Gokusen the movie (2009)

Country: Japan
Format: movie
Genre: school, youth
Cast: Nakama Yukie, Kamenashi Kazuya, Miura Haruma, Takaki Yuya, Miura Shohei, Ishiguro Hideo, Nakama Junta, Kiriyama Akito, Namase Katsuhisa, Utsui Ken, Kaneko Ken, Anan Kenji, Waki Tomohiro, Koike Teppei, Koide Keisuke, Hayami Mokomichi, Oguri Shun, Narimiya Hiroki, Ichigaki Yuma, Sawamura Ikki, Tamamori Yuta, Kaku Kento, Irie Jingi, Morisaki Win, Ochiai Motoki
Synopsis: Yankumi has a new class, the former 2D, but guys still do not trust her. At the same time Odagiri Ryu become a teacher-in-training under Yankumi in Akadou. The last 3D has graduated some time ago and is finding his place in life and in their workplaces, but suddenly Kazama becomes involved with dangerous underground world, which makes everyone, especially Yankumi, worried.
Rating: 4/5
Read previous seasons reviews here: first, second, third
The movie is the best way to put an end to Gokusen series. It is heartwarming and final. It would be ruined if there would have been any more than it.
For the first time Yankumi has the chance to show that she meant her words when she said that she

will always be the teacher for her students, until now we have only seen her being updated with Kuma's doings. I just thought and understood that from all my teachers only my middle school teacher is updated of everyone's doings, but she was the closest to us too.

Gokusen (2008)

SEASON 3

Country: Japan
Format: 11 episodes + SP
Genre: school, youth
Cast: Nakama Yukie, Miura Haruma, Takaki Yuya, Miura Shohei, Ishiguro Hideo, Nakama Junta, Kiriyama Akito, Namase Katsuhisa, Utsui Ken, Kaneko Ken, Anan Kenji, Uchiyama Shiji, Enami Kyoko, Ryogoku Hiroshi, Waki Tomohiro, Koizumi Kotaru, Hoshino Aki, Hirayama Aya, Azuma Mikihisa, Ishihara Atsumi, Yamada Yu, Wakaba Ryuya, Kujirai Kousuke, Totani Kimito, Nakayama Masei, Hamao Kyosuke, Maeda Goki, Mayama Akihiro, Yazaki Hiroshi, Yuki Jutta, Warabino Tomoya,
Synopsis: Yankumi meets a new school and new students to who she must teach the meaning of friends and high school time.
Rating: 4/5
Read previous seasons here: first, second
I liked the third season more than the second, but less than first.
Yankumi has been teacher for already 7 years now and you can see how the time has changed her and how the age difference has widened with students .When in first season she was acting like a "buddy" with students and in the second she was the most like teacher, then in the last season she made it into "mama" - a great mother lion who protects her children. It is exactly what it seemed to me.

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..

Koizora (2008)

Country: Japan
Genre: romance, school, family,drama
Format: drama 6 episodes
Cast: Mizusawa Elena, Seto Koji, Abe Tsuyoshi, Aoi, Miura Shohei, Haru, Nagayama Kento,
Synopsis: Drama version of "Koizora". Mika´s life is pretty normal, until she is suddenly kissed by Sakurai Hiro, a boy from her school with a abnormal appearance. At the same time, there is Mika´s classmate Tatsuya, who is in love with Mika, but with Hiro´s persevere, surprising and sudden character leaves a big impact into girl´s heart. 
Rating: 5/5
I like the drama version much more than movie version - there are just too many things going on to but it into 1,5 hour, even though in the end drama got a bit too lingering. 
I liked Seto Koji´s acting more. Furthermore, I loved Hiro´s character - he is totally the guy whom

girls might fell for. His surprising and sudden acts were the things which make girl´s heart race. (But there are also some things I do not approve to remake in real life). Hiro acted like a bad guy, but actually was really caring and loving. The head patting is one of the cutest things of all and girls actually like that (at least I do) ^^ At first, Hiro seems really persistent and kinda delusional, but it was more caused by the fact that he was used to "easy" girls and that's something that Mika definitely is not. I felt that thanks to Mika Hiro grew up. You can hear Seto Koji singing and playing the guitar too!! (if you do not know, then Seto Koji is in a j-rock band called Tetra-Fang and in a actors group D-BOYS)

The storyline was beautiful and really sad. How is it possible, that when somebody finds her/his true love, then something sad and terrible will happen? Oke, it is not so all the time, but Hiro´s and

Mika´s love story is based on true-life-events. It was originally a keitai-novel written by Mika. To me the story was really unpredictable and every new thing surprised me. From the start you can understand that something is going to happen, but you do not know what! (It is like "Nana" anime, where I started to cry in the end of every episode, because I knew something will happen, but did not knew what) Mika is played by Mizusawa Elena. Her acting is not the best in it, but it was her first time acting too, so let's forgive her. Mika is used to be protected and her horizon is actually really narrow at first. She is shy, plain and she does not have an outstanding beauty, but there is something really cute and natural in her. That's what makes men fall for her and their exes' hate her. Dealing with jealous ex and her friends can be really frightening and I know the fear she was going through. Being afraid to walk alone on the streets and changing route just because you see one of them - even though when you say that it did not shake you at all and you will not give up on a guy just for that, there will be the fear for long time. Especially, when you have been seriously threaten.

The friend-relationship between Mika-Aya and Hiro-Nozumu is really great. True friendship is when you do not betray your friend. Mika made everything she could to get Aya and Nozumu together and Aya was always by her side. Like the time when news about Mika´s and Hiro´s relationship spreed out, then Aya told Mika to keep chin up and smile as she usually does ^^ And Nozumu kept his promise to Hiro, even though he did not approve it, because he saw how much Hiro is actually hurt.

There are two sentence more, which I like and both of them are from Mika:
"Do I need a reason to like something?" - actually, you really don´t! It just happens and you cannot tell the reasons. It might be someone or something - it does not matter. Do you can give reasons to

everything you like? I know that I cannot, because I like really weird stuff too. Another sentence was "Walking shoulder by shoulder at the same pace" - in fact in this scene Hiro and Mika did not walk in the same pace, but you get the idea. I never knew what is so great about it, but I think that until you have not walked with somebody like it, you will never knew. Even if you are not in a relationship or if it is only the person you like (might be one-sided crush), when you notice that you are walking down the stairs with that person step by step in the same pace, even though you see that he could walk faster (because you are in shock and are walking really slowly), it is something that you will always remember. As you might understand, it has happened to me - he was my first love. He always took me by surprise, but at that time.. well, I was not the person I am today. I think that it is with all first loves in the world ( not accurate about people who marry their first love), that first love is something that is bittersweet, it hurts like hell, but feels like heaven at the same time and you know that no matter what you will always remember him/her.
I think that "Koizora" is definitely a MUST-WATCH drama, real classic that you will remember after watching. When I re-watched it, I started to cry after first 3 minutes of first episode, so cry-baby's (like me) need a tissue-box near you!

SPOILER-review: I do understand why Hiro broke up with Mika and did not say the truth about the cancer. I think that in these kind of decisions there actually is not right way, because I too would not want to make my partner suffer, but at the same time.. he should have the right to know. As I said, it is really difficult to find any easy way.
There was one thing that I did not understood - why they did not use protection? If you have sex, then use protection - it is a really easy knowledge and I would not say that they are terrible expensive or difficult to find from stores (first part might depend on countries, but it is cheaper than bring up a child). On the other hand, I am extremely happy that they decided to keep the baby, even though things went other way, because I agree with Mika on this question - I would never forgive myself if I get pregnant and would not give birth to this child. I know so many acquaintances, who have made abortion and I do not judge them for their decisions, but I am just saying that it is something that I would not do.