Taiyou no Kisetsu (Season of the Sun)

If you’ve seen Takizawa Hideaki dramas you know that he is at his best when he plays characters that are conflicted in obscure and sometimes dark situations (Majo no Jouken, Boku dake no Madonna, Strawberry on the Shortcake). Tackey is no different here.

‘Season of the Sun’ showcases Tatsuya’s (Tackey) determination to manipulate and destroy the lives of the rich and privileged. He purposely befriends the young and naive socialites, and eventually gains the utmost trust of the richest kid on the block, Kouhei. Believing that Tatsuya is his only true friend, the rich kid is fooled time and again by his new best friend; blinded even as Tatsuya delves into a relationship with his fiancée.

—I don’t know about you, but so far the drama seems to be giving off “The Talented Mr. Ripley” vibes.

Anyway, nothing seems to be able to stop Tatsuya from his life of vengeance until his chance encounter with an aspiring composer and pianist. Ah, the light in this otherwise dark tale. However, unbeknownst to Tatsuya, she too is a rich girl.

Young, crippled, and overprotected, the girl is drawn by the dark and broody Tatsuya.

—Do you see where this is going? Know the ending already? You’re wrong then. The ending does surprise you. However, I was still disappointed because this drama seriously had a lot of potential to be great! I still say watch it for Tackey who does a great job as always.

Love Story in Harvard

Ah… romance on campus. Unlike American movies, this drama does not involve your typical students playing pranks on roommates, partying all night, drinking just to get drunk, or students who never seem to need to study. It is after all an Asian drama and we all know Asian kids study hard (or die at the hands of their karate fighting parents!).

With the prestigious Harvard University as the backdrop, the drama starts off by introducing Kim Hyun-woo, an international student here to represent South Korea at Harvard Law. He is proud, he is smart, he is funny, and he believes in justice. Your typical hero. Yes, he has an accent and can’t speak very well in English, but he does have a heart-melting smile!

Enter the serious and top of the class student, Hong Jung-min. Your typical rival. Complete with the wanting on Hyun-woo for his father. Always the best in everything he does and he knows it. Great in class, great on court (haha he’s a lawyer AND a basketball player!), and great with the ladies. He knows he’s got game and he will do anything to be the best. Too bad his English is worse than Hyun-woo’s… Maybe that’s why he doesn’t get the girl, the girl being the lovely Kim Tae Hee, who has the two men throwing daggers at each other whenever possible.

Even though for a good chunk of the drama you have to endure the unfortunate accents of our Korean actors, it did help how the writers were able to create a lot of situations where the actors thankfully also get to speak in Korean. The fact that they are eye candy also helped. :p The non-Korean actors on the other hand… they could speak English, but acting? TT______TT Thankfully the writers end the love story at Harvard and bring us back home to Korea where the rivalry between Hyun-woo and Hong-min continues in both their professional and personal lives.

Don’t get me wrong, so far the drama is playing out quite well even with all the accents and the bad acting from the supporting characters. The romance and rivalry between the three main characters is interesting to watch and so is the challenge Hyun-woo faces in dealing with the dreaded professor. However, while I thanked the writers for taking us back to Korea, where our actors could comfortably speak in their native tongue, I also realized 15 minutes into the episode that the drama’s plot would go downhill from there… Because that’s when all the melodrama starts! Complete with the evil white man, opposing parents, near death crashes, and cancer.

My bad. There’s no cancer.

Yes, so why did I keep going until the end? Because I invested so many hours watching the two fall in love and I wanted to see how their relationship would end! Grrrr… TT___TT

Skip this drama. If you do watch it then I suggest only watching up to episode 6.

p.s. – I would repeatedly bang my head against the wall whenever that aweful theme song played!

Gokusen 1

Story:
Yet another tale of a Yakuza/ gang member going to school in secret… You’d think that school was the last place drop-outs would  want to go back to. Then again, Yankumi isn’t a drop-out; just her family.
The drama will remind you of GTO, but thankfully it stands on it’s own. Each episode follows pretty much the same format, so it can get boring at times, however the comedy aspect of the drama was done very well. If the drama wasn’t funny then I wouldn’t have given it more than 5 stars.

Acting:
Nakama Yukie did a FANTASTIC job on her character! There’s no doubt that she practically carries the whole drama on her shoulders, and successfully too! The supporting cast did a great job too, but Nakama was just in a league of her own.  No one can compare to her awesome-ness!

Music:
Matched well with the comic theme. You’ll notice specific characters have their own tunes, which was cute .

Satisfaction:
If you’re looking for a laugh and something mindless then go to school (oxymoron!) with Gokusen. You’ll find plenty here.

Loveholic

Story: Has anyone else done this before? Watch a whole drama by fast forwarding it? You know where you go through each episode in like 15 to 20 minutes just so you don’t have to torture youself over the draginess? You could just stop watching altogether, but the drama has that tiny amount of something that interests you enough to try at least going through it fast. Like turning a novel into a comic book.

And so, I turned Loveholic into such. A slow novel into a fast-paced comic book. Why? I had to see whether the two leads end up together! Sadly, that’s the basis for most of the dramas I continue with. I can’t help it. I just love love! lol

As for the story, it’s really bad. It suffered from what many other dramas suffer from: trying to be everything at once. There’s the romance, there’s forbidden love, the guy and girl living together due to unusual circumstances, the age difference, the psychotic lover, the goody goody girl, and a plethora of other sub-plots that just contribute to the whole chaos that is Loveholic.

Acting: I don’t know. I’ve never seen these actors before except for the ‘goody goody that wants the lead guy, but can’t have him’ girl. She was also the ‘annoying little sister-like tomboy who wants the lead guy, but can’t have him’ girl in Snow Queen (with Sung Yuri and Hyun Bin). Yep, I didn’t like anyone in this drama.

Music: Don’t remember, so I give it a pass.

Satisfaction: Even though I went through it like crazy, it still ended up being a waste of my time. Yea, yea. Some of you will say that it’s unfair of me to judge the drama when I went through it like Superman reading a book. BUT in defence I’m telling you that I did watch the important scenes. Anyway, be happy that I didn’t give it a mark like Stairway to Heaven!

Hana Yori Dango (Boys Before Flowers)

Story:
Bunch of pretty boys being badass until they come across the girl that would change everything. Heard it before? Probably.

One thing I want to comment about is that I wish they spent more time dwelving more into the other two F4 members. However, the short length of J-doramas don’t always allow for that.

Acting:
The guys did a great job modeling, but acting wise they were all average.  I thought Oguri Shun’s performance was really boring and Jun Mutsumoto kind of annoying.  However, that might not be their fault since they are capable actors (not the best, but still okay). I think the story is more to blame .

Music:
Well done. I love the Otsuka Ai’s song, “Planetarium”. The only thing that was worth watching this drama for really.

Overall:
Meh. I don’t why everyone loves this drama.