Hungry! (2012)

Country: Japan
Format: drama in 11 episodes
Genre: food, romance
Cast: Mukai Osamu,Takimoto Miori, Inagaki Goro, Kuninaka Ryoko, Tsukamoto Takashi, Miura Shohei, Kawabata Kaname, Katagiri Hairi, Ishiguro Hideo, Osugi Ren,
Synopsis: Yamate Eisuke (Mukai Osamu) is the son of famous French chef in Japan. Even though Eisuke is born with cooking talent, he decided to succeed in rock world with his friends. But after turning 30 without musical debut, his life is turned up-side-down by mother's sudden death and loss of family's French restaurant. He decides to pick up cooking again by opening his own French restaurant with his former band mates in a old warehouse.  
Rating: 4/5
Easiest  way to finish this drama fast, is to eat when you are watching it. From my experience, it is difficult to watch as a poor uni student, but I was able to make myself something delicious to enjoy while watching.

Eisuke is rude and selfish man, but at the same time he can be really caring too and no matter what

the topic is, he is always having long wires. Despite the fact that he is super hot, he does not understand anything about women which makes love-triangles super difficult for him. He also is really bad with remembering people's names. Yeah, Mukai is veery hot, but for me he was outnumbered by Miura Shohei. But for your information, Mukai has been cooking since middle school and thought of becoming a chef in high school, do not know how great chef he would have been, but I think we all agree that we are happy that he became actor instead. He even took extra French cooking lessons, because he was not so familiar to French cuisine before, so in reality he REALLY cooked those foods himself.

During the drama he also gave out French cuisine recipe book to give Japanese people the possibility to enjoy French foods at home. I liked the t-shirts he was wearing, because they had great texts on, like "Heaven", "Girlfriend is better.." and especially the one "Trust me  - I am asshole"Priceless! Only thing that turned me off was when Mukai was wearing crocs . No matter how hot Mukai is, even he cannot make crocs seem normal.. For me, I do not think it was Mukai's best performances, but I think that might be because Eisuke is a difficult character too.

Kenta and Tsuyoshi are Eisuke's best-friends and former band mates, who start working with him at

the restaurant. Kenta is the most mature one, who is focused on getting married to his longtime girlfriend Toko - one of the cutest girls in the drama. Though he does not seem violent, fights between him and Eisuke are usual things, because he is one person who is telling the truth into Eisuke's face when he is getting annoyed. Tsuyoshi is single beer-loving man, who mostly thinks of boobs. He is one of those persons who make this drama worth naming comedy as the boob-jokes become frequent jokes. The coolest thing is that he does not have much lines, but him being on the screen fills his role. For Kawabata Kaname this was his first role and I think it was perfect.

When you know me enough, then I bet you already know that Taku was my favorite. He is cute, naive and always-go-lucky. He is the only one who did not abandon rock music, even though he did not seem to find a suitable band to be part of. Of course Taku did weird stuff at the beginning, but he had that charm to say "nothing of this really matters". If I were to say something negative about him, then Miura Shohei played him too much as Nakatsu from "Hanakimi", because Miura Shohei played the role of Nakatsu in 2011 version of "Hanazakari no kimitachi e" just before "Hungry!".    

Chie is 20 years old university student, who had her first falling in love, but I must say that she was

really childish. Chie had so many relations to their restaurant, but she was like little sister to all of them, because they all had 10 years age difference (except for Taku, who was the middle one 25). Especially for Eisuke, she was small brat who supported him. Chie was really cute when she talked nonsense that no one also understood. She was another character who made drama funnier, because Takimoto Miori has these great face impressions. But again the negative thing was that in some scenes she reminded me too much Mio/Miko from "Ikemen desu ne", which again was her last role before "Hungry!". 

Aso is the one character who pissed me off the most. I do not understand why Inagaki Goro plays the bad guys - all the roles I have watched from him, he is being complete bastard, but must agree, that he acts damn well these roles. Aso has many mental problems starting from being control freak. Also at one moment, I even got the thought that he might be gay, but watch and see that you will think it too! I did not agree with his views on French restaurants as I think that the best is when you can feel comfortable while eating delicious cheaper food. I would never pay expensive price just to get one small spoon of cream -.- I know I am a glutton like Chie who likes to eat and eat and eat, so I prefer when I can get full stomach from the price I am paying for it. While Aso was complaining about Eisuke's restaurant name, then I did not like his "Gasteria" at all - it reminds me "Gas" and "cafeteria" and when we but together food and gases, then of course it nails the top, but I would not want to go to restaurant to end up with gases....

Maria/Mariya is Eisuke's girlfriend, who liked more Eisuke-the-rocker than Eisuke-the-chef. I find her a bit annoying with all her diets and biorhythms, but she was the only one who was able to make Eisuke smile at any moment, because Eisuke was actually really bad with smiling to other people.There are a lot of more characters who make it really funny to watch, because they all have their own niche to be remembered, so I am not going to mention all of them. But I cannot help it to say that Chie's little brother Sasuke was way too cool, I totally adore him, because he was soo stupid.
It has a really tragic start, but later it gets a bit funnier, even though I would not consider that so much comedy, because mostly the "funny" happened with same characters and many of them were side-characters. Also, the OST is amazing! Theme song is "Rock me baby" by THE BAWDIES. The drama was later made into manga.

SPOILER review: I did not like the ending. Okey, they were able to get their restaurant back and continue to keep it. Eisuke and Maria stayed together, Kenta got married, Aso-san leaved them alone, but I do not like the fact that they left TakuXChieXEisuke triangle all opened. I would have preferred that she would have given up on Eisuke for once and for all and started to see only Taku, because it was so clear that for Eisuke she is only like a little sister!! It made me so angry, because there was Taku who had fallen sooo in love with her, but she was still after Eisuke who had intentions of getting married to Maria in future. I find her way of thinking so annoying and childish. Okey, she was only 20 so it is normal for her to want to date and stuff, but Eisuke and Maria were already over 30, soo I felt just angry at Chie in the end -.- Totally took 1/2 star down because of that..