Watched Gokusen until 4:30am… It’s so addictive. Sleepy today.

My friend Mikey mentioned the drama Gokusen to me, and this weekend Mariko and I watched a couple episodes of it, and I loved it! It’s so funny. It’s got all the elements of a classic dorama, including melodramatic scenes, a silly love story, crazy situations, teen idols, offbeat characters, and of course pretty women!

The drama is adaped from the manga of the same name, and is about a new school teacher who inherits a class of “bad kids”. The twist is that the teacher, Kumiko, is fourth generation Yakuza, and heir to the family. Her parents died when she was a child, and she was raised by her Grandfather, who is the head of a Yakuza family.

She doesn’t want to inherit the family business, but rather wants to become a teacher just like her father. No one at the school knows about her Yakuza background (except the gardener) and she tries to keep it secret. However, the story is filled with situations in which her Yakuza lifestyle and speech slips out, and that is where it is the most entertaining. There are little sounds that happen when the Yakuza attitude appears in her, like a little flute, or sword-clashing sounds, sort of like in a samurai drama. It’s funny to see the two personalities of Kumiko: the dorky teacher and the street-savvy Yakuza. We are only two episodes into it (out of 12), and I hope the story holds up!

Gokusen 2 is showing now on TV-Japan, and it stars Yukie Nakawa again, which is great, because she is my new favorite actress. 🙂 It also stars one of the Kat-Tun members, and since Mariko likes Kat-Tun, it’s like a bonus. They also sing one of the songs that appears in the show as well. Here’s a link to the official site, and another link to a great fansite. There’s lots of funny stuff at the official site that you can buy, like the tracksuit and tshirt. It’d be fun to have. Or at least get some pics on my phone… too bad my phone can’t do that!

What a gem of a website, the Movie Death Database is! Rivaling IMDB for sure.

Yummy! Koa wanted to try, so I gave him a tiny piece. He didn’t cry or anything, he was just trying to wipe his tongue off with his hand. I had a cup of ice-water at the ready, and he drank the whole thing.

I have been enjoying music by Zard for over 10 years now and I am amazed that she is still making music and that it’s always really good! Izumi Sakai’s music is not the most innovative or catchy, but it’s rarely disappointing. She’s got one of the best voices of all the Japanese pop/rock singers, in my opinion. So many of the popular Jpop singers have kind of high-pitched cutesy voices, and that makes Izumi Sakai’s smooth and delicate voice really stand out. I find it intriguing that she has never been promoted as heavily as other pop stars, and rarely makes live appearances. There was a small tour in 2004, and a special show in ’99, but that is it. I really want to get the new DVD of the 2004 tour.

When I first saw a Zard CD in the store back in ’94, I was interested by the strange name. It sounded kind of French, but I wasn’t sure what the deal was. I bought a CD single called [url=/media/audio/zard-just_believe_in_love.mp3″>”Just Believe In Love”, since it was *only* $12 and really liked it. The tunes were very formulaic and the orchestration was not overly sophisticated, but her voice was amazing! After listening for several years, the combination of her voice, the straightforward songs, and the simple drum/guitar/bass/synth orchestration is just very natural. I guess the songs lend themselves to karaoke very well too, which can only help sell records in Japan.

My favorite meal (donburi). When Mariko asks me what I would like for dinner, I always say Oyakodon. I think (know) she is tired of me saying that.

I have a strange desire to wear some Jack Purcell’s. I think I have some Jack Purcell’s somewhere at home. But not sure if I have my black hi-tops or not. I gotta get some! Black!

Courtney posted about about a Wikepedia Meme and I thought it was interesting, so I am posting one as well. What you do is enter in your birthday (month and day only) into the Mozilla Firefox achieves 100 million downloads

2 Important Births:

• 1932 – Peter Max, American artist

2 Important Deaths:

• 1943 – Martha Raye, American comedian and actress

Some of the goodies Mariko and Bay brought back from Osaka. Click on the picture to see a couple other things that they brought back for me! (links to Flickr)