Risou no musuko (2012)

Country: Japan
Format: drama in 10 episodes
Genre: family, school, comedy
Cast: Suzuki Kyoka, Yamada Ryosuke, Fujigaya Taisuke, Sawamura Ikki, Nakajima Yuto, Takeda Kohei, Irie Jingi, Emoto Tokio, Kaneko Nobuaki, Waki Tomohiro, Miyoshi Ayaka, Kendo Kobayashi, Suzuki Anju, Moromizato Daisuke, Yoshinaga Jun, Hayashi Kento,
Synopsis: Suzuki Umi is single mother whose life's purpose is to get his son to buy a house for her. Despite the fact that they are poor, she wants to grow Suzuki into perfect son by giving him expensive Meifu private school and stuff, but things change dramatically when Dachi leaves Meifu for delinquent boys school, where Umi started her part-time job, in order to protect mom from other guys. What is really "perfect son or mother"? What is the most important in their lives? and all other questions arise in their minds and hearts...  
Rating: 4/5 (Actually it is 3,5, but I do not have this half system)
Before watching it, I thought that Daichi is some Oedipus-complexer guy and wanted to see it because of Fujigaya Taisuke, but it turned all up-side-down as I fell in love with Yamada’s 

 acting and found out that he really does not have Oedipus-complex and „he is not a mama-boy, "he just loves his mother“. Yamada Ryosuke’s acting is seriously one of the high-lights of the drama – you can see him sweet, laughing, crying, beaten up, beating up, angry, bath-scene, cross-dressing. Maybe love-troubles are the only things that are missing, but at the same time there are girl-troubles and Daichi is not that interested in women. You can really say that Daichi is late-bloomer and as a male he is useless, but as a son he might be perfect, may be too perfect, but you seriously must watch it till the end to have a conclusion of their story. But there were some annoying things about him – 

firstly, holding your pointing finger up while running to school is not normal, that only made me realize how weird and short are Yamada’s fingers. Secondly I did not like that he had to repeat the Australia story all the time, but as I understood then this was like a good luck charm to make the punch work – it was with all the other characters and their moves too. On the other hand, (not making fun over Yamada)  Yamada pulled everything off and he even sings a couple of lines in the movie – so if you want his version of “Happy birthday” then try to record it.   

 Mother, Umi-san, was actually a great mother – it seemed that she might be too self-centered 

and stuff, but as the drama goes on, she gets aware of her maternal instincts as she starts to worry about him much more. Umi-san is very good at manipulating with Daichi, so he would do anything to please her. She has some small dreams and secrets of her own, but because of Daichi and poorness, she has lost her feminine side and will to do anything else. She has a big appetite – eating 3-4 people portions at once  (reminds me at the moment, eating 2 people portions as a meal.. woah.. I might end up fat by the end of this year .

Kobayashi Kouji is involved with Daichi’s life more than once and things get once more complicated and then calm down again. He is the one character who I ended up hating and then a bit loving again. He is weak, mama-boy, lying son of a bitch. Gomen, but his mother is worst bitch, who actually made me cry in the last episode. I bet that each child will hate and be afraid of this kind of mother, but because she is mother, the child still loves and respects her. I must say that Nakajima Yuto suits into this geeky weak worm-like role, but I feel like he was pretty much the same in “Sensei wa Erai”.
There are many-many-many different characters in drama – each episode extends the cast 

 and Kaneko Nobuaki even plays 4 different characters.  Also there are Goro-san, Habu, Wanikawa, Hyozuka, Zou-san, Tanba and his sister,  Minoru-san, Ikeda-sensei and etc. With whom all kind of jokes are connect to. From second episode till the end you will laugh. I do not know why they made the first episode depressing and not funny at all, but from second episode it is great comedy.

I know that I have not mention much about other characters, but it is because they mostly have one episode about them, but Mifune Kengo is an exception as his story goes on and on till the end. Fujigawa Taisuke was sooooooooo hot(?)They do not show Mifune that much nor let you 

fully understand him, but he is that kind of character who makes one appearance in episode and you know that you love that character. Compared to Daichi and all other characters, he is mature, manly, strong and wise at the same time. I most enjoyed UmixMifune relationship. They were great buddies – listening each other’s problems and stuff . Mifune saw the ideal mother in Umi and I do not really know what Mifune was to Umi – maybe a second son?    

It did not get higher stars because it is the drama you watch and have a great laugh and then do not watch it again.. at least for me. But I do recommend if you want a break and want to enjoy Yama-chan’s acting (getting too personal with the chan-thing?)

Tokujo Kabachi! (2010)

Country: Japan
Format: drama in 10 episodes
Genre: work, comedy, law
Cast: Horikita Maki, Sakurai Sho,Takahashi Katsumi, Enda Kenichi, Nakamura Masatoshi, Asano Yuko, Tamaru Yuko, Watanabe Ikkei, Kikuzato Hikari, Yoshida Keiko, quests: Ashida Mana, Taiga, Ichikawa Yui, Ohno Satoshi,
Synopsis: Tamura Katsuhiro is young man with a strong sense of justice. He aims to become administrative attorney, but keeps failing in the exam, so he is just an assistant in the Ohno Administrative Attorney firm. On the other hand, there is Sumiyoshi Misuzu, young woman who passed the same exam while being only 18 - with 4 year career experience she is an outstanding attorney, yet she decides to start working in the same firm after losing a case to "laid-back" assistant Tamura. 
Rating: 2/5
 Drama is made after Tajima Takashi's manga "Tokujo Kabashi!! Kabachitare! 2", so if I understood

 it the right way, then basically it is the second part of "Kabachitare" (it was also adapted into a drama in 2001, starring Tokiwa Takako, Fukatsu Eri, Jinnai Takanori and Yamashita Tomohisa). 
Tamura is kindhearted crybaby, but he also gets fired up easily. His character reminds me a lot of "Hokaben", but he is not useless and his words make sense and get into people's chest. And what is the biggest difference is that with his work he does not ruin other's lives just to get his justice, not like Domoto in "Hokaben" did. To say some hints about his character and what happens in the drama, I say that he gets sexually harassed, wears mother's surname and mostly is teased by everyone. I find Sakurai Sho pretty good actor - he suited into this role and to a fan I say that his happy-crying voice is shoooooo cute xD

Sumiyoshi Misuzu is very powerful and when she is doing her job, she is the biggest bitch on earth. I thought of killing her at the beginning, because she got on my nerves so much with her manipulative tone and "acting like a good girl". I would have wanted to know more about her hate towards men and her ex-husband as she was so proud of being divorced. Though she hardly admits it, she is amazed by Tamura's actions and in a weird way Kebisawa has always much power over her. It was nice to see Horikita Maki in a different role from her usual good-girl-roles (at least which I have seen). She had cut her hair and perm them to look

more mature and she looked stunning as Sumiyoshi! Maki and Sakurai Sho suit to act together. I do not know if it is the on-screen chemistry, but it is a pleasure to watch them. It would have been nice to see more romantic relationship between their characters, because it actually should be a romance drama too. 
Ohno Daichi/ Dai-chan is the boss of the firm, but other than that he is one regular at hostclubs. As I already told you, Kebisawa has a lot of power, especially because she is widely known lawyer. She seems to have a crush into Dai-chan, but it is not much shown, but that is the reason why she is close to Ohno's firm (I always laughed when I saw the board - Sakurai Sho is a band member with Ohno Satoshi in Arashi) . The last members of the firm Sakaeda and Shigemori - I never saw them actually  working, but you can learn a lot about them while watching drama. Sadly, they had been made into total side-characters and there actually was not anything big that would have concerned them into drama more.

There was one thing that totally annoyed me - the catch-line "The law will not forgive you!" is stupid -.- It reminds me "JOKER" and that reminds me "Sailor Moon" (read "JOKER's" review to know why). And I still do not understand their work - many times they seemed as loan-sharks or dept collectors, only that they were legal. It felt like they did illegal things in a legal way - all that hand-to-hand money made it difficult for me. I found it natural that this big money is transferred between bank-accounts not from hand to hand. Also, I got annoyed from these "questions" -.- I know that this is a good way to educate people about their rights and laws, but it reminded me Dora O.o This drama caused a little scandal too - one Osaka bar association sent a letter to TBS and asked them to stop the distribution of the drama as the characters actually overstepped the boundaries of public notary job and exceeded it into lawyers field, which actually

was deeply analyzed in the drama too. But as we can see that "Tokujo Kabachi" DVD is on sale, we can say that nothing much happened from that accusation. We still must remember that it is based on manga that is only fictional.
They actually called to one viewer in the end of each episode and there was a possibility to win stuff.
Most of the comedy came from really weird scenes, which made me think of what the heck I am watching?! With this drama, I was in love-hate relationship, which made it kinda difficult to watch it all in a one row, but I must admit that it got better with each episode, because the first episode was the most depressing of them all (if we look at the official viewer ratings, than many people dropped it after first episode). In the end, I must say that it was a great drama, if we leave all the annoying parts out.

Lovely Complex (2006)

Country: Japan
Format: live-action movie
Genre: school, romance, comedy
Cast: Fujisawa Ema, Koike Teppei, Kudo Risa, Mizushima Hiro, Tamaki Namami, Tanihara Shosuke, Terajima Susumu, Yamazaki Yusuke, Nukumizu Yoichi, Yamasaki Shizuyo, Kato Mio, Wentz Eiji
Synopsis: Koizumi Risa has a problem with love - she is 170 cm tall and gets always rejected by guys for being too tall (172 in manga). At the same time, Otani Atsushi has the same problem, but vise versa - he is 159 tall (in actual manga he is 156). First annoyment grows into friendship after they discover that they have many similarities, but heart has its own way and soon Risa finds out that maybe it is not just friendship she wants - but uncertainty of confessing grows as everyone find tall girl and short boy couple a real joke.  
Rating: 3/5
Live-action movie of popular anime/manga "Lovely complex" by Aya Nakahara.The movie looks too fast-forward, because they show all three high-school years in less than 2 hours - so they almost took the most important scenes from the manga.

The lead is character is Koizumi Risa - she is rather silly, naive, childish and she does not have that big complex with her height as Otani has. She falls in love too easily and she tends to over-react with her actions - especially later when she has a crush for their new teacher. Even though it looks like she falls for Otani too fast, she actually did start to have doubts about her feelings in manga too. She and Otani are just so similar and the way Otani acts would make every girl's heart beat faster. I did not like Fujisawa Ema's acting as it was a bit overacted and unreal - even though Risa was unfeminine. It is funny that they made Fujisawa Ema wear high heels to seem taller - she is actually 167cm, which is the same with Koike Teppei's height. Also, which makes the illusion of her being tall, are the hairstyles - sorry, but does not every girl know that exactly these up-dos make you look reaaallly tall?

Otani is sweet guy, who acts like though and strong. He is the star of the basketball team, even though the coach is always displeased with him. He has much bigger complex about his height as he had some mental traumas, which stayed as a painful spot into his heart. Teppei's acting is good - he brings out the way Otani actually is and gyoza he looks cute with those hair-clips, but he did was not as thickheaded as Otani really was. I do not like that they showed too long scenes of baseball game and not much of Otani's feelings.

There has been on and on discussion about "being unable to find girlfriend/boyfriend for girl while being tall and for guy when being short". I would say that first of all, it is difficult to find good relationship whatever you look like. Secondly, if the height matters to another person, then for sure they are not worth your feelings. If you like someone, then like someone for who they are and the height is just part of them - unlike the weight of a person, the height cannot be changed when wanted.

Sadly it did not show the other characters much - it was movie only about Koizumi and Otani, with almost no side-stories, which sucked as it made the movie one-sided. But from other characters Suzuki was my favorite - sweet, shy guy who happens to have a wide imagination, especially when things come to "ero"-stuff, so he ends up having nose-bleeds time to time, even though this line was totally added to movie, because in manga he was not perv. He is together with Chiharu, who is just as shy as he is. They both are really good-looking and actually Otani and Koizumi had a crush on them in manga, but that is not reverberated in live-action. Last friends are Nobuko and Nakao, who again are a couple. Nobuko is Risa's best-friend and constantly tries to hook her up with somebody and Nakao is always helping her with her schemes.

They brought in Kuniumi Maitake or "Mighty/Maity" and left out Haruka - I do not know if it was the best idea, but I have not read that much manga yet. I know that we would have had much fun with Haruka or Seiko.
In the end, the most annoying part was the scenes with English audio - if you want to make a movie with English audio, then find someone who does not have that big accent and has a nice pronunciation. I did not understand a word of what he was saying.

It is a great movie when you want to laugh and say "Awwww" after every 5 minutes, but if you seriously want to have the best of "Lovely Complex", I recommend watching anime and reading manga - I bet for real fans the movie might had been a big letdown. At least for me it proves that it is difficult to make a great live-action of a fabulous manga. They have reorganized the time order to put it into movie time, but it makes it totally different from the original story.