Aogeba Toutoshi Review

Title: Aogeba Toutoshi

AKA: Brass Dreams

Genre: School, Music, Delinquents

Episodes: 8

Broadcast period: 2016-Jul to 2016-Sept

Cast: Terao Akira, Tabe Mikako, Mackenyu, Nijiro Murakami, Anna Ishii and many others…

Hikuma Koichi (Terao Akira) is a music teacher, strongly believing in involving all is students in all the performances they make, no matter how well they play. After having troubles with the music club Kanagawa Public Misaki High School invites Koichi to help them, in order to join the national competition. Soon Koichi notices the biggest problem of the club: the five members that don't want to return. The five had been a band, but due to other students ruining their performance, the five end up leaving everything that involves music. Because of their attire (being delinquents), no one wants them to return... except Koichi, who makes it his mission to get them back, and have all the students play at the contest. But it is not easy, as the five firmly refuse to return. How will it turn out?

Again, I apologize of the summary: I recommend you watch the trailer.

After watching almost every single Yankee drama out there, I kind of missed the genre. I tend to re- watch old ones, so this was a nice drama to come by, as it is new and fresh. I didn’t want another Gokusen, and this drama wasn’t like that.  Yes, there were Yankees, and a teacher “believing-in-the-students-and-so-forth”, but this one is a bit different. It felt a bit “heavy” as in quite an amount of emotions, I didn’t expect to feel. It took me on an emotional rollercoaster, I wasn’t ready for it. The cast was good too, much better than the average Japanese youngsters/newbie actors, so that contributed too.

The overall story was real, and I think this is one of those that is underrated, if you ask me.

All in all, a fine drama, with great cast, and decent story.

☆☆☆☆ / 4 out of 5 stars

♥♥♥♥ / 4 out of 5 hearts

Last Hope Review

Title: Last Hope

Genre: Hospital, Medical

Episodes: 11

Broadcast period: 2013-Jan to 2013-Mar

Theme song: Calling by Arashi

Cast: Aiba Masaki, Tabe Mikako, Tanabe Seiichi, Koike Eiko and Kitamura Yukiya.

This drama revolves around a group of special doctors, who just recently were hired in one of the up-to-date hospital as a form of special team that help people who are at their last chance of getting cured. Hatano Takumi (Aiba Masaki) is a strange fella who has to eat a snack when the clock hits 3pm. He is different than the rest of the team since he is the only one not having a specialty. He is a “country doctor” meaning he is a doctor from a small village, and has helped his father in the family clinic. Being haunted by images from his past and having a scar on his body he can’t really explain, Takumi one day notices a newspaper with faces of the people he remembers from his childhood. Tachibana Ayumi (Tabe Mikako) is known as “The Machine”, meaning she never gets emotional about any cases, nor does she try to connect with her patients. Due to this she is being sued for malpractice by a family who believe that she is guilty for the state of their family member, this also gets the attention of a journalist who has found out that Ayumi is actually Aitani Kiko, but changed her name due to her father’s mishaps. Besides these two there are Takagi Junji (Tanabe Seiichi) a player ‘look-a-like’, but in fact has a deep emotional scar from losing the love of his life because of an illness. Ogiwara Yukiyo (Koike Eiko) a mother, divorced due to her husband’s infidelity, who wants to find the person who was responsible for her mother’s death. Soejima Masaomi (Kitamura Yukiya) the son of a hospital CEO who has had problems with his marriage, and Komaki Toshiaki (Kohinata Fumiyo)a researcher who lost his son, but refuses to believe so.

Every doctor has a past and dealing with, along with trying to be the last hope for their patients…

This is officially my favorite Aiba Masaki drama, and my favorite Japanese medical drama. I love that the backgrounds of the doctors is shown and every story is taken care of, and I love that there isn’t really a love story, I mean sometimes you just shouldn’t add one. It does have love stories in it, but not as the main story which made it more enjoyable than expected. I love that every character is its own and that they really have this individuality - also that they all somehow connect without crossing paths. I never really imagined Aiba as a doctor, but it really worked for me, also I didn’t expect to like Tabe, but I did.

Without trying to ruin the drama, I’ll just go ahead and recommend t :)  

☆☆☆☆ / 4 out of 5 stars

♥♥♥♥ / 4 out of 5 hearts

Kimi Ni Todoke Movie Review

Title: Kimi Ni Todoke
AKA: Reaching You
Genre: Romance, Friendship, School
Origin: Japanese
Release date: 2010-Sept-25
Cast: Miura Haruma and Tabe Mikako.

Kuronuma Sawako (Tabe Mikako) has been misunderstood her whole life; because she is shy and talks very slow, and ever since The Ring movie, she has been called ’Sadako’ (the ring girl). People avoid her, mean rumours arise around her, but Sawako is right the opposite. She is nice, friendly and thinks of others before herself. When she one day, the first day of high school, meets Kazehaya Shota (Miura Haruma), she is for the first time treated normally. Kazehaya becomes Mr. Popular, and Sawako’s admiration, but for some reason his way of acting towards Sawako is very different than with other people, which changes everything in Sawako’s life.

It’s good, the story, the actors and the characters, I just wish there would be more, I don’t know, skin ship? Lol, okay that sounded weird, but it felt kind of awkward, most of the scenes, and the ending was off, honestly, really abrupt. But that may have something to do with the manga not being done yet, so… If they made it as a drama, it would’ve been better :P
On the other hand, Haruma is more than PERFECT for this role, and I want Sawako to be my friend, like the nicest, most innocent person in the world. And this movie was one of the very few which gave me those goosebumps in the beginning, making me anxious to watch it. Oh well, you should watch it, it’s good! : )

☆☆☆☆½ / 4½ out of 5 stars

♥♥♥♥ / 4 out of 5 hearts