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!

Dragon Zakura, (Wiki), is a JDrama that talks about the education system in Japan. In a way, I find it refreshing and nice because I think it can be used to talk about education systems around the world.

In Dragon Zakura, there is a school where the average score is in the thirties, and students from that school end up with lousy futures because no university will take them in, nor any companies will hire them due to their lousy score. According to Sakuragi (the lawyer turned teacher for a year), they are baka students.

I guess I can relate to it because there are many elements that are prevalent in every society. For example, treating students from lousier schools as inferior. Just look at the Elite Schools vs Neighbourhood Schools problem in Singapore. It exists, and people have the annoying perception that people from lousier schools tend to be hooligans as compared to those from Elite Schools.

I love this drama series because I strongly believe that anyone who works hard can make it to any goal, it is just that the amount of effort is different. I believe that one should not look down on others simply by looking on school standards, and I like it when the twin from the lousier school made it into Tokyo University (Todai), but the other twin from the prestigious school, and always toted to be the brother that’s going to make it into Todai, didn’t.

This just shows that it’s about the effort, and if you look down on people, one day they may climb up to over your head and then it is too late to regret.

The aim of Sakuragi is to produce 5 students who will make it into Todai by one year. Yajima Yuusuke (Yamapi from Prodai) is the first guy he enlisted into the special class. Ogata Hideki, Kosaka Yoshino and Kobayashi Maki came after that. Mizuno Naomi (Nagasawa Masami from Prodai) was the “last” one, until in the middle of the series, Okuno Ichiro was enlisted. This is the twin that made it.

In the end, only 3 students ended up being eligible for Todai, and only 2 continued Todai studies. Yajima didn’t have the money to pay the university and hence is self studying to be a lawyer. The other three are “going to” work hard and enter Todai on their own. I guess in a way, it is a happy ending, but I feel sad because I thought there would be at least 5 of them who made it.

In a way I feel that it is particularly nice and heartwarming to see that people who put in effort will be able to find success. The drama also reinforces certain concepts in me, like no matter what we decide to do in life, we can make it magnificent. We do not let ourselves slump and slack and rot our life away. Hence I ask myself, what am I going to do with my life? What is my life for? I guess, I have to find out, I have to indulge myself in friendships, play a part in their lives, be there for them, and justify my own existence?

Dragon Zakura is a nice JDrama. Opps.