Philip

Perth’s broadband download supplies are set to take a dramatic hit in the CBD area over the next few weeks as people start getting into the new JDrama Maison Ikkoku. This drama is based off the famous Takahashi Rumiko manga that details the antics of the ever unlucky ronin student Godai and his apartment landlord, the recently widowed Kyoko along with a cast of various eccentric Japanese tenants. Nakabayashi Taiki acts as Godai, Itou Misaki as Kyoko and Kishibe Ittoku as the mysterious Yotsuya. From looks of things they have Maison Ikkoku down pat (it looks almost identical!) so be interested to see how it pans out.

The D-Addicts page is here and the Japanese site is here.

Jang Chul Soo (right) and his partner in crime Ha Deok Ku (left) decide to make a stab at expanding their tradesmen empire by driving to a female bath house to sort out some clogged drains. Chul Soo is pretty confident and ever mindful of the means to make some extra Won he tries to convince the owner to let him renovate to no avail.

However, the owner decides to shortchange Chul Soo which he’s obviously not too happy about. Despite Deok Ku’s objections Chul Soo decides to strip off and use the fixed bath house to get his money’s worth if he isn’t able to get it in cash. After causing the resident middle aged women to faint from his Korean manliness Chul Soo is able to get his remaining Won.

Meanwhile in New York Anna Jo is turning heads by making a last second bid on a painting and curtly dismisses her opponent who is in fact the daughter of the painter. The daughter makes a go at Anna but is shot down by Anna revealing her underhanded bribery of the daughter’s boyfriend who let slip that her father is dying and that the painting she now owns will soon be worth much more.

Meanwhile Billy Park is enjoying his time in Seoul away from the dominating Anna and is distressed when he gets a sudden call from her saying she’d be back soon; his peaceful days are now over once Anna returns.

With Gong Sil Jang, Billy’s faithful servant they quickly clear the house of all the things Anna doesn’t like (which is quite a bit), even firing one of the staff as apparently the shape of his face isn’t to Anna’s approval.

While driving home Anna manages to get lost and bogs her car in a ditch. Chul Soo happens to be passing by and seeing another opportunity to make some Won convinces her to pay him to help get her car moving again. While trying to dry off in Chul Soo’s car she mistakenly thinks his paint stained clothes are blood and that he’s really out to kill and dismember her.

Chul Soo gets suspicious and decides to head back to his car to make sure Anna doesn’t run off with his hard earned Won, and they end up struggling on the ground as Anna accidentally takes his clothes with his money after slamming Chul Soo a good one with his shovel.

Chul Soo manages to stagger back home and is patched by Deok Ku’s mother Oh Kye Joo. After hearing Chul Soo’s story they figure out that Anna freaked over the paint stained mannequin in Chul Soo’s car, but it does little to placate him. Billy commiserates the last hours of his freedom and sadly puts his wedding ring back on. He’s really not happy to hear that Anna is coming back.

Anna finally makes it back to Billy and despite Billy welcoming her back she immediately lays into him for not picking her up at the airport despite her saying not to and gets suspicious he doesn’t love her for not giving her a hug even though she walked right past him. This sets off more critique as she dismisses him as being uncool and stalks off to get changed. The next day she manages to infuriate the staff by ordering even more changes and picks on even the smallest things.

Meanwhile Chul Soo runs into Anna in town while doing some jobs and they end up in a high speed car chase until Anna decides to stop and talk her way out of whatever the problem is with her cheque book. Unfortunately negotiations with Chul Soo break down and they part ways. Unknown to Anna, her pet cat Princess has opted for an independent life and Chul Soo sees an opportunity to get even by selling Princess to the local pet store.

Anna quickly figures it out and tracks Chul Soo down to his home to demand Princess back. In a fit of spite at Chul Soo’s belligerent attitude she decides to kidnap Chul Soo’s dog Ggot Soon to force Chul Soo to return Princess.

Deok Ku manages to steal Princess back from the pet store and hands it over to Chul Soo just in time to get a call from Anna to negotiate swapping pets down at the local beach after Anna nearly breaks down hearing that Princess is OK.

After swapping pets Chul Soo demands an apology from Anna who refuses to admit any wrong doing, saying that if he’d asked for money she might just give it to him.

Chul Soo then asks for money but is turned down again by Anna saying that he’s lucky she doesn’t report him to the police for stealing and selling her cat. They both part ways thinking it would be for the last time, hoping they never see each other again.

The next day Anna is out on her yacht and as usual is complaining about the shower rose and asks to get it fixed. By coincidence, Chul Soo is called out to fix the rose and ends up discovering Princess again, shortly followed by Anna who isn’t pleased to see him again…

Fantasy Couple (or Couple or Trouble?) was a new drama released by MBC late last year in South Korea which won quite a few awards including Best Couple and Best Drama overall for 2006 from MBC. It’s loosely based off the old Kurt Russell/Goldie Hawn movie Overboard but significantly expanded with more characters and more playing time to elucidate the characters. It stars Han Ye Seul as Anna Jo, Oh Ji Ho as Jang Chul Soo, Kim Sung Min as Billy Park and Park Han Byul as Oh Yoo Kyung. I recommend checking D-Addicts here for more info.

The outline of the drama is that Anna is an immensely rich, spoilt and selfish young aristocratic lady who seems to only live to find fault in almost everything everyone else does. Jang Chul Soo is a struggling jack of all trades who unfortunately seems to keep running into Anna while trying to earn a few Won. After a series of events and a fight with her ever suffering husband Billy, she gets drunk and falls off her yacht and develops amnesia. Jang Chul Soo discovers her in hospital and decides it’s time to get even, by forcing Anna (or rather, Na Sang Shil, as he calls her) to help out at his house for a month to pay back the money she owes him if she could remember.

The drama runs for 16 episodes of about 1 hour each, so it’s not too much to get through. It’s a good sign that Korea is moving to more humorous dramas as it was getting a bit stagnant with the same recycled plot clichés (amnesia is definitely one of them, if you’ve seen Stairway to Heaven you know what I mean) with numerous deaths, injuries or sheer bad luck on the way. So, I hope they’ll continue to fund light comedy like this, I’ve been sorely missing it. I’ll pop up some synopses of the few few episodes and screen captures to give people an idea of what it’s about.

Cruising the usual web sites I discovered that they’ve started releasing the live action drama of Jigoku Shoujo (Hell Girl). Basically, the premise is that if you log into a web site at the right time, you can make a pact to send someone to hell - with your soul forfeit, so when you die you get sent to hell too to keep your ex-buddy company. Naturally, being on the web this means any disgruntled person in Japan can find it quickly on www.google.co.jp (maybe with “Send someone to hell” and “I’m Feeling Lucky”?).

Having followed the generally repetitous anime version of Jigoku Shoujo, one of the more interesting characters is the young girl Tsugumi who seems to have a connection with Enma Ai, the afore-mentioned Jigoku Shoujo. Most of the series involves Tsugumi seeing what Ai is up to, and with her father Shibata they attempt to stop people getting sent off to hell (and usually failing miserably). Basically, Tsugumi is probably one of the better young girl characters I’ve seen in anime of late, so I was interested to know who was playing the part in the drama.

It turns out it’s Saaya Irie. OK, some teenager from Japan. Nothing new there, bit disappointing given that I was hoping I could see someone like Suzuka Ougo pull off a serious dramatic role as the precocious Tsugumi. After reviewing some images of her, the realisation dawns on me that most of them were taken when she was 11 or 12. With a C-D (US) or F (Japan) cup endowment. Now, I don’t know about some people, but damn, they must be putting something into the Japanese food but that seriously doesn’t sound normal (though, given the Japanese predilection for lolikon I’m not that surprised).

It seriously makes you wonder if the hypersexualisation of media is definitely starting to take a few steps too far down the wrong path. Despite assurances that there won’t be more gravure photoshoots with bikinis, water and suggestive poses, it seems Saaya’s managers couldn’t afford to capitalise on drooling lolikon addicts and are pushing it fairly strongly despite the fact she’s still a pre-teen (well, she turns 13 in 3 days. Whatever). It seems any Japanese who are over-generously endowed like the practically emotionless Eiko Koike (more images here to see what I mean, she has Blue Steel down to an art!) get top billings in Japan. Oh well.

Anyhow, anyone hoping to see her so far will be disappointed, we may see how she acts in episode 2 or 3 of Jigoku Shoujo (it’s the same in the anime), but I’m not holding my hopes too high for a serious dramatic role out of her. I’ll keep to watching the Kikoushi Enma OAV’s, it seems Go Nagai wasn’t happy with Cutie Honey and Getter Robo, he’s branched into Japanese mythology as well, so it’s interesting to see what his spin is like on it.