Sotsu Uta ~ Best friend~ (2010)

Country: Japan
Format: part of Sotsu Uta series
Genre: friendship, life
Cast: Shida Mirai, Kutsuna Shiori, Irie Jingi, Sometani Shota, Muro Tsuyoshi, Nagasawa Masami,
Synopsis: Ayumi and Mami are best friends at school. While Ayumi falls in and out of love really fast, then Mami never talks about her feelings. But no matter what Mami always stands behind Ayumi supporting her in everything.
Rating: 1/5
It is difficult to write a review about it, because first of all it is really short and secondly they concentrate on one storyline, so forgive me if this review is also short.

BECK (2010)

Country: Japan
Format: Movie
Genre: music, friendship
Cast: Mizushima Hiro, Sato Takeru, Mukai Osamu, Kiritani Kenta, Kutsuna Shiori, Nakamura Aoi, Brett Pemberton, Todd Shymko, Floyd Lee, Cinque Lee, Mikami Kensei, Kurauchi Sari, Shido Nakamura, Furukawa Yuta,
Synopsis: Ryusuke Minami and his sister Maho have grown up in the United States, but are now  back in Japan. Ryusuke is an amazing guitarist, but his bands always seem to fall apart. After another break up, he decides to create his own band with members that he believes in. He also meets a young high school boy Koyuki who takes interest in guitar playing. Newly formed band BECK has a fast way up with getting new acquaintances, upcoming concerts and CD debut, but every road has its ups and downs and sometimes the past just does not let go of you.
Rating: 5/5
I was more than impressed by this movie - everything was over the top - actors, acting, music, technical part, storyline - EVERYTHING!

Mizushima Hiro played the lead role of Ryusuke or Ray. I love that he can speak English really well, all thanks to the fact that he lived for 6 years in Switzerland and studied in English school. Most of the time Ryusuke is fine and normal, but he gets really irritated when someone in the band isn't improving or things do not go as he plans, easily said - he's really short tempered and when irritated he says rude things without thinking. His best friend is Eddie who became famous with his band The Dying Breed Eddie is played by Brett Pemberton - a participant in America's got talent season 6, a singer and a model, and Todd is played by Todd Shymko who is Canadian man who created Japanese band called SUPERFUNKTION and is its lead-singer.

Another really good friend of Ryusuke is Chiba - a guy who is brilliant at rapping, but is unable to feel satisfied by it and does not seem to find the place he belongs to. Kiritani Kenta made a wonderful job as Chiba. So far it's my favorite role by him. I am not a big fan of rapping if I exclude Eminem and rapping in Kpop, but I really enjoyed Kiritani Kenta in it - everything came out so naturally for him. Of course Chiba has this funky personality at times too and is almost as short tempered as Ryusuke.

Taira is the bassist and he is played by Mukai Osamu - bleach blond Mukai Osamu. I already feel that each guy I really adore has had bleach blond hair in some moment in their lives - and I am not talking only about idols. Taira is the silent hot guy, who pays attention to everyone others and understands everyone the best. He also has a weird habit of taking of his shirt on concerts. His motto should be "I have a history of taking off/losing my shirt" (Thumbs up if you know the song where the sentence is taken from)-. Anyway really hot guy, who always made me go "mmmm" whenever he was on screen.

I was impressed by the fact that Sato Takeru is so much younger from all the guys I have written before in this review and I admit that in the movie he seems even more younger than he really is. He was 19-20 when it was filmed, his character Koyuki is about 16-18 and most of the time he looks like 14-15. Some things about him will be written in Spoiler-review, because I do not want to spoil. At first, Koyuki is the perfect example of goody two-shoes - shy guy, who mostly follows and does favors for others. Until he finally breaks out from his shell.

Last but not least, the only main girl - Maho played by Kutsuna Shiori. Kutsuna Shiori was born and raised actually in Australia, that's why she felt connection with her character and that has given her a great English skills. She takes love interest in Koyuki, but the same time is tracked down by idol Yoshito - who is so over-rated by everyone. She makes the best fish-kiss scene ever, because it is so innocent and it is in the right place and everything is perfect for fish-kiss. In a weird way, I really like that scene.

Sorry, I forgot Nakamura Aoi, who is playing the part of Saku - Koyuki's friend and the drummer of the band. He is always happy and sees things positively. He is really cool character, but he is left aside most of the time. Mizushima Hiro and Sato Takeru actually did not know how to play guitar so they got lessons and practiced each free minute and night and got blisters from all that, but they were very great in the movie. As much as I know then other actors knew how to play these instruments before. The concert scenes are so amazing! I wish I had the chance to go to that concert too - I seriously love all live-concerts, especially the ones taking place outside. Their music was much better than the others on the festival, because they were real,  but others were just posers.
 Really cool music movie, which is worth watching because every actor makes such a great job in it and you can see how they enjoy it, so that all makes you enjoy it too. I forgot to mention it before, but it is based on manga by Sakuishi Harold,

SPOILER-review: I do not know if you already know or not, but they actually did not put Sato Takeru to sing - you cannot hear it. It was one thing I was looking forward to find out, if they let him sing or not, but they won't and to tell you the truth, I was satisfied with that answer! Koyuki is said to have angelic voice that takes breath away and makes you just listen, but I do not believe that there is such a voice in the world that everyone would love it. Many say that they could have recorded someone else singing and then dub it into the movie or other things like that, but that just would have been wrong. In the end it would not have been "that" voice anyway. So, I really enjoyed that they left it as it was and you can think on your own how he might have sounded. For example, I am pretty sure that if he had a higher voice then I would not have liked it - I fall in love with lower voices and they make me listen without thinking, but I know that some people prefer high voices.   

Chonmage Purin (2010)

Also known as: A boy and his Samurai
Country: Japan
Genre: family, food, historic
Format: movie
Cast: Nishikido Ryo, Fuku Suzuki, Tomosaka Rie, Sato Hitomi, Kutsuna Shiori, Horibe Keisuke, Inoue Jun, Nakamura Yuji, Konno Hiroki
Synopsis: Kijima Yasube is a samurai from Edo Period. He goes through time-slip and ends up in nowadays Tokyo. He meets Hiroko and her son Tomoya. Yasube finds it hard to manage by himself in Tokyo and he starts to live with Hiroko and Tomoya, in return he does the housework as Hiroko is divorced and has a stressful work, which makes her unable to do the housework at the same time. Yasube starts to make pastries, which are new to him. The 3 of them grow really close, but everything has its end.
Rating: 4/5
 A really really great movie. Actually I did not hope much from it, so it definitely beat my expectations.

Nishikido Ryo played the part of Kijima Yasube. He suited for that role perfectly! Nishikido Ryo was  like Yasube had to be - tough by appearance and words, but sweet and gentle inside. What is amazing, is that Nishikido-san actually took 2 months of baking classes just for this role. He himself has said that in reality he hates all kind of sweets. Besides, seeing Nishikido Ryo with children makes me fall for him =D  I loved Yasube's character - he had amazing learning ability and Gyoza sake! he was soooo good! His learning ability kinda looked too amazing, so that it already crossed the line - the movie does not show much of his failures or hard times (oke, there was the one time with vacuum cleaner, but still) - I believe that even I won't get used to living in Tokyo with that time as he did (I know - he still was Japanese and stuff) and I am living in 21st century! His adaption with year 2010 was too quick.

His hair looked hilarious when it was apart, but thank Gyoza, it was just a wig for all the movie. Still it looked funny. Especially the "Kappa-scene" lol. I liked how Yasube kept his old manners too - all this samurai's respect and acts. It looked cool and confident. May be he was a little bit too confident in himself at times, so I loved 100% when for a second he gets a rebound and then achieves the same confidence again.
Hiroko, at the same time, was totally 21st century woman - direct opposite to Edo Period beliefs, which seemed normal to Yasube. I liked that Hiroko was more work-oriented and very confident in herself even though she was a single mother. I do not think that she was a bad mother, because it must be hard to bring up a son alone. With her lifestyle I understand why she was unable to make proper food or house works. She was 8 years older than Yasube. I liked that she put Yasube into awkward positions with her acts and words. I did not see much emotions of love. Same goes to Yasube, but it more looked like they did not even had that kind of scene to show these! (That's the reason why it did not get 5 stars) In Hiroko role was Tomosaka Rie  and I liked her pretty much - she is not like the classic beauty and that works for her. She really looked like a woman who tries to succeed in life, has had very difficult situations in her life etc.

The little dude was cute =D (I know - all little children are adorable, but still). It was amazing how he was able to cry. It looked believable. Tomoya character seemed like a normal child for that age - all this Pokemon stuff and so on. The thing that is most common for children is to cry and laugh on and off - it might look like he gets over things really fast, but actually that is how the children of that age are. I think that Tomoya was the character, who brings the movie down to earth, when the time slip is abnormal.

The thing I loved most about the movie, was that it showed the differences of older generations and nowadays one (If I may say so). Even though many of old beliefs do not take place in 21th century big countries (I mean developed North countries - I have no idea what is the right word for that in the economical concept), like women must stay at home and raise children, while men bring in the money. (Even though I would like to be a house-mom in future, I still would like to remain some of my own financial resources) - no woman likes to spend her husband's money for her shopping and beauty treatments and if the married couple divorces, then the woman has still her income to manage with life. But I think that old rules like showing respect to others who are older, especially to your parents, and that parents have to call to order their children and must make then clear how to act - should be in nowadays life too. I feel like there are so many young people and even small children, who are really rude and have no social ability to act normal - maybe it is rude of me, but I mostly think that the problems lay in their upbringing. 

The thing I did not liked at all was that I did not understand the time flow - it definitely did not seem that he had been there for months when it came out that he had. I really thought til then that it was maybe 3 weeks! And the thing that they actually took it really easily that he came from Edo Period through time slip - things like that happen everyday, ne? Beside, no-one ever thought of his ID?? He had no proves to identify himself - no birth certificate or ID etc. and even when he became famous, no-one really thought who he is? where he is from? Weird, but I hope that normal viewers do not start to think about this stuff.
The end of the movie is pretty good =D In some way it is totally neutral end, but it works for this movie.
It is a very sweet movie mixed with beliefs of different time periods and people (not to mention those super yummy cakes shown in the scenes!!!). I strongly recommend it, you can even get some little knowing of Edo Period - who knows, may be someone gets a strong interest for Edo Period from this.

SPOILER review: I hope you noticed this, but towards end Yasube asks the same thing from Hiroko, what asked Hiroko's ex-husband - to give up on working and stay at home. This was the reason why Hiroko told him to leave. There are women who worhship their work and feel that working gives them a measure of indepentency - that does not mean that they love their family less than home-mothers. I find that disappearing point very wierd - I mean the outcome of the scene was weird. You could totally see how it was made with computer! At first, it more looks like he **** on ground, so the ground gets wetter. Sorry, but it really looked so for a minute xD I just did not like that fake computer effect and their poses, but it still was a sad scene, even though it was a little bit predictable thing to happen. But the kiss-scene was rather unpretictable, but on the other hand it was quick and there did not seem to be much emotions. Yasube was not an enchanted frog, who you kiss when you want to break the curse. But it seemed like it was exactly what Hiroko thought when she kissed him in this kind of situation. (but at the same time - we all would have done it :D )
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Sorry for being away for so long. Last three weeks have been really hectic and I went to holidays too - which btw was amazing. I actually felt that I am going crazy, because I had not watched anything for a while. So I have not had any time to write reviews too. For last days I have been studying for like 24/7 and my sleep time has been 4-6 hours per night. I am afraid that my crazy time might stay until 17th December O.o, but I really try to end with it this weekend. I hope you can forgive me just a long break and not fulfilling my promise to write sooner.