Ikebukuro west gate park (2000)

Country: Japan
Format: drama in 11 episodes and Sp
Genre: comedy, suspense
Cast: Nagase Tomoya, Kato Ai, Kubozuka Yosuke, Sato Ryuta, Yamashita Tomohisa, Morishita Aiko, Nishijima Kazuhiro, Sakaguchi Kenji, Yazawa Shin, Koyuki, Kitaro, Watanabe Ken, Tsumabuki Satoshi, Sugita Kaoru, Sakai Wakana, Watanabe Tetsu, Yusef Lotfi, Ikezu Shoko, Waki Tomohiro, Kawasaki Mayo
Synopsis: Majima Makoto is an usual guy from Ikebukuro, an area which is known for gangs and delinquents. His is best friends with G-boys gang leader Takashi, without being in the gang himself. After Makoto's friend Rika gets murdered he starts to find the murderer, because nobody believes in police. Soon Makoto discovers that he is helping the whole Ikebukuro to investigate many problems and mysteries. 
Rating: 4/5
I was impressed by this drama. On 25th Television Drama Academy Awards it won 7 categories of 13th and was the best drama of this season. "Ikebukuro West Gate Park" is based on same-named manga by Ishida Ira.

Loss Time Life (2008)

Country: Japan
Genre:  mystery, life&death, human, surreal
Format: drama, but all 9 episodes have different stories and so do Specials too
Synopsis: The main idea - there are people who take life for granted, thinking they have time and do unnecessary-pointless things. What if when you die you are given extra time - additional time as they do in soccer? How would you spend the last hours of your life when there are 4 man always reminding you that the clock is ticking...
Rating: 2/5
I am going to make each drama detail-review separately with casts, it is a little bit easier to understand then - But I will put only one rating to all of it.. sorry for possible spoilers too!
I liked that they made it like sport overcasting - I do not know much about football nor footballers, but it was fun in drama. I bet those who know a bit about football and "its legendary players/moment", will have more interesting time watching it. I like those weird comments they make and referees are funny - I consider them as one of the highlights =D Especially during the commercial break. Drama also has a documentary-touch in it, which makes watching it really awesome.  

Episode 1. "Cameraman"
Cast: Eita, Fukiishi Kazue, Koichi Mantaro, Oshima Yoko,
Eita plays an cameraman, who takes photos of disasters, for example fires and hostage dramas,  for newspapers (which I find really disturbing and sick). Being an awarded photographer he wishes to dye on the scene of crime while taking a great photo. After his first-page-photo gets changed with heartwarming amateur photo,  he decides to take an even better photo for photo contest, but situation gets complicated with him being the foresight of the gun.
- Nice and interesting episode to start drama. It explained very much about the whole drama. It had the most documentary look - some moments it seemed that Eita did not know they where filming xD  He gets yellow card for saying "I was killed/ I died". Ends with a big twist so you start to wish that he will stay alive. 

Episode 2. "Detective"
Cast: Koyama Keiichiro, Hiraizumi Sei, Waki Tomohiro, Yamaguchi Miyako, Tanaka Tetsushi
Tsunami Kouta is young fresh detective whose dream is to catch villians and resolve crimes. His dream gets crushed when he finds out that his supervisor is old detective Gomi, who spends time on drinking tea. Finally, they are one step from arresting a criminal, but the criminal is fast and does not use gun for the first time in his life.
- So Kouta gets "loss time". It is very interesting to see how he tries to see some threads in this mess, which takes him back to armed bank rob years ago. The main sentence is "Only the dog who chases tirelessly gets feed", sadly it comes with big losses. the saddest moment is Kouta's phone call to mother. He gets red card for wanting to refuse from loss time.

Episode 3. "Sukiyaki"
Cast: Tomochika, Matsuzawa Kazuyuki, Tajima Yumika, Nagashima Shugo,
A mother who sacrifices everything for her family and also saves from everything. She must pay hard to make her family the best sukiyaki in the world. - It is sad episode, because I think she is the only one who really becomes discouraged and feels helpless - and that is not because of the dying, but because she is afraid how the family will survive without her. She literally saves from everything - all things you know in the world, she will make an cheaper alternative for it. You can see a race of the crazy housewives and how mean they can be.  

Episode 4. "Nurse"
Cast: Ueno Juri, Shitara Osamu, Rokkaku Seji, Nukumizu Youichi
I think it was the funniest episode. Matsunaga Yukiko is a nurse, whose boyfriend has dumped her and she finds the suicide to be the only possibility. At first she wants to re-kill herself, but she gets yellow card, like that would stop someone who knows nothing about football. She meets with Omoto who also wants to jump from the same roof as she did. Main sentence is "Even one loss is not the end of the world". The end is rather unexpected. - I do not understand suicides, because I do not see any reason to be enough to end one's life.

Episode 5. "Childhood friend"
Cast: Ito Atsushi, Minami, Iketani Nobue, Yabe Kenji,
This is the most cliched episode. It is cute, but usual story that guy, Hajime, has promised to become mangaka in childhood. Life roads have gone apart and girl, Yukari is going to be married - right when she hears that Hajime has debuted as mangaka. By chance they meet again, but time is limited.

Episode 6. "Hero Show"
Cast: Tanaka Naoki, Tanaka Kei, Yasuda Misako, Takagiri Hairi, Harada Atsushi, Hatano Hiroko, Okuda Tatsuhito, Hayakawa Ryo
It was the weirdest episode.. Koichi is very egocentric and he cannot fulfill any of his dreams. He wants to be world-famous actor, but non of his dreams include his wife Yoko. - Koichi was the woooooooooorst actor ever! and whoever played the part of SunVisorX was amazing =D There are really cute animations included to episode and in the end you want him to have extra time, but surprise-surprise - I did not understand a thing what happened to him in the end - did he die? did he got extra time? what it was?? 

Episode 7. "Wife of a mob member"
Cast: Tokiwa Takako, Hamada Gaku, Fukikoshi Mitsuru, Nomaguchi Toru,
Ruiko is a yakuza-family's member. She hears that her husband has been taken by another yakuza-gang and she is going to take a revenge.  - It is a little bit sad. I say spoiler - she is fighting for  her love, but it comes out that all this time her husband wanted to have a normal life with normal family and in reality she was the real target. - Tokiwa Takako is very elegant and I looooove her kimono. I like that Ruiko has pride and she does not let herself fall, but it is too sad to see how she is trying to not express her real feelings.

Episode 8. "Director"
Cast: Maki Yoko, Iwasa Mayuko, Takeno Isao, Omiya Taro, Yajima Kenichi, Nukumizu Youichi
Actually, this was my favorite episode. Horiike is a company section director, who is real workaholic and has committed all her last years to her job - not because she wants to work so much, but she has a great sense of duty. Even so, she gets fired when she gives wrinkles what to change in the company. - This episode shows the most how irresponsible, mean and two-faced people might be. Horiike dies from heart failure, which occurred because of too much work, stress and less sleep time. This is something that most likely will happen to me if my current life-style continues O.o. I liked that she was very rational and knows what to do. She is the only character who showed the most sides of herself in the whole drama. Sentence is "Getting fired is like heartbreak in relationship". You can also meet again with Omoto - so sad that he is rather stupid.. Even though Horiike gets yellow card for changing clothes, the referees finally allow it - they are too sad. In the end, all she wanted to do, is to be happy - I liked that she sometimes thought that maybe going with her boyfriend would have been a better choice.  

Episode 9. "Hikikomori"
Cast: Oizumi Yo, Haruyama Mikisuke, Koide Saori, Tajima Reiko, Oshima Yoko, Nukumizu Youichi
Miura is a guy who has no desire to live, but also does not make a suicide - by the way, he has not gone out of the house for 12 years! New judge is Omoto and even referees are having hard time with understand the loss time as the clock seems to be broken - or is it?  - Miura is sooooo useless -.- he annoyed me so much, so I liked the end result :) 

Special/ Overtime "Omoto Yuzo Monogatari"
Cast: Kuriyama Chiaki, Kajihara Ken, Sakai Wakana, Tamura Ryo, Nukumizu Youichi, Tajima Reiko, Oshima Yoko
From the title it seems like Omoto will die, but no. The Special episode explains everything about Omoto.. and his wife, his former job etc. It is just like another episode. Nukumizu is amazing actor - he is so talented and funny! Omoto's life story is cute and the end is veeery cute. Sakai Wakana is adorable and I like that she plays stupid person this time xD All in all, it connects many previous episodes together and makes you realize what was going on.

I hope it can make you understand your life priorities - I wish I could tell it made my mind clear from this point, but with current life tempo I cannot have any other priority than school and entrance exams, BUT I know that the most important in the life still is family, love and friends ^^

Kimi wa Petto (2003)

Country: Japan
Genre: romance, comedy
Format: drama 10 episodes
Cast: Matsumoto Jun, Koyuki, Tanabe Seichi, Suzuki Sarina, Sakai Wakana, Eita, Ishihara Satomi, Mitsushi Ken, Magii, Satou Ryuta, 
Synopsis: Iwaya Sumire is successful in almost everything - she is beautiful, high income, she is Tokyo University graduate, but men tend to see her as too perfect, cool and emotionless, which make them feel inferior. Most of the time she goes home alone and depressed. One night she finds a young man in a box in front of her apartment. He reminds her dog Momo she used to have when she was a child, so she makes an agreement with him - He may stay with her in that apartment if he becomes her pet Momo.
Rating: 5/5

Best way to start new year is with great funny must-see drama. It is made after same-named manga.

Iwaya Sumire really has no emotions in her face and I have always thought what kind of normal woman would take a totally stranger who is beaten up to her apartment?? Even if it is Matsumoto Jun, it is most unreasonable thing to do, especially by highly educated woman. Most of the time she is called "Elite" and it gets on the nerves so much, because it is the only thing others tell her - I would not have that much nerves to put up with it. But no matter what others say, Sumire has a really low self-esteem. Whenever she is with Hasumi, she is nervous and shy. I understand that she wants to be perfect for him, but doesn't being in love mean being able to show your real self to the one you love?

Maybe it is just my way of thinking that people must love others like they really are and no-one should change herself/himself for being the "perfect" one. Like Sumire said it is soo tiring to be on dates and stuff with him.. maybe she is actually in love it the memory of old Hasumi - it has happened to me too. A great part of Sumire is her relationship with Momo. I soooooo adored when they had their "pet-owner time". I do not understand how she was able to loosen up with him, but I think that she really saw her old dog in him, except that new one spoke human language. But for a woman, who has not cried for 15 years, she sure cries a lot. I loved that she established the rules from the start.

Cute-cute-cute-hot Momo *dreaming* was using everyone! Matsumoto Jun made an incredible work as Momo, but he still must impress me in "Hanayori dango" because I am not a big fan of his looks there. I loved Momo's attitude - he was rude, selfish, had too physically familiar acting and had zero dignity or pride. Matsumoto Jun (I so want to write Matsujun all the time) astonished me with his dancing skills - I do not know if he did all the ballet jumps himself, but I know that being a Johnny helped him a lot in this drama, but I still do not fancy contemporary dance. As most of you know then Momo's real name was Goda Takeshi and he was 20 years old.. well in reality Matsumoto Jun was 20 too during the time of filming it. So a great respect to him for making that kind of drama while being so young.

Every time I saw the hug-scenes I got cuteness overload! I would totally like to have a pet like him.. but I am afraid that I would be the one who wants to ruin the rules at first.Why I liked him even more, is that he decided to walk his own road, not what his parents wanted. I hate when parents want their children to make parents dreams come true - my friend had to go to piano lessons for 7 years, because her mother insisted her to learn it - now she has not touched the piano for a year, because she feels disguised by it. Just because parents have lost the opportunity, does not mean the children must do it then! Beside, how is it possible to lose an opportunity - as long as you live or have not had an extreme accident everything is possible! got off the topic again... Matsumoto Jun is one hell of a great kisser...

Hasumi.. he is not that hot and he definitely wants too much too soon. I did not like the fact that he actually should have made himself clear with Fukushima, but he always left her hanging, but at the same time, it was the reasonable for the end, but as a "wanted to be engaged with another women", his acts were wrong. My sister was right about him - she told from the start that he seems too fake. He was the only character who actually got on my nerves.
Fukushima had just an annoying voice - I do not know if Asian men really find it cute, but I find it only very fake, childish and annoying. But Sakai Wakana was cute in it, but I enjoyed her more in "Waraeru koi wa shitakunai". Maybe I just do not like women like Fukushima was.

Before watching it, I had no idea that Eita acts in it too! I still like his ears and he looks sooo young, sadly he does not have dance scenes, even though he plays a dancer role. Rumi was just a bitch who could not move on. I hate when girls "jokingly" break up with guy and wait for him to love them even more. It is sooo wrong and sick! I liked that she was able to grow up a little bit in the end.  Haha.. Shizumu - Takeshi's mom servant... I soo thought he was gay!! until I found out that he was in love with Takeshi's mom.. but Shizumu and Sumire's landlord were soooo weird together. They were similar and weird..  A big role in the drama has Yuri  - Sumire's only friend. She was the only one Sumire ever trusted. I liked that she was very loyal, but at the same time she was able to tell the truth right at Sumire's face.

But the real pearl in this drama was the cute-cafe-girl. She just kind of made all the drama more reasonable and she really was the smartest of all of the characters. I liked that even though she did not have much screen-time, she was very understandable character. I love when it happens in dramas that some very minor character is over others. Beside, the doctor always told a smart talk which always made sense - I would like to have psychologist like he.. - what?? why should I have a psychologist anyway???

This drama explains much about owner-pet relationship and how important pets are - mostly dogs, but some things about cats too. well.. I am more of a cat person, because my parents dogs drive me insane. It is definitely funny and lovable drama to watch. They do not have much style in it, because it is rather an old drama, but try to cope with it. Btw. It was so interesting that it took me only two days to finish it - I would have watched it all in a row too, but I am too afraid of finishing like one Taiwanese woman, who almost lost her eyesight because of watching too much dramas.
Amazing kiss-scenes, cute moments and interesting views on relationship. This drama is absolute classic and needs to be seen by everyone.

Waraeru Koi wa Shitakunai (2006)

Country: Japan
Genre: romance, Christmas
Format: drama 3 episodes
Cast: Yamasaki Shizuyo, Koumoto Junichi, Masuda Takahisa, Sakai Wakana, Natsukawa Jun, Matsuo Toshinobu, Okada Yoshinori, Ogi Hiroaki, Yahagi Ken,
Synopsis: Suzune (Yamasaki Shizuyo) is an elevator girl, she is not the prettiest one, but she falls in love really quickly. Suzune´s friend Tonaka Ippei (Koumoto Junichi) is a manager of cake shop, but he is hardly managing to cope with his job. Yukiko (Sakai Wakana) used to be news announcer, but must work now in variety show. Akai Santa is "Happy Delivery" man, who is mostly controlled by his 4 older sisters. They all are missing love in their lives and during the Christmas they have started to feel loneliness. Without knowing, they will become related to each other in one or other way.
Rating: 5/5
This is my Christmas special drama. I watch it on every Christmas now. It is beautiful and sad, but it kinda gives me a courage to keep trying harder. I like Suzune´s saying "Even if I fail 99 times, I know 100th I will succeed" and her thoughts about confessing to people you like. To some people it happens that they cannot move on without a real end, they want to be sure that there won´t be any "if"-s in future. "If that person is really necessary for you, you will see him again someday, but if not, then he/she is not meant for you". I guess this drama is something that has a bit of similarity with all of us, so it is easy to relate to some characters or situations.

The short drama is also very humorous and keeps you laughing for a long time. Characters´ thoughts are shown out to viewers and it adds so much more to the story. In addition, look forward to actor's face expressions. The drama is technically great too. I like how the timeline is shown, so you must watch the clock and think about the time to understand the right order of things happening. If you do not pay attention, then it might get a bit confusing and you might miss some hints that they are giving you. Lastly, I think it has one of the best soundtracks ever! Not only the theme songs, but the whole sound is great, funny and gives you exactly the right feeling while watching it.
There are four main-characters, who in some way or another are related to each other. The action is set during the Christamas mostly in big shopping center where a lot of people go to make the shopping for the holidays.

Most of the time the link between characters is Suzune, who is also known as "Love Terminator". She is much bigger than average Japanese woman and not exactly the beauty-queen by her appearance, but she happens to fall in love much easily than most of people. She tends to over-react and is very fast-forward when it comes to liking somebody. I must say that actually there is something beautiful in her, both by appearance and personality, but most of the time she makes a fool out of herself with her actions. Besides, she is very un-professional when it comes to work. During that Christmas, one of Suzune's eye-candies became Ryohei, who is intern at the shopping center. He is cute and goodhearted and a bit naive with life, but I understand his feelings when things come to Suzune. And as I said that she falls in love very easily, then there are more Santa, who becomes her love of her life and Shigeo, who becomes the first man to be interested in Suzune.  

Suzune's great friend is Tonaka Ippei - baker and an owner of the bakery store at the shopping center. Similar to Suzune, He is bad when it comes to love, but at the same time, he does not fall in love as easily as she. He is also bad when it comes to saying right things. Once he gets nervous, he can say very wrong things in wrong place. Everyone misunderstand Tonaka's  name for "Tonakai"m which in Japanese means "Reindeer", that´s why he gets so irritated for calling him "Tonakai" and that´s one reason why he is dressed as a reindeer in the end. To know the other reasons, watch the drama.
Despite, not falling in love easily, this Christmas he ends up falling for Rika, who is cute-looking lady working in a store. She is shy and decent woman, but her love for sweets is enormous.  I totally understand how she gets excited when she is talking about sweets and cakes. Anything and everything, which tastes sweetly, is my addiction and eating 6 pieces of cake is not a problem.

The last characters are Yukiko and Santa. They have about 6-8 years age-difference as Yukiko is 29, but Santa is some years over 20. Santa is most of the time abused by woman, since he is too nice and good-looking. Growing up with 4 older sisters, has made him afraid of older women and love is not in his priority. He is working as Happy Delivery delivery-man. I really started to think how is that possible that Santa is perfect, while his sisters are like... well you will see once you watch it. It is the same mystery like it is with Goofy and Max(imilian) from Disney channel (high five for Disney fans). In addition, there is a name-twister in Santa's name too as literally it means "Red Santa".

Yukiko is facing the biggest changes in her life and as we know not all the Christmas are merry and jolly. She gets fired from her usual job in the TV and put into variety show that is not her specialty at all. In addition to having problems in her love-life, she tends to drink too much and has most of the time a bitch-attitude to protect herself. I guess Sakai Wakana is my favorite on-screen love-interest of Masuda Takahisa. The look very good together and their characters have good chemistry.
Overall the drama is very beautiful and worth every second of watching, but unfortunately I guess it is also very under-rated drama as it definitely does not have the popularity it should have.

There are some good sayings to put behind your ear and make them your everyday motos:
"If there is no ending, there won't be a new beginning"
"Life is a roller coaster"
"you cannot achieve happiness, when you are scared"
"If you smile, only good things will happen"

Spoiler-Review: I hoped that Suzune understands Shigeos feelings, as he acted was exactly like male-version of Suzune, except that Shigeo had some looks and money, but at the same time I understand that you cannot make yourself fall in love with someone when you just do not have the spark. In addition, I think that Shigeo was maybe a bit too fast with the proposal.
In addition, I was hoping to see that Suzune and Tonaka end up together as they understood each other the most and were matching very well, but I guess this is what you call a great friendship.