Boku no hatsukoi wo kimi ni sasagu (2010)

Also known as: I give my first love to you
Country: Japan
Format: movie
Genre: romance, life&death, school
Cast: Inoue Mao, Okada Masaki, Sugimoto Tetta, Moriguchi Yoko, Harada Natsuki, Hosoda Yoshihiko, Nakamura Toru, Kumada Sea, Kobayashi Kaito
Synopsis: Takuma, a boy diagnosed with serious heart disease, and Mayu, the daughter of Takuma's cardiologist, are childhood friends. When they are 8-years old, they over hear that Takuma is not going to live over the age of 20. Takuma and Mayu become each other's first loves, but the clock is ticking and Takuma starts to understand that the best thing for Mayu would be not caring of him..
Rating: 5/5
It is a beautiful love story. I like that it is not a usual love story as the main characters are only 16 - it is more like a puppy love under very difficult circumstances. It is made after same named manga by Aoki Kotomi.

Takuma thinks about Mayu more than about himself. I cannot decide if his break-up plan was right or wrong, but it was well thought through. He had bigger aims and I liked that he did not give up on life, enjoyed each minute til the end. At many times, he is being ordinary teenage guy, who is excited by women's body, but on the other hand he seems much more mature than other guys at school.

His mother is 100% annoying - I know that mother whose child is going to die before herself wants to protect the kid as much as they can, but I hated her actions toward Mayu. I got the feeling that she thought Mayu to be in fault in very Takuma action, which she did not like. And in the end acting as she has always loved Mayu too.

Mayu gets jealous, she might be way too direct, which makes some of her actions very embarrassing for others. At the same time, she is very fragile and cute. She knows what she wants and knows how to get it. She has been michievous since childhood, also very clingy, because she is afraid of losing Takuma. I liked the fact she started to think more about herself too. Cannot leave unsaid the fact that Inoue Mao looks soooooo pretty in this archer clothing and with this mega-anime-hair.

Suzuya Kou is total playboy, school idol and at many times a bastard, but in reality he has some kind of "heart". I understand why everybody loved him. Mayu gets to be his "princess", which makes Kou Takuma's biggest rival. He also brings other great changes into Mayu and Takuma's life.

Teru-chan has the same heart disease as Takuma. She has hard time understanding TakumaXMayu relationship, even though they played together in past, but the same goes for Mayu as she is constantly jealous over Teru. Teru-chan kinda has young girl mind - if guy does not hate you then he must love you. Sorry, but WHERE THE HECK IS LOGIC??!

It is veeeery beautiful love story, which makes you cry your eyes out. In addition, those kiss-scenes are absolute love!

SPOILER review: The real end might be a bit too much / too crazy, but if we think that in reality people get married to dead ones for officially (recently in France and Malaysia or Indonesia), then her situation is not that bad. A little bit weird, but she looks so pretty that I forgive her in this scene. I must say that it is horrible what happens to Kou. I got extreme shock from that! Also, it reminded that I have an donor card, but I have not fulfilled it - I know I could save somebody's life with becoming a donor, but won't it be some kind of bad omen? I should not believe so much superstition...sad thing is that Mayu had two possible boyfriend candidates, but she was left bare handed.

Ashita no Joe (2011)

Country: Japan
Genre: boxing, dreams
Format: movie
Cast: Yamashita Tomohisa, Iseya Yusuke, Karina, Kagawa Teruyuki, Katsuya, Koga Mitsuki, Moro Morooka, Nishida Naomi, Sugimoto Tetta, Baisho Mitsuko, Tsugawa Masahiko, Hulk Ren,
Synopsis: Story is set in 1960s in a city slum. Yabuki Joe is poor, but a great fighter. His fighting skills get noticed by ex-boxer Tange Danpei, who now has ruined his life with alcohol. Unfortunatelly, the fight leads Joe into prison for one year. Tange has made up his mind to make Joe into professional boxer. After losing a man-to-man match to Rikiishi Toru, Joe decides to accept Tange's offer in order to pay back to Rikiishi, who after releasing from prison continued his shining boxer-career. 
Rating: 5/5
Made after one of the most famous same-named sport-manga by Isao Bitou. Manga was published from 1968 to 1973, but is still famous nowadays.

Yabuki Joe is one badass. He tends to think he is much better than he really is, which makes him more vulnerable and naive. Most of the time he does not listen to Danpei on the match. Btw, I adore his hair =P I think that Joe's role shows how great and willing is Yamashita Tomohisa as an actor. He went on a serious boxer diet, that did not contain any red meat (!), for the role. He took down about 9 kg and 9% of body fat and went through boxer training. About the diet he said at first that it was okey, but as the time went on, he admitted that no-one should go through it and the diet was more like a nightmare. I agree - he looked too skinny in the end and there was no chubby cheeks.

One amazing fact about the movie is that all the punches were real - I think they wanted to make it very real-like... Under-cover fact, there is a rumor that he got one veeeery painful punch to one very gentle spot during filming, but he said that he is okey and continued to film until the end of the scene - after that he went to dressing room alone and kept punching the wall because of the pain - how much more can one actor put up with for the sake of the role??

Rikiishi Toru was Joe's only real rival, but I saw them more as best buddies too. They saw each other as the reason to continue with boxing and they were the only ones to truly understand each other. Iseya Yusuke also took down on weight and in the end his body fat was only 3-4%!!! In movie, I felt sick when I saw his abs - he was way to skinny! I do not find man with these kind of abs sexy..

Karina was very elegant in Yoko role. Yoko was one fateful woman. I did not understand what she felt towards Joe, but as you see, she had feelings for Rikiishi. Also, Yoko suffered from past trauma, which makes her real bitch, who cares less about pour people. That's why I enjoyed all the things Joe said to her. Brilliant!

Danpei's actor Kagawa Teruyuki actually is a big boxing fan, so in his free days he went and taught Yamashita about box.  I liked the saying "Tomorrow will never come if you do not spend today well".
I have no words left. It was very interesting and I understand why it is soooo great. There are some slow motion scenes and they look horrible! (in a good way). The shootings were amazing! but even after watching an incredible movie as "Ashita no Joe", I do not like box - it is too violent.
Definitely, WATCH IT!! You will not regret it!

SPOILER review: In the end of the manga, Joe dies too. In movie, he does not die, but Rikiishi dies after the ending match. Weird is it that I cried when Joe lost the match, but I did not cry when Rikiishi died...

Code Blue

CODE BLUE (2008)
Season 1
Country: Japan
Genre: work, medical, life
Format: drama 11 episodes + special
Cast: Yamashita Tomohisa, Aragaki Yui, Toda Erika, Higa Manami, Asari Yosuke, Ryo, Kodama Kiyoshi,  Katsumura Masanobu, Yanagiba Toshiro, Sugimoto Tetta, Terajima Susumu, Yuui Ryoko, Shima Kaori
Synopsis: Interns Aizawa, Shiraishi, Hiyama and Fujikawa start their flight-doctor training. They must save people in unpredictable and dangerous situations with less time and equipment.
Rating: 3/5
I did not liked the first season very much, it was kind a boring. Almost in every episode they saved the person, but in real life it is great if there is at least one person who doctors can save. Also in first season it totally looked like they do not have a personal life (except for Hiyama), that made drama monotonous.

I liked that Aizawa's character made trough a big change during the drama. At first he was a "bastard", then he became "cool bastard", then "cool lifesaving bastard" and finally he was "cool lifesaving bastard with emotions and reasons". Why he still was bastard? Because he was so egoistic and thought he really is better than other (Oke he was the best, but it is a big difference between knowing it and showing it!!). But I must say that I would have preferred to be treated by Aizawa too, because he  was sooo ahead of others.

I also liked Kuroda-sensei, he had personality problems, but in the end he did everything to help interns. Who I did not like, were Shiraishi and Mitsuno-sensei. Shiraishi was just too theory-type person and that made her annoying. Mitsuno-sensei was the doctor, who did not have the doctor-attitude... but I must say that I did not recognize Ryo at the first place, because I was more used to see her with really short hair. And on Hiyama and Fujikawa spot, I much stayed neutral. Drama does not concentrate on other doctor's personal thinking at all, which makes the drama a little bit too plain. It is like only Aizawa's world. You could say that it pretty Japanese version of "Dr. House", exepct that dr. House is young fresh intern in "Code Blue" and is named Aizawa.. 
There is only one special story-line and it is "them as interns"... yes, nothing more.. but it is a great "mediacal research drama"! =P
The special really seemed like another episode of season 1, so there is not much to bring out.

CODE BLUE (2010)
Season 2
Country: Japan
Genre: work, medical, life
Format: drama 11 episodes
Cast: Yamashita Tomohisa, Aragaki Yui, Toda Erika, Higa Manami, Asari Yosuke, Ryo, Kodama Kiyoshi,  Katsumura Masanobu, Sugimoto Tetta, Terajima Susumu, Yuui Ryoko, Shiina Kippei, Shima Kaori, (Quests: Lily Franky, Hamada Gaku, Hirayama Hiroyuki, Yoshida Yo)
Synopsis: After going back from the suspension, interns are soon going to end their internship. They all have their hesitations and concerns about the past and future.
Rating: 4/5
I liked it much more than the first season. First of all people died in it, which made it more like real life, but now in every episode someone died. It kind a look like, when in first season they saved all the people, then in second season they cannot save them. Secondly, it showed their personal life, so they are not all robots and workaholics. Even a doctor has it's own family and personal problems.

In season two Aizawa was not a bastard anymore (Thank you, Kuroda-sensei!!), he turned into cool!best!handsome! New supervisor was annoying at the start, but he turned out to be more appealing that you will guess. Also Shiraishi was less annoying.
In first season, there did not seemed much friendship between four of them, but in second season they stand for each other. I think that because of the suspension they bounded together, which was great.
Surprisingly I did not cry much during it, but the episode where Hamada Gaku was guest was the saddest and the BEST episode of all seasons. This episode totally gave a plus marks to it.
In the end, second season was much better - it has more activity going, more realistic, characters' personalities have made trough a change etc. They more concentrate on characters' thinking and life-views. So it has more different story-lines than in first season.But still it mostly concentrated on Aizawa and his past.

Kakure Karakuri (2006)

Also known as: Hidden trick
Country: Japan
Genre: mystery, life,
Format: movie
Cast: Kato Shigeaki, Hiraoka Yuta, Hoshi Nanase, Kuriyama Chiaki, Ochiai Motoki, SUGIZO, David Ito, Erena, Sugimoto Tetta, Moro Morooka,
Synopsis: Kurimoto Yousuke wants to spend his summer vacation working in onsen with pretty girls, but he ends up with his classmate Abe Tomonari in a weird region, which is ruled by two families. They have to solve the mystery of clockwork doll to help the children of those families - Hanayama Karin and Reina and Kazami Taichi.
Rating: 3/5

Actors were great! As I understand then "Kakure karakuri" is not a famous movie, but it has such a famous cast!!! Kato Shigeaki looks hot =P (sorry unnecessary comment). His character is great. I like his point of views and it is so funny how he mistakes the names and his face of  "That's what I told right now" (even though he did not) is cuuuuuuuute. My favorite is the Kurimoto-Karin-Abe love triangle XD Over-acting made the movie even better, it was a little bit parody-likeish xD All characters are different and not annoying, beside Taichi, because I did not understand why he walked so weirdly... There are times when the scene might be like "EEEEHHH??". especially bath-scenes.

The storyline was spooky time to time and made me really think what is the secret, but actually the real secret was a little bit disappointment. The doll was totally scary.. I am afraid of this kind of old dolls. 
It was said that the mystery was only 120 years old... actually for me it is too short period as there are only 2-3 generations of those families, so in the end it seemed weiiiird. I think that NOT hiding the secret would have worked out better than hiding it.
Movie was actually made for Coca Cola anniversary. That explains the coca cola advertisements in the movie.