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J-dorama ~ W

Title: Wakaba no koro

Cast: Doumoto Tsuyoshi, Doumoto Kouichi, Okina Megumi

Scriptwriter: Komatsu Eriko

Theme: "Friends" by KinKi Kids

On Air: TBS 1996 Apr 12 - Jun 28

Takeshi (Tsuyoshi) comes from a poor family background. His mother passed away and his father is a workaholic. But due to his pride and perseverance, he works hard to take care of his younger siblings. Through his hard work in study, Takeshi enters a good high school and met Kai (Koichi). Kai is an unambitious man who comes from a rich family background and his career path is all laid out properly for him. Both soon become good friends but their friendship does not last long when Kai's father realises that Takeshi is his son and since Kai often oppose his father's way of doing things, he starts to focus his attention on Takeshi and hopes that Takeshi will take over the family's hospital when he grows up. It's also not helping their friendship much when Takeshi's love interest, Izumi (Okina), likes Kai instead. 

At an age of 15 years old, the two Doumotos can really hold a drama! Especially Tsuyoshi! He's great in this drama. His gradual change from a hardworking but kind-hearted boy to an ambitious young man who in the end realises that power and money are not everything shows that he's quite a talented actor. Quite a good drama that depicts the friendship between the two boys. I personally enjoy this drama a lot. 

Title: Wedding Planner 

Cast: Yusuke Santamaria, Iijima Naoko, Kimura Yoshino, Abe Hiroshi, Tsumabuki Satoshi

Theme: "Kimi o sagashiteta ~ New Jersey United" by Chemistry

On Air: FujiTV 2002 Apr 10 - Jun 26

Oomori Toru (Santamaria) who works in an accounting department in a medium sized company is sent to take charge of Sweet Bridal, a wedding planner company. To Toru, it maybe an irony for him to work as a wedding planner because one year ago during his wedding, his bride ran away with another man. Nevertheless, here he is in Sweet Bridal, dealing with a group of staff who have not much respect for him, but soon changes his outlook on marriage life with each wedding.

This drama is so much better than what I expected. Every episode is so touching that you just can't help shedding tears of joy for the couples. Particularly love the episode of the bride hoping that her real mother will attend her wedding. Was crying non stop towards the end. The bickering between Toru and Terashima Kanako (Iijima) is pretty fun to watch. Yoshino is really pretty here and the proposal from Okonoki Jun (Abe) to Uno Misaki (Yoshino) is really sweet! Ah, not to forget the funny family members of Toru and the weird clan which he joined to share his personal life and to seek advice from the cranky psychologist. It's so amusing see the shadows dancing behind the curtain in that clan. Not only the theme song is great, the song that runs in the drama ("Ever After" by Sada Mayumi) is really nice! An enjoyable drama!  

Title: With Love

Cast: Takenouchi Yutaka, Tanaka Misato, Fujiwara Norika, Oikawa Mitsuhiro

Theme: "Destiny" by My Little Lover

On Air: FujiTV 1999 Mar 26 - Apr 15

Hasegawa Takashi (Takenouchi) is a producer for CM jingles. Despite his many ideas on songs writing, he will bow down to the clients and produce song base on what he was told. Murakami Amane (Tanaka) works in a bank and her daily routine is just mundane. An email of a song file was sent wrongly by Takashi to Amane and Amane just loves the melody when she first listens to it. Not knowing who's the sender and seeing only the word "Hata" in the email address, she emails to this Hata san to praise the melody and signs off as "teru teru bozu". For the next few days, Amane emails Hata san whenever she's feeling down but she never receives a reply. Few days later, Hata san replied asking her "who are you?". From then on, they correspond by email. Even though both Takashi and Amane work in the same building and they met each other on a few occasions, they never know that they have been emailing each other. This is because not only have they signed off in their nicknames, they also lied about their jobs....

A very romantic drama that rides on the wave of emailing in the cyber world.  Takenouchi is just drop dead gorgeous here! Some complained that Tanaka is too plain to match with Takenouchi.  Agreed.  But, guess the idea is to show that the two leads communicate through feelings and not looks. The smiley in each email in the drama is the source of all my signatures at the end of every email now. And the melody is really nice! If not because of Takenouchi's good look, would love to smash through the TV screen whenever Yoshida Haruhiko (Oikawa) appears. Can't stand the way he always insists Amane to sleep with him. Then again, I think Oikawa did a good job for this role. I have heard mixed comments of this drama from my friends. Some love it but some hate it because of the slow pace. Well, the pace is indeed slow but I like it! Now, if only they can change the ending.... waste my time sitting through the whole last episode! >_< "Redundant" is the word to describe it!