been to work in a week because of illness
• Sousuke snaps after Michiru says that she doesn’t want to be with a person who doesn’t keep their promises; he says that she was the one that didn’t keep promises first
• Sousuke rapes Michiru (implied)
• Takeru sees the bruises on her arm and she later talks to Takeru about her seeing Sousuke, but not about anything that he may have done
• Takeru learns that Ruka said that Michiru should fall in love with someone like him and that she has someone that she has loved for a long time
• Ruka goes in for counseling because she believes she has Gender Identity Disorder
• Ruka meets up with Takeru after because she “just wanted to see [his] face”
• At Ruka’s race, Michiru gets a phone call from Sousuke who wants to see her
• Michiru turns Sousuke down, telling him that she’ll see him later
• Ruka wins the race and the celebration is held at Takeru’s bar
• Sousuke calls telling Michiru that he’s going to kill himself
• Michiru rushes out to Sousuke and Ruka stops her, telling her to be strong
• Michiru says that she is weak, unlike Ruka, and that she just wants to be by Sousuke’s side
• Michiru rushes off, leaving Ruka, Takeru and Eri in the street

This was an event filled episode wouldn’t you say? A few things that I thought would happen did, but now that they have, I’m not really sure what to expect next. I said that Ogurin would eventually divorce his wife, cause that is really the only route that he can walk at this point, but I didn’t really expect it to be this early. I guess they needed to make room for all the drama that seems to picking up. With a drunk and depressed Eri, it really feels like they are pushing for the Eri x Ogura pairing, but my gut is still against it. I just think that their relationship would be too much of an escape for the both of them and not grounded enough. That and it seems a little hard to believe that Ogura would get into a serious relationship so quickly after being married to a woman that he loved. Well, I guess we’ll see what happens as it seems like Ogura comes back to the sharehouse next episode.

The other speculation that seemed to come true was Ruka’s Gender Identity Disorder. I speculated about the possibility of sex-reassignment surgery after Ruka’s mysterious look at the University Medical webpage, so I guess that was really what she was looking into. That and her having problems with looking at her body. It seems that she really does want to reject all notions of her being a woman. And it looks like the next episode it going to touch on that a little too. I wonder how far Ruka’s Gender Identity Disorder is going to be explored and how deeply. For some reason I don’t think that Ruka will have surgery. From a business standpoint that would alienate too many viewers, even if the demographic that this drama caters to may be more wiling to see Ueno Juri as a man, I still don’t think that they would run with that storyline. But at the same time, if they don’t, I wonder how they are going to resolve Ruka’s feelings of essentially being in the wrong body. I don’t really know anything about Gender Identity Disorder or anything so can’t give any sort of opinion to how Ruka will comes to terms with it.

Hm. Events surrounding Takeru made me a little depressed. First, he comes to the realization that Ruka doesn’t really see him as a potential partner as she recommended him to Michiru. Then, he finds out that Ruka has been in love with someone for many years now. When I saw how hard that hit him, I was so sad. T_T Then he gets forcibly kissed by a drunk Eri, and it seems that he is reminded of his past trauma and really freaks out, running to the bathroom, full-on gagging and everything. For some reason when Takeru said “yes” to be being gay, I didn’t really believe him. I don’t know why. I just thought that he was just saying “yes” so that Eri’s feelings wouldn’t be hurt and so he wouldn’t have to talk about his past. Did anyone else get that feeling? Or should I just take that response at face value? Not sure. I guess we’ll see. Then the last scene where Ruka pushes Takeru away and puts a wall up was sad to watch too. Actually, the only really happiness that Takeru was involved in was mostly random things. Him cleaning the tea stains at the beginning was cute, making paella, and interacting with Ruka’s little brother was funny too. But the moment that he had with Ruka after her counseling session was noteworthy. Her reason for calling him out was sweet and I think really telling about the comfort that she feels around Takeru. “I just wanted to see your face… I feel at ease when I’m with you. I feel like I can be myself.” Her saying that she can be herself was a line that really hit me because she had just said a few seconds before that it was painful for her hide her real self in front of her family, friends and loved ones. I don’t know if she means that she is truly herself around Takeru or just really close to who she sees as her true self, but those words just have me holding onto a possibility of a Takeru x Ruka pairing. Even if they don’t become lovers, their friendship definitely runs deep, and at this point I would argue deeper than the relationship between Michiru and Ruka on some level.

Speaking about Michiru and Ruka’s relationship, does anyone know why they hadn’t seen each other for four years before they coincidentally met again? They are obviously really good friends so it confused me on why they hadn’t met. You would think that Ruka being in love with Michiru would be good enough reason to stay friends with Michiru and have some sort of contact. Did they address that or is that something that the viewers are just supposed to accept? Maybe they talk about that later. Maybe.

So Sousuke’s psychological warfare seems to be working in his favor. Part of me wasn’t sure if he understood what Michiru was saying and keeping away for that reason or if he knew that it would unsettle her that he was no longer looking over her shoulder. I’m pretty convinced that it was all planned out. And Michiru just stepped right into it. She’s looking for Sousuke at work and checking her phone like she used to. Attempting to quit Sousuke cold turkey was not going to work. Even if it wasn’t a ploy before, her coming to his apartment to make him food was definitely part of it. Sick people usually don’t have that much strength to pin down their girlfriend. On a side note, I wonder how Nishikido’s agency is reacting to his character. Not only does he play an abusive boyfriend, but now he gets to add rapist to his résumé. And he gets to be suicidal at the end. I’m sure there was at least some tension there. Even if he gets be a rebel/bad boy in a boy idol group, Johnny’s still likes to churn out wholesome idol boys to sell the pubescent girls. On the other hand, I really applaud Nishikido’s acting and how he has really seemed to step out of the idol box. Many times when watching idol actors I’m always thinking in the back of mind about the chessy music videos or what not that idol boys/girls do. With Nishikido in this role, I’m really just thinking “creepy…” And it doesn’t help that his creepy theme song shows up EVERYWHERE. T_T It’s like “you don’t know what’s behind this corner” music. It really fits him to a T.

Speaking about acting, YAY! Nagasawa doesn’t really bother me this episode! That makes me happy especially since I feel like I’ve been doing nothing but complain about her acting the last four episodes. Maybe her acting style is just suited to play cute characters? Because Michiru was really cute this episodes. Maybe I find her a lot more likable because her weaknesses were exposed at the end of this episode. For once, she just seems real and is stripped of the façade of expectations that she seems to put on for other people. Even if she is foolish, for once she tells Ruka (who seemed a bit controlling this episode, no?) that she really wants to be by Sousuke’s side. Throughout the episode though, you could tell that Michiru was heading in that direction. She continues to secretly see Sousuke and even after Sousuke rapes her (it’s implied, but I guess one can be never be too sure), she still agrees to meet with him. At Ruka’s race, if she wanted to she could have turned her phone off, but she decides to answer the phone in the middle of Ruka’s important race. Those two have a bond that will not be broken so easily. So what are you going to do Ruka?

AAAHHH… finally this is done. It really would have been posted a lot earlier if it wasn’t so warm today. I couldn’t bring myself to sit in front of the computer in the warmest room in the house. Thanks for reading! Leave a comment if you feel inclined to do so!

Trying to plow through all these episodes and blog them is really tiring. If only I had kept up before, then staring at a computer screen wouldn’t tire me out so much. Oh well, onto major plot points of this episode.

• Takeru puts makeup on Michiru to cover-up the worst of her bruising and such
• Sousuke goes to Michiru’s work and finds out that she has taken the day off
• Ruka tells her coach, Hayashida, that she wants to be seen as a racer and not a woman, to which he replies that it’s impossible
• Michiru goes to work with Takeru as his assistant
• Ogura sees his wife with the other man
• Sousuke shows up at the racetrack, watching Ruka
• Ruka invites Hayashida out for drinks in attempt to prevent Sousuke from following her back to the sharehouse
• Hayashida forcibly kisses Ruka, who then pushes him away and runs off
• Ruka goes to Takeru’s bar upset about the incident with Hayashida, Takeru comforts her, giving her a shoulder to cry on
• Takeru buys a set of cups similar to his and Ruka’s for Eri, Ogurin and Michiru, completing a set of matching house cups
• Michiru’s mom calls, telling Michiru to come home to visit and asking for more money
• Ruka goes to Michiru’s house in lieu of Michiru, dropping off money and picking up a souvenir from her mom
• Sousuke was in Michiru’s house when Ruka showed up, trying to get information about Michiru by bribing her mom
• Sousuke shows up at the sharehouse looking for Michiru
• Ruka threatens to call the cops if he doesn’t leave
• Sousuke waits out in the rain for Michiru
• Takeru stays up with Michiru and she tells him about her meeting Sousuke and their family backgrounds
• Michiru takes out the trash in the morning and spots Sousuke sitting on the ground, wet from the rain
• Michiru embraces a pained Sousuke

I definitely liked this episode a lot more than the last episode. A bunch of stuff happened and more character development took place so I’m really excited.

I’m not sure how long I’ll wax poetic about Ogurin, but I really do love his character. I think the feeling is so strong because I didn’t think that I was going to like his character so much. He isn’t featured in the opening sequence and is just mentioned as a mysterious fifth roommate in all the summaries of the series that I had read beforehand. His wackiness coupled with the much more poignant look at his character this episode makes him really loveable. Especially when Eri was patting his head at the café I was like, yep, Ogurin is such a child. The beginning sequence with him commenting on the newspaper that Takeru hands him (“This is yesterday’s paper!”) still makes me laugh. That and his mochi in the sukiyaki. Now I really want to try it… ^_^ But I’m glad Ogurin is more than comic relief. His complex about being unable to make his wife happy seems to run pretty deep. I wonder how his relationship will pan out. I’m not so sure that he and Eri will become a couple. Their personalities are too similar and I don’t think that it would help to ground a potential relationship. That and I think that Ogura is still in love with his wife but is essentially using Eri and the sharehouse as an escape. He doesn’t know how to deal with his wife’s infidelity, especially when she seems to have attained a happiness that he couldn’t give her. Down the line he’ll probably confront her, I mean, he has to right? He’ll probably get a divorce and then bum at the sharehouse until he gets back on his feet. Or something. At this point, it would feel awkward to me if they established an Ogura x Eri pairing.

Okay, let me just say that I did not see that kiss from Hayashida coming. It was so left field for me, and essentially for Ruka. I guess looking back, there maybe could have been signs, but they were definitely extremely subtle. Can I cop it up as being a drunk kiss? I don’t think so. Hayashida was a little tipsy, but he was definitely lucid enough to know what he was doing. But even more than Hayashida kissing her, I think I was thrown off even more by Ruka’s exaggerated response. I’m not really sure what’s considered normal when someone you respect and treasure as a friend forces a kiss on you, but Ruka’s response seemed a little much. Is it just me? For some reason, it seems like Ruka has a strong aversion to male affection. Or was it just because it was just a culmination of all the little things that he did to make her feel uncomfortable? I don’t know, but part of me feels like Ruka is rejecting anything and everything that reminds her and others that she is a woman. She did say to Hayashida that she wants to be seen as a racer and not as a woman, but in the racing context that’s understandable. In a sport dominated by men, of course she wants to be seen on equal footing and not as some novelty. But for some reason, when Ruka says it, it seems to have more meaning. Maybe I’m just reading too much into it.

Again, Takeru was awesome in this episode. He had a few lines that made me wanna cry though. He really is a sweet guy and unfortunately it gives me a feeling that he’s going to become a tragic figure. I mean, he already seems a little tragic now, and I feel like it’s just going to intensify. He has some sort of sexual trauma in his childhood and he seems to be falling in love with Ruka, who is in love with Michiru, even though that hasn’t been made super explicit, even though I think the kiss at the end of episode 1 pretty much solidified that. Takeru is just a tragic figure trope waiting to happen. Nice guys always get the short end of the stick in dramas. His ability to feel people’s needs is uncanny. He realizes that something is wrong with Ruka within 10 seconds of her walking through the door of the bar. He listens to Michiru talk about Sousuke because she obviously wants to talk to about him in a house that shows no sympathy for the guy. And he helps take care of Michiru to help Ruka out. I think my favorite line of his this episode was about looking out for Ruka after she had been kissed by Hayashida: “I decided that while you were protecting Michiru, I would protect you.” TAKERU! T-T I swear I teared up there.

I’m glad my thinking about the complexity of Sousuke’s character was right. This episode definitely played up sympathy for Sousuke and felt me feeling a bit unsure about how I should feel about Sousuke at this point. Having a lonely childhood doesn’t excuse the fact that he is abusive, but he has become a little twisted and his desire for love has him holding onto Michiru and not letting go. Sousuke needs medical and psychiatric treatment more than anything else at this point. He was such a strong and overpowering figure in the past episodes that it was strange to see him so… small. He was creepy up to half-way through the episode as he stalks Ruka and bribes Michiru’s mom in attempt to get information on her. Then he one ups Ruka with calling Michiru’s cell to prove that she’s at the sharehouse, but once she pushes him out and threatens to call the cops, it seems like he shrinks into a shell. Him sitting in the rain just makes him look more pitiful than creepy. Then the ending scene where he says those ending lines really cut. That and the desperate look that he has. If his character wasn’t abusive, they might have been one hit KO lines. I mean what girl wouldn’t swoon with lines like “Michiru, I will always be waiting for you. It isn’t painful to wait.” Heck, even though he is abusive, they still seem to be one hit KO lines as Michiru is sucked back in.

Geez, I don’t know how many times I’m going to say it, but Nagasawa really bothers me. I really need to stop complaining about her acting, but it really has become distracting. Her pained (?) face as she hugs Sousuke at the end was not believable at all, and not pretty either. In fact it paled in comparison to Ueno’s crying face at the bar and the painfully beautiful face that Nishikido portrayed just seconds before. Hopefully this is remedied in the episodes to come.

I had been wondering about the pairings in Last Friends and had been waiting for some sort of follow-up to the kiss at the end of episode 1 and something concrete on Takeru’s feelings and it seems at least Ruka will be addressed in the next episode. There is a lot of unrequited love in this series, but I’m hoping that I’ll work out for someone. Unfortunately the way things seemed to be set up at this point, I’m not holding out too much hope for it. I mean, Ruka is in love with Michiru who is love with Sousuke, who is abusive, and official sources say Takeru later on, who in turn is in love with Ruka. That and I’m a little curious on the sexual orientation of our characters, especially Ruka and Takeru. I’m pretty sure that Ruka is lesbian, and not bisexual, so my hopes for a Ruka x Takeru pairing seemed to be dashed at the outset. But for some reason, I think that I read somewhere that Japanese people convince being gay little definitely than Westerners: less as identifying as exclusively gay and more being in a homosexual relationship. I’m not sure, I might be making that up. That and I think that my information came from Wikipedia which sometimes is reliable and sometimes not. But continuing about Takeru, there was reference to people thinking that Takeru was gay and then a close-up shot of Takeru uncomfortable face, so I’m not sure what that was all about. But in tandem to that, Michiru seemed really uncomfortable with the fact that Ruka might be in love with her as brought up by Sousuke and by the housemates. That and Michiru seemed weirded out when the model brought up the rumor that Takeru was gay. Hmmm… I guess more to think about…

Well, I think that’s it for this episode. Hopefully I’ll get around to at least watching episode 5 tonight then posting something some time tomorrow. Thanks for reading!

So finally getting around to posting this. Finals got in the way and things just began to pile up. Hopefully I can pull off a Last Friends marathon this week and catch up before the series ends.

So to recap this episode:

• Sousuke plays off his abuse of Michiru as a misunderstanding
• Takeru gets a phone call from Shirahata Yuuko and alludes to his past with her
• Ruka meets Michiru to talk about Sousuke’s abuse
• Michiru says that Ruka is making it out to be worse than it actually is
• Sousuke punishes Michiru for making him wait for her to come home by locking her outside the apartment and burning himself with cigarettes
• Michiru cuts a male customer’s hair and Sousuke goes mental when she asks what would happen if she did cut a man’s hair
• Takeru moves into the sharehouse
• Michiru meets up with Ruka and along with Takeru go to the pier to see the view of the city for some cheering up
• Michiru loses her position at work as the boss sees her making selfish requests such as “leaving at a set time” and “not taking any male customers”
• Not being able to sleep Michiru takes a look at her yearbook in the living room and is surprised that Ruka’s face has been blacked out
• Sousuke comes into the room and Michiru confronts Sousuke about Ruka’s picture
• Sousuke says that Ruka looks at Michiru with the eyes of a man and continues to forbid contact between them
• Michiru is upset that Sousuke wants to prevent contact between her and who she sees as “my Ruka”
• Sousuke gets upset at Michiru’s phrasing of “my Ruka”
• Michiru shows up to the sharehouse black and blue, asking Ruka to help her

So I feel like nothing really happened in this episode. There were revelations, but on the whole I felt like the episode moved really slow. From the looks of the previews for the next episode, things will be moving along though.

First off for a revelation that I found interesting: Takeru’s past trauma. I thought it was a woman that traumatized him and the phone call from Shirahata Yuuko solidifies that hunch. Well, it wasn’t really a hunch since her name was shown at an earlier episode and I just thought it was her. I’m still curious about what happened, and from their conversation I deduced that it is going to be something pretty horrifying. Shirahata mentions Takeru as a child and in one of the monologues Takeru mentions a wound from childhood. So, I’m guessing that Shirahata is a pedophile on one level or another. For some reason I find female pedophiles a lot more disturbing. It’s like taking the beauty of maternal instinct and the sort of thing that people feel that females just come equipped with and twisting it into something so ugly. That and when someone says the word pedophile I imagine a creepy middle-aged man with an ill-fitting polo shirt and a baseball hat, not a housewife taking about cookies made with butter and orange powder. Well, actually I take that back, pedophiles might talk about cookies. -_- But Shirahata is definitely giving off creepy stalker vibes and I think we’ll see more of her later. Takeru’s talk about violence wearing the mask of love with everyone in the sharehouse at the beginning of the episode was really heart-wrenching, especially since it screamed “survivor of something equally horrifying”.

Another revelation that I thought was interesting was Takeru’s cup. He brings out the cup that he had bought at the beginning of the series and begins to use it at the house. On a cup tangent, I think I’ve said this before, but apparently all Japanese people drink their coffee black, at least in dramas they do. I hardly ever see people add sugar or creamer to their coffee. Hard-core… anyways, back to revelations on Takeru’s cup. At episode 1, I thought the cup that Michiru used at that beginning was Ruka’s cup, making them a pair, but it’s actually Takeru’s. For some reason, once I made that connection, my immediate reaction was “wait, Takeru dies?” Someone from the sharehouse definitely dies, especially with the beginning narration and Michiru asking if she could have prevented the incident and the death, then cut to a picture of all those living at the sharehouse. Oh, and the revelation of the keys: key to sharehouse, but honestly, do doors these days sport such antique and elaborate looking keys? That revelation didn’t really give me anything to run with, just that Michiru is going to live there, but that wasn’t really a secret to begin with.

I thought that the cuteness factor of this episode was also boasted considerably with Ogura’s antics. That and Takeru had his cute moments as always. Ogura, love his nickname Ogurin, was so weird and random in this episode. He makes that weird comment at the beginning about being jealous, jealous of what I’m not sure. Maybe jealous on a strange level because Michiru is getting a twisted form of affection while he has nothing? Or jealous because even if the affection is twisted, Sousuke is showing something while Ogura doesn’t show any? Well, whatever the case, his cuteness is too great and so I seem to have forgiven him making that sort of comment. Ogura’s reaction at Takeru’s welcoming party is funny too. “How come Takeru-kun gets a welcoming party, but I didn’t get one? Ah, it makes me sad all of a sudden…” And his desire of getting matching cups with Eri and then her ignoring him is too funny. ^_^ In tandem with this scene, Takeru’s too-many “thank you”s is great. On the whole Ogurin brings the fun in this episode. First this, then the drunk karaoke with Eri, drunk sex with Eri, and then pushing for matching cups again. Yeah for Ogurin! \(^_^)/

The revelation that Michiru was part of an abusive household makes me sad though. And it makes me understand her actions a little more. It’s sad that Michiru has gotten herself caught up in this cycle of domestic abuse that perpetuates itself. Her saying that she never felt loved, but feels loved by Sousuke, also speaks to her willingness to continue being with him even though she knows in her heart that it’s wrong. I’m glad that she finally made a stand at the end of the episode though. Even if it did have devastating consequences for her. Make-up artists are truly amazing.

Once again, Sousuke’s creepiness factor went up a notch with his behavior this episode. The bipolarness of Sousuke and consequently Nishikido’s acting is growing on me and I actually like it more than the past episodes. Maybe because Sousuke being bipolar seems natural now instead of feeling awkward. His attempting to smooth talk over Michiru’s abuse at the beginning was creepy. But I think the all-time-creepiest thing he did this episode was locking Michiru out of the apartment and then saying “now you’ll be on time” after Michiru sees the cigarette burns on his wrist, it gave me chills. That and his happy smile while he was saying it. I feel like Sousuke is being rounded out more as a character and that makes me happy. Before his character felt a little flat, but the consistency of his bipolar nature makes it much more believable (that sounds like such an oxymoron, consistent bipolar nature, who knew). The end of the scene where Michiru hugs him after saying that he is of course more important than male customers also builds his character profile. He seems to be fighting with himself as there are close-ups of his hands. It seems like he isn’t sure if he wants to hit her, hug her or something else in between. I think that it makes him out to be a much more troubled character than originally shown. Not your average psycho who beats his girlfriend it seems, or at least I’m hoping. It would be too boring if he was.

Speaking about acting, I find that I still don’t buy a lot of Nagasawa’s acting. Especially when she’s supposed to be happy. I understand that some of her smiles are supposed to look forced, but when she’s supposed to be genuinely happy, I’m not feeling it at all. Maybe its all relative though; maybe I just loved Ogurin and Takeru too much this episode.

I find it weird that the only thing I have to say about Ruka this episode has to do with the end. Ruka was Awesome Ruka this episode but I find that I don’t really have anything to say. I felt bad when Michiru said that she never felt loved, because Ruka was obviously hurt by that, but that’s about it. It’s just that Takeru’s last comment makes me confused on who I think is going to die. He’s words of “Ruka, at that time, you had already decided in your heart, hadn’t you? That from here on, no matter what happens, you’d risk your life to protect Michiru.” Those foreboding words of “you’d risk your life” never have happy consequences. So then like déja vu with Takeru, “wait, Ruka dies?”

Sigh -_-… for thinking that nothing happens during this episode this post sure is long. Well, hopefully I’ll see you soon. Onto the next episode!

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…

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!

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.