Innocent Love: Prelude

Maki Horikita as Kanon Akiyama in Innocent Love

Admired her in Nobuta wo Produce, detested her in Hana Kimi, now fallen back in love with her in Innocent Love.

The Christian music, the snow, and the theme—what a show to watch around Christmas time!

Code Blue Promo: Yamapi, Gakki and Erika’s New Summer Show

Erika’s tongue action is so cute!

Wow, this show has some of the best looking people on Japanese television today. This promotion interview was aired few hours before the first episode airs today. (By the time you are reading this, someone should be uploading the raw for episode one already.) How can anyone resist not checking out at least the first episode?

Last Friends 11 End: Last Friends

Not a family, yet a family.

I finally got around to watch the finale. In some sense, the conclusion of episode 10 was enough of a closure for me. Yes, there are still other open plot threads, but they seem immaterial to the central plot of the story. Anyway, I finally watched it—as well as the special episode—and I was pleasantly surprised to see that Last Friends still had a final card to play to complete its message.

Last Friends 10: A Monster’s Heart

The white is Michiru’s gown—her pureness;
the red, the monster’s last sacrifice—his love.

A scorpion asked a frog to carry him across a river. Afraid of the scorpion’s deadly sting, the frog asked the scorpion why she should trust him, to which the scorpion replied, “were I to sting you while we are both on the river, I would drown with you as well.” This made sense to the frog, and so she took the scorpion on his back to cross the river. Midway through the river, however, the scorpion stung the frog! As they both started to sink into their watery grave, the frog asked why, to which the scorpion answered, “I am a scorpion; this is my nature.”

Would it be a surprise to anyone if I say that Sousuke had indeed loved Michiru? Of course, the important thing to note here is that we are not talking about how a normal human would love but rather how a monster would. For example, while no one would accept a woman who cannibalizes her husband as a natural spousal relationship, we would accept it as so for the black widow spiders.

But how could that be love? Well, why else would he do what he did at the end of the episode? Revenge—maybe, so that he can get back at Michiru for still thinking of her friends more than for him. But I prefer to think like this instead: He did love her, although in a totally twisted way.

Last Friends 09: It’s Guessing Game—Who’s Gonna Croak?

Don’t guess so soon yet.

So, this is what it has come to: Last Friends is on its final stretch—this episode and the next—and the writers decide to turn it into a suspense of who is going to bite the dust.

The writers have flirted with us a couple time already—first, with the preview of last episode showing a beaten up Takeru; and second, with the ending of this episode showing a pinned down Ruka. But just as it was just a Red Herring with Takeru, I’m pretty sure Ruka will survive this one. I mean Sousuke can’t be thinking of trying to straighten Ruka out. (Oops. Is this not a good time to joke around on such serious matter?)

Last Friend 08: Selfish Love

A love is born.

In the show Proposal Daisakusen (ProDai), where the actress who played Michiru here also happened to be the main actress there, one of the theme was about how love is necessarily selfish: A man who is truly selfless cannot possibly be with the woman he loves because no man can possibly say that he himself alone in the entire world is the best man for this woman. Therefore, the main character in ProDai constantly found himself unable to express his feeling to the girl who was moving toward both a more successful career as well as a better guy than him. Not until at the end was he finally able to do what a lot of viewers thought was a very selfish act: He confessed his love to her in front of friends and families at the very reception of her wedding with the other guy. She ended up dumping the groom and running to him. To be with the person you love, you have to eventually say to yourself that even if there is a better guy out there for her, you alone must have her for yourself.

So, how selfish should love be?

Last Friends Poll: Who Is Going to Bite the Dust?

It’s Takeru—according to this preview scene for episode 9.

Note: I’m not asking who deserves to die. I’m asking whose death it was that Michiru mentioned in episode one.

Facts of Life #23497: Don’t Be Ugly or Poor

THE GUY SITTING ON THE CHAIR
(Speaking to the guy squatting down)

There are only two kinds of people I play with: beautiful girls, which you are not; and rich men, which you certainly ain’t either.

Scene from The Money-Maker Recipe episode 3.

Update: In afterthoughts, it’s OK to be one of the two, but just don’t be both.

Update 2: Corollary: it’s good to be Paris Hilton.

Last Friends 06-07: Halftime Checkpoint

Usually, a love triangle is really just two legged: either two girls liking the same guy or two guys liking the same girl. However, this love triangle is truly three legged.

Some of my friends have commented that Last Friends, as of end of episode five, has been getting rather dull in repetitions. It seems like in every episode we would just anticipate another Michiru beat down like we would in a Power Ranger episode for the monster of the week. And in that sense, episode six continued on in that same drudgery. However, in defense of the show I suppose this would be how D.V. feels like—an endless spiral of hell that just goes over and over again.

However, all this changed with the last scene of episode six igniting the fuse that would burn through the rest of episode seven in setting up what would be the second half of the show: the love triangle between Ruka, Michiru and Takeru. I have not felt so glued to my seat as I watched Takeru confessed to Ruka just as she was about to come out of the closet herself, but yet I nearly jumped out of my tatami seat when Michiru asked Takeru for permission to love him. What is to follow soon will be Ruka’s confession to Michiru. And then there are Ruka’s secret and Takeru’s incestuous past that act like two San Andreas Fault Lines slowly building up the tension, waiting for that tenuous moment in order to cause the maximum casualty. But before we get too ahead of ourselves, let’s reexamine the characters at this half point of the series.

Last Friends – 05: A Case for Michiru

Me too.

The title of this post is a tribute to another eye-opening post I’ve read on the controversial anime Koi Kaze. The post discussed how Koi Kaze was challenging the viewer’s notion of love-conquers-all and the extend to which we truly believe in it. Surely, if it were just a difference in social class or even of race, we would cheer it on like a Disney Tale. But Koi Kaze was about a love between blood-related siblings—and he’s twelve years older than her, and she’s only fifteen. Now, are you still cheering?

Last Friends – 04: Round One Goes to Sousuke

Don’t you know you’re still wearing the scar he gave you?

I’m beginning to understand Hinano’s frustration that led her to not want to watch this show. Ruka and everyone in Share House tried so hard to pull Michiru out of the hell that is Sousuke, but she ended up steering herself right back into the devil’s clutch. Like in the case of an alcoholic, unless you utterly severe ties with anything alcoholic whatsoever, you are bound to cave in! They kept her physically out, but emotionally she stayed in. What else can be expected other than a relapse? Not only did Ruka feel all her hard work got tossed out the window, but I myself also felt frustrated watching Michiru being stubbornly counterproductive. What will it take for her to wake up?

Last Friends – 03: What Is Love?

A Loving Father

What Is Love?

There are two parallel stories going on here. On one hand, we have Ruka’s father dealing with his stubborn daughter’s choice in motorcycling; on the other hand, we have Ruka’s dealing with Michiru’s own stubborn choice to stay with her abusive boyfriend.

Last Friends – 02: The Water Gets Deeper

A smile that brightens the day

Watching this episode is like watching people walking further and further away from the shoreline but can’t see that eventually the water line will rise above their heads. It’s like watching suicides in slow motion.

Last Friends – 01: Domestic Violence, Taboo Love

Shared House

This is not an easy show to watch. It starts out just like any other young adult shows about friendships and heartaches, but comes around the last third of the episode the fireworks begin.