I’ve recently watched Attention Please, a drama about cabin attendants, or air stewardess as most of us would be familiar with. I watched this drama after I set my goal to get into SIA, and it has further given me an insight into the airline industry, although it may only be a slight insight.

This story is about this boyish girl called Misaki Youko, who decides to be a cabin attendant because the guy she likes commented that he would like to see her in the uniform. However he didn’t really mean it, but Misaki took it very seriously and went to join Japan Airlines. She was initially very unsuited to be a cabin attendant, and she meets a very capable and responsible instructor Mikami who would rather fail her than allow her to fly without proper training.

Mikami always asks an important question, “What does it mean to you to be a cabin attendant”. Everytime she asked that in the drama, I would ask myself “What does it mean to me to be an engineer in the SIA”, and I would have more and more answers telling me why it would mean much to me to be an engineer there.

Back to the drama, Misaki has totally no idea why she wants to be a cabin attendant, and has no idea what being a cabin attendant truly means. When she finds out that the guy she likes is cohabiting with another lady, she feels miserable. Mikami told her to take a look at her own failure. Misaki didn’t want to lose, so she continued with the program.

Along the way, Misaki matured a great deal, learning about the airline industry along the way. She recognizes that the engineers put in much effort, and that it is a very serious job. She ended up learning from it and becoming serious about her job. She realizes that cabin attendants are not only waitresses in the sky.

Even when she progressed to the On Job Training, she still manages to be not good enough in her senpai’s eyes. However when Mikami opened her eyes to the reasons she isn’t doing great, she realizes that she has much to learn, and eventually managed to graduate properly and become a full fledged cabin attendant.

I think life is a journey of experiences, and you never know where it brings you. However, if you really want to accomplish something, put in effort and you can get what you want. I look forward to my beautiful journey working in SIA in the future, learning and growing and contributing to making it the best airline in the world.

I’ve just finished watching this very entertaining JDrama titled “Celeb To Binbo Taro”, which actually means Celebrity And Poor Taro. Taro is the name of the guy who’s very poor. His own wife died, leaving him with 3 kids. His kids are all very adorable and obedient, and are easily contented and optimistic when all they may eat are bread crumbs from the local bakery. He tries hard to work and earn money, but it is always only enough to pay part of the bills.

The celebrity in the title is Alice-san, the 23 year old fashion designer born with a silver spoon in her mouth. She has never lived poorly, and always has good meals. She lives in a hotel suite and she is worth 7 trillion yen. She has two people waiting on her full time and hires Taro as her driver one day.

What happens is the journey of getting to know Taro better and seeing how he lives. No matter whether he has money for food or not, his family is always happy and optimistic. Throughout the whole drama, a side topic is on Alice’s own previous love story and it links to the crux of the entire drama, when her parent’s company got took over by someone else and she becomes Binbo Alice.

Even then, Taro is still like a friend trying to support her and tries ways and means to think of how to get the money back for Alice. He ends up, expectedly, falling for her.

I liked this drama because I find it heart warming. The plot may not be a very solid plot, but it is already better than some station’s dramas. It is the process of having a rich girl learning many things like how to say thank you even for simple things like Asako’s (the chicken) egg every morning, as well as learning to get adjusted to poverty. Maybe it is the process where you get to understand each other better, get involved in each other’s lives, and suddenly finding that you’re worried about each other, that is the sweetest thing to me.

Maybe it just seems like a fairy tale and we all need fairy tales from time to time. But in reality, YES fairy tales can come true.

YES WE CAN. (Hmm..Only people who watched it can understand why I wrote it)
YES YOU CAN.

Recently I began to watch this comedy drama called Binbo Danshi. In english, it just means the poor man. The lead character Kazumi (acted by Oguri Shun) is this really stupid idiot who started off lending money to everyone who needs it. He treats everyone for meals even when people offered to pay. How did he finance this expenditure? He borrowed money from the loan company. In a way this is fitting since I am reading up on finance related stuffs this holiday.

When he discovered that he had owed a million yen, he got a huge shock of his life. He just got accepted into a company and if the company learns of this, he would be fired. With this problem, he went to make a loan to this rich man nicknamed Omuomu who loaned him the 1 million dollars. In this way, the loan company can be repaid and the loan company will not go to his company.

Over the few episodes, he actually returned the 1 million dollars, but had to reborrow the money due to stupid reasons. Even when he returned the 1 million in the end, he continued to borrow a larger sum of money to help this guy that he knew. Although he is a stupid idiot, he is actually very cheerful and helpful, and changed the lifes of the people around him.

This drama gave me some things to think about.

Firstly, debt is a very bad thing. When you add in insanely high interest rates, the money can never be returned. Sometimes when you just happen to spend and spend without checking your credit card debt, you can rake up a huge bit of money which is extremely hard to repay.

Secondly, there is a story narrated by Omuomu. He cares about money the most, more than human relations because of this girl he loved. The girl worked hard and supported him whilst he was studying to go into law school. Eventually his girlfriend needed money for an operation, and the poor him had no money. His girlfriend passed away due to him being poor and then he worked hard to have a lot of money. I felt upset because I do not ever want to end up in a situation where I have no money to give my loved ones the operation that they need. In this world today, money is really an important thing. It is always better to have the money to afford the best medical treatment, than to have no money and watch your loved one die in front of you. Even Kazumi had the same problem when he was young. His elder brother died of an illness and even young Kazumi took out his piggy bank to save his brother, but the brother passed on before Kazumi had the chance to give his mother the piggy bank.

Binbo Danshi, although a comedy, actually has many lessons of life regarding money. It is always important to learn about money and how to have effective money management.

I’ve just finished watching this very nice JDrama, which I categorise to my favourites list for it’s good and unique plot. It’s along the lines of Code Blue and Nodame, which are very good dramas which only come out rarely. Most JDramas entertain, but they don’t hit the favourites list because their plot isn’t that strong. But Love Shuffle is totally different from what I’ve seen so far.

Four different people, who live on the same floor but never met, happened to meet in the lift and it got stuck. They made friends after introducing each other, and the first episode was on leading the main character nicknamed Usatan to the concept of Love Shuffle. Basically, each of the four, Usatan, Aiai, O chan and Kikurin have to bring a partner each into the game so it’ll be 4 guys and 4 girls. The idea is simple, like it’s name. Basically they shuffle partners every week, so everyone will get one week of time with 4 people from the opposite sex. So at the 4th week, they shuffle back to their original partners.

It is not necessary that the couples be attached. Usatan brought in Mei, who is his fiance. They have been having some problems so Mei was the only who wanted to join, though Usatan didn’t. Aiai brought in her boyfriend. O chan brought a friend and Kikurin brought his mentally disturbed patient.

What follows is 8 weeks of shuffling around. Yes, the Love Shuffle is conducted for 2 rounds since there wasn’t a clear conclusion after the first. Through the different experiences that they have, each and everyone began to learn more about themselves and what makes them attractive to the other person, and in the end they find out whether their original choice was the right one. The ending was that everyone shuffled after learning who they are more attracted to.

What I find enjoyable in the show was how they experienced different things and grew to know themselves more. And the process of coming to terms that you fell for a new person who’s more suited for you. I find the love between O chan and the mentally disturbed patient very touching.

In short, it’s a great drama to watch if you haven’t done so.

This is one of the latest dramas that was shown in Japan, having just ended it’s run on September 12, 2008. To me, it’s one of the best dramas I have watched recently. Recently meaning during the holidays, since this is the only drama I watched during the semester. It has a star studded cast, in my opinion, comprising of the follow actors / actresses:

Yamashita Tomohisa (Yamapi) – Wiki
Aragaki Yui (Gakki) – Wiki
Toda Erika – Wiki

Ok, perhaps it’s not really that star studded, but it’s quite good already. I’ve watched many of their shows. Maybe it’s not much, but if they star in a drama, I’ll probably watch it, sooner or later. I’ve watched Yamapi’s Kurosagi as Kurosaki, Proposal Daisakusen as Iwase Ken, Dragon Zakura as Yajima Yusuke, and Nobuta Wo Produce as Kusano Akira. I realized I didn’t blog about Kurosagi and Nobuta Wo Produce, but both are wonderful dramas in my opinion, especially since Maki’s acting in both.

I watched Aragaki in Dragon Zakura as Kosaka Yoshino (and she looks very different!), My Boss My Hero as Umemura Hikari, Papa to Musume no Nanokakan as Kawahara Koume and in a movie, Koizora (which I didn’t appreciate). Aragaki has grown up over the “years” and looks really different now compared to when she was younger. (Less baby fat?)

For Toda, I first watched her in Death Note (Movie) as Misa Misa, then Tsubasa no Oreta Tenshitachi 2 as Sakura. I also watched her in Liar Game as Kanzaki Nao.

Anyway, Code Blue is an exciting drama about four medical doctors who went to this emergency hospital as interns to train as flight doctors for “Doctor Heli”. Doctor Heli will receive emergency calls from fire engines or ambulances, and within 3 minutes the helicopter would be ready to take off with the 2 doctors and 1 flight nurse to go to the accident / emergency site to help the people in need. Most of the time, they have to do emergency actions, else the person will probably die.

At the start, Aragaki’s character Shiraishi was chosen to be the first intern to serve as one of the flight doctors, and she actually was quite nervous and blanked out upon seeing the victim. Their mentor, who’s the 2nd doctor, immediately took over. This shows how stressful it is, even for a doctor with numerous ER experience.

Yamapi’s character, Aizawa was chosen as the 2nd day flight intern doctor, and since he’s cool headed, he managed to go on site and immediately performed an amputation on the guy who’s hand is trapped in the machine. The rest of the interns would not be able to do it because they feel more for the patient, who’s a young adult. Aizawa is more focused and choose a treatment that’ll allow the person to live. If the amputation was not done, the person will die. When asked what he felt when he did the amputation, he said, “Heat. It’s hot inside”. As such, his character is actually quite “cold blooded”.

Toda’s first mission also ended up with her blanking out and Aizawa actually flew in via the 2nd round to replace her since there was 2 causalities so the senior doctor was busy.

The whole of Code Blue is a sequence of stories showing how the four doctor interns matured and changed, from being rivals to being good friends who’ll support each other. One particular character to note is the last flight doctor who was only allowed to become a flight doctor intern in the last episode after their mentor saw how he changed when reacting in an operation. This shows that if you put in the hardwork, eventually you’ll make it. And that people’s support to you is very important.

Aizawa also changed, after he amputated his mentor’s arm. He began to feel emotions and he wavers in his decision slightly, and becomes more “human”. One instance is when he decided to prioritise the mother in a difficult “birth”, but ended up suggesting an alternative way to save both mother and child. But the part where I could feel very strongly with him is the part where he says “I will save you and let you see your family again”. Don’t you feel that’s the way a professional is? If you are there and you can play a difference to someone’s life in such a way, even though you’re not a doctor, will you do something?

Shiraishi also learnt not to run away and be more courageous and became a more responsible flight doctor.

There are mini stories inside, like when a senior doctor was sued when her operation failed and killed a mother and child pair. Aizawa’s grandmother also appeared and suffered from dementia, during which it allowed us to see Aizawa’s human side when he teared and hugged his grandmother. Or how the proud mentor lost his arm but actually took it in his stride, not blaming Shiraishi (whom he suffered the injury to save her), or Aizawa (who amputated his arm), because if he didn’t live, he won’t be able to see his son for the first time. (He’s divorced because he spends too much time for his patients).

I felt that the whole doctor heli program (which is being implemented in Japan) is a good program, especially when you can make a difference to a person’s life and death. In Singapore it won’t be applicable I guess since our hospitals are not that far away. But I guess this drama has made me wonder what’s my mission in life. For doctors who became doctors because they want to make a difference in people’s lives, to save as many people as possible, I think they are great. But what’s in for me? Suddenly, there’s more things in life to live for.

I particularly like a sentence inside which goes like this: “A doctor can only lengthen the life of a patient by a bit, but whether its 1 second, 1 hour, 1 day, it’s worth it”. Link it to the mentor talking about seeing his son, and I just felt that it’s really true. There’s so many things in life worth living for.

I give this drama a 5/5 because I like it a lot.

If you want to watch this drama, go to MySoju.

For more information, visit the Wiki.

Well this is the first time I see the title with Japanese words and I understand most of it! Well Papa is a duh, that’s English. Musume is the daughter. ‘to’ is the word for and. no is like an ‘s. Nanokakan, as I see from the story, refers to 7 days. So it’s father and daughter’s seven days. Jia Hao wrote a review once before.

Basically, this story is about this Papa and the daughter (played by Aragaki) who’s not on speaking terms at all. Standard. Father has his own strict views, daughter feels differently, and they cannot really click.

The father feels quite sad actually, and wishes to be able to be closer to his daughter. He keeps rewatching home videos of his daughter telling him that she “dai-suki-desu”, which just means she likes her father very much. He is those kind of fathers who feels that having a relationship during school time is not good for a student. On the other hand, the daughter likes this senpai of hers and the senpai likes her too. Senpai = Senior.

During a trip to visit the grandmother (the wife’s mother) (whom they thought is going to die but didn’t) they had this accident while on the way home. They swopped bodies (think Fann Wong and Gurmit Singh). And I guess I kinda expected it when the daughter (in the father’s body) bathes the father (in the daughter’s body).

But this drama, which spans 7 episodes, take them on a journey where the father attends schools and flunks his tests because he didn’t prepare enough for it, and the daughter attends the work on her father’s behalf, and use her principles during a meeting and creating a lot of hoo haa.

However, in the end, they got to know each other better, especially when the father had to go on a date with the senpai on her behalf, and they always talk at night to find out what had happened to each other. The magical thing is that everything went well in the end, and because of what the daughter did in the office, the father decided to improve and managed to finish a project the daughter started off. He eventually earned a promotion to be the Chief of the Reform department and things go well for them. Their relationship also improved as both can understand each other’s position.

This story is definitely not equivalent to the Gurmit Singh and Fann Wong movie, and I think this drama is much much better. It made me laugh many times and I feel happy watching this drama. Recommended! After all, only 7 episodes, very fast can finish one.

Bascially, Kekkon Dekinai Otoko means “The guy who cannot get married”. Kekkon = Get married and Otoko means Guy. I don’t know the exact for Dekinai, but nai I believe is to show the can’t as opposed to can.

This is a twelve episode series and brings you through the life of this single man who is a professional and well known Architect with some weird personalities. (Sounds like me sans the professional and well known architect). This guy just always say the wrong thing, but when you think deeper, he is actually right, just that he has no tact. He doesn’t believe in getting married and has a small apartment of his which he termed his santuary and he doesn’t invite anybody to his house because its whatever personal space he has left.

When he got stomach pain, his neighbour sent him to the hospital and that is when he was acquainted with the neighbour, a girl, and the doctor, a lady nearing 40 who’s single too. He is just over 40, so just nice. But he isn’t interested.

Every episode you is different with different themes, mostly titles “Who says I can’t…”. Like “who say’s I can’t hate flowers”. It brings us through his every peculiarity and how he eventually changed himself.

But the funny thing is, after watching this drama, I felt that “Hey it’s not so bad to be single”. Especially with his posh apartment. Small, but nice and comfortable. I can envision myself doing that, and it’ll be fun too. Perhaps get the dog in the show. Kawaii ne.

The sad thing is you probably cannot do that in Singapore. Perhaps when I’m 40, but you have to be 35 to get a HDB flat. Else you have to get a private apartment. So there, sad isn’t it?

The ending of the drama is not so sweet, but sweet in Kekkon Dekinai Otoko’s way. He confessed that he fell in love with the doctor, who’s actually secretly in love with him as well. He invited the doctor to his apartment (wow..you know how much it means to him) and said something twitty like “If you insist you can come”. Which is -_-” because the doctor never insist. Is the architect invite one. So the doctor says “No. But if you insist I will come”. Eventually he got past his twitty-ness and said “Yes, I insist”. And hence happily ever after.

This is not a bad drama. 7 out of 10 points!

Imagine having the perfect love robot. A male robot dedicated solely to love. To please you and make you happy. Engineered just to how you think a perfect boyfriend should be. Should he be easily jealous? Adventurous in bed? What looks should he have? Should he come and pick you up from work? Blablabla.

Zettai Kareshi, literally Absolute Boyfriend (Zettai = Absolute and Kareshi = Boyfriend), is about how a Japanese research company created this so called perfect lover, in the form of a male robot. They wanted someone to test the robot, hence they tried to find someone.

Izawa Riiko is the lady that they found. Apparantly she’s too serious for people to like her, and she has just been unsuccessfully trying to attract the guy she likes. Sadly that guy doesn’t like her at all.

A namecard was given to her by the research scientist, Namikiri Gaku, and she went to the company to look around. In the end Namikiri convinces her that he is able to find the guy of her dreams and asks her to fill up a computerised form of characteristics her boyfriend should have. Soon enough, the robot prototype 01 was sent to her.

Frankly, the robot is really nice to her. If he is human, perhaps she would have liked him, but it’s a little weird to like a robot knowing that it’s a robot. By some unfortunate chain of events, she eventually “bought” 01 at 100 million yen, payable in instalments of 70 years. Thankfully 01, whom she named Tenjo Night, is able to work and help her share the burden.

The robot does many nice things for her, including helping her patch up her strained relationship with her father when her parents came to visit, and even gained the approval of her father. He once went to search the entire forest for torn pieces of a photo, just because the win blew them away. He tells Riiko that he loves her constantly and always says he is her ideal boyfriend, of which Riiko will cut in halfway and tell people he is just her cousin.

Eventually, Tenjo Night had his own mindset and stopped following the program he was programmed to do. He becomes quite “human” because he has feelings and his own mentality and plans. The research company sends someone to recall 01 back to reformat him, because a robot that doesn’t follow the program is dangerous. Namikiri informs Riiko of what the company wants to do, and Riiko runs to the company only to discover that Night is being reformatted.

However Night resists reformatting, and Riiko successfully intervenes. During Namikiri’s call to Riiko when Night was “in custody”, Riiko learns that Night has his own consciousness. Riiko starts to appreciate him and love him back, but a very sad thing happened.

Spoilers!

Night’s human’s instincts is causing the computer to overheat. His main chip eventually burns out, and before he “dies” he did many things for Riiko, and even recorded his memory in his main chip. When he dies Namikiri gives Riiko the main chip and let her see the video of Night’s memory, and Riiko cries because she loved Night too. I feel very sad after watching the ending, but I guess that’s the best ending. It would be weird if they lived happily every after and Night doesn’t age right? Not to mention fornicating with a robot. Hmm.

End of spoilers!

Anyway this is an absolutely good (pun intended) drama series. Do watch it. 8.5 out of 10 stars!

This is seriously a good JDrama. I enjoyed all ten episodes very much and I must say I watched it within 3 days and now it has left a void inside me. This belongs to a comedy kind of drama and it’s based on school life, like Dragon Zakura, another great JDrama that I have watched during this three month university holiday.

So what’s this drama about? This drama is about this guy Makio who’s 27 going on to 28 in this year (2007). His father is the boss of a Yakuza, meaning gang. However, his father wanted to do his part as a father and hence forces Makio to go to school before he will consider him to be the next boss. Makio, whose wish is to become boss, had to agree.

The problem is that his dad got him into the high school through the back door and he has to hide his identity. No one must know he belongs to a Yakuza, so no violence blabla. In the end he gets bullied and has to hand over money occasionally to the class bully. He fails his exams, attends supplementary classes and ends up attending preparation courses for university entrance examinations, something he need not take since he is not going to university.

Through the 10 episodes he matured and learnt more things about love and friendship, and even fell in love with a 17 year old girl. (He hid his age and everyone thought he was 17). This story is pretty funny because he has to pretend to be a nice guy and not get violent. But actually he is a pretty nice guy to his classmates. He becomes the class leader and led the class in many activities.

This is a pretty good JDrama so watch it if you have time!

9 out of 10 stars.

This special is the continuation of the Nodame Cantabile JDrama, and has two episodes. Previously, Jia Hao has done a review on the special. The two episodes are 2 hours each, and they are continuous episodes and not stand alone, unlike Densha Otoko’s Alternate Ending Sp and Indiana Jones Sp.

And so begins the spoilers:

The story takes place in Europe now, when Chiaki has managed to be able to sit on an aeroplane and fly there with Nodame (Noda Megumi). The main story is about Chiaki deciding to only contact Viera Sensei when he has won a prestigious conducting competition. Chiaki meets another person who’s Viera’s pupil, as well as another Japanese, and together they enter the competition. At the same time Nodame is alone with 2 other house-mates (live in the same “house”) and trying to learn french. Nodame found herself to be weaker than the rest of the students in terms of analysing the background of the music.

Chiaki finds himself getting the perfect score along with Viera’s other pupil, and in the 3rd round, they are both going to perform the same song. Chiaki is performing after the guy, and he became stressed out when he discovers that the guy performed well. During his own performance, he screws up by making the orchestra dislike him, and the orchestra played the piece without even looking at the conductor. Despite that, Chiaki managed to enter the fourth and final round.

Chiaki enters the Nodame depressing mode, where he has a whole hair full of “flies” blabla to signify he didn’t really have the heart to even bathe. Nodame arrives to cheer him up and because of certain events, he cheers up and gears himself for the final round where he corrects his mistake. He reminded himself to respect music and hence then will the orchestra respect him too. With his superb performance in the final round, he emerged the winner. It is also declared that Chiaki intends to contact Viera and possibly enter his performance tour. However..

Stresseman, henceforth knows as the DOM (Dirty Old Man), is doing something behind Chaki’s back. Chaki gets kidnapped by Oliver, a bodyguard I think, and subjected to cruel torture of tickling, of which Chaki succumbs by signing the dreaded contract, of which he will immediately go with DOM for DOM’s performance tour. Chaki actually doesn’t mind, because it’s a great opportunity, and he leaves Nodame alone for about 3 months.

During which the DOM sent Nodame photos of Chiaki in bed with skimpily clad woman, whom Nodame Cantabile’s watchers should know that they belong to DOM, and Chiaki is probably there in the wrong place at the wrong time.

DOM got sick in the Tokyo leg of the tour and Chiaki takes over and leads the orchestra with a piano performance by this young girl whom I forgot the name. Nodame got jealous and her piano playing got screwed up. Her own tutor asks her, “What do you come here for?”, and she cannot answer that questions.

Chiaki came back for a short half day and caught Nodame in a jealous and bad mood. He didn’t have time to do anything and continued with his tour.

When the 3 months ended, Chiaki came back and had a fight with Nodame. They patched back after some manga style fighting, and everything goes well. Nodame does her first piano recital to great success, and Chiaki did his Europe debut with success too. They share their first kiss and things go happily ever after (unless they do a 2nd SP and break them up).

Heartwarming story. Do watch it.