Drama: Ouran High School Host Club ep08

Official Site: TBS - Ouran High School Host Club

Story:

 Haruhi met with the chairman of the school for the first time.  He gave her a stationary set so that she can write Thank you notes to him from time to time for letting her into the school.  His crazy gestures reminds her of Tamaki.

 

 The host club is having another themed party, this time as police officers.  While having their party, they are interrupted by a little girl who mistakenly calls Tamaki "oniichama" (cute way to say older brother).  Not knowing who she was or where she came from, Nekozawa creeps in calling for her.

 The little girl, Kirimi, freaks out at the sight of Nekozawa, causing him to get depressed.  He's never been able to play with her because she's scared of him.  All she wants is to see the brother she notices in the hallway picture, her prince.  Nekozawa decides to try to change himself in order to be able to play with her.

 They were trying different tactics using the light, but nothing was working for him.  He would just freak out the whole time, making him feel useless.

 They noticed outside that Kirimi was staring at a cat.  Nekozawa mentions that Kirimi is scared of cats the most and runs outside to save her.  His will to protect his sister made him forget about the sunlight.  After thanking the host club, he faints.  It turns out he had too much sunlight at once to handle.  To regain his energy, Tamaki plays a song for him, thus leading Haruhi to question more about Tamaki's life.

Comments:
yeaaaaaaah you like that.  An actual summary.  It's short too, in my standards.
Anyways.  I thought the episode was cute and it was a nice change, allowing Nekozawa to have his own storyline.  My favorite part had to be when Kyouya was opening and closing the curtains.  Can't even be subtle about it, he just blatantly opened and closed them like it was nothing.  I also liked how in the background when Mori was helping Honey with his tie, you can see in the background wanted posters for Kuma-chan and Usa-chan

Drama: Ouran High School Host Club ep07

 Official Site: TBS - Ouran High School Host Club

Story:

The story starts with Tamaki taking a trip down to whatever scary ass place Nekozawa's Black Magic Club hangs out at.  He gets a reading from them to see what would happen when he meets Haruhi's father.

The host club head to Haruhi's apartment complex.  In style, of course.  Heading over in a Hummer limousine, they attracted the attention of the neighbors angering Haruhi.  She tells them to leave but convinced her to late them stay with some fancy cake.

 The boys take their first look into a commoners household and are truly amazed at... pretty much everything.  How small the place is, how interesting it is to reuse jars, Kyouya intrigued by aluminum foil (haha!) and Tamaki finding the kotatsu (table with a heater).  After eating their cake, Honey suggested Haruhi making lunch for them.  She agrees but needed to go to the grocery store to pick up items.  All them wanted to go since theyve never been to one before.

 Before heading out, Tamaki days a prayer to Haruhi's mother.  Tamaki becomes enticed by Haruhi and eventually, while getting up, trips and falls on her. Lo and Behold, Ranka, Haruhi's transvestite father, comes home and sees him on top of her.  He ends up tossing Tamaki out of the way.

 The club has a group talk with Ranka.  Tamaki is super depressed after being turned down by Ranka.  The boys find out that Kyouya has been texting Haruhi's father.  Tamaki getting even more depressed is hurt by Ranka's outburst to him and runs out of the apartment crying.  Haruhi goes and comforts him and takes him to the super market.

 Tamaki wanted Nabe for lunch (even though it's summer).  He was so amazed at how everything worked in the market.  He loved how everything was inexpensive and went crazy like a kid in a candy store.  The rest of the club members and Ranka went to go spy on them. 

Ranka refuses to recognize Tamaki as a "father figure" and basically tells him to gtfo.  As this was going down, a little girl accidentally knocks over a canned food display that was going to topple over Haruhi.  Tamaki comes to the rescue and protects her.

 In the end, they all had lunch together, under the kotatsu.  Ranka was close to accepting Tamaki until he opened up his big mouth again causing Ranka to get angry and giving him the mushrooms that Tamaki had cultivated to eat for lunch instead of the nabe in the pot.  Of course, Tamaki gets depressed and yells out.

Comments:
(I wrote this before I went on hiatus) I really liked this story line.  It's nice to see them outside of the high school, especially since its the first and basically the only time you actually get to see Haruhi's apartment.  It's also funny to see Ranka for the first time and it transitioned really well from the manga/anime to live action.  I also like the portrayal of Tamaki cultivating mushrooms in their closet.

I don't have much to comment on since I turned off my Ouran Live Action fangirling when the series ended haha.

(new comments) As I was taking screencaps for this episode I noticed a lot of small things again that they added at subtle nods to the anime and manga.  Honey passes his carrots to Mori.  While Honey didnt mention it in the drama, if you read the manga, you'll know he doesn't like carrots which I thought was really cute.

Also, why was Kyouya not wearing his glasses at the last few seconds of the episode.  He was wearing it when they said grace, but as they were actually eating, they were off haha!  Must have been fogging up from the food, small space and kotatsu warmth!! :)

Also, the mushrooms that Tamaki was given to eat... those are poisonous haha!!! As a scientist, we know that the brighter the color of items, the more poisonous they'll be.  Yikes!

Winter Dramas 2012

Just thought I'd mention which dramas I've picked up for the season.
- Hungry!
- Risou no Musuko
- Hayami-san no Yobareru Hi

Those are the only three dramas I'm watching religiously right now.  Even though I'm in school, I make it a habit to watch them when they come out (which is bad lol).
Originally on my list I also had Strawberry Night, Honjitsu wa Taian Nari and Teen Court.  I ended up crossing them out since it didn't catch me on the first episode, with the exception of Strawberry Night.  I haven't gotten a chance to see any of the episodes yet, nor have I watched the special.  I'm going to keep that on my "maybe" list which goes alongside JIN, but for now I'm only watching those 3 dramas.

I really want to review them, but I still have Ouran to do.  I guess I'll just do an end of series batch for all of them.

Never Did...

... get a chance to finish doing my updates for the summer huh?  After a bug had hit my computer, the pictures I saved for screenshots from Ouran got deleted by my mistake. So I need to go do that someday when I have the chance.  Gonna do little by little now that school started and it's my last semester so my time is being constricted.

I wanna finish Ouran before I lose interest.

I also lost interest in Fall dramas completely.  Although while I do have Runaway and Kaseifu, I never got a chance to watch it.  And now that it's Winter season, which I did pick up a couple dramas to watch as well, I'm not sure when I'll get a chance to watch everything in its entirety.

I also still have a couple dramas with 1 episode a piece that Im still not sure if I should pick up or not, but I'm most likely going to delete them.  Sorry Ningen Bem, it's most likely going to get deleted.

Movie: Paradise Kiss

Back when this movie was first being promoted, I couldn't wait to get a chance to watch it.  Now that it was finally able to share with others, I lost that need to watch it and thought I'd just give it a chance.  I was really disappointed and I thought the movie was really boring.

I'm not a fan of Kitagawa Keiko, nor am  I a fan of Mukai Osamu (anymore at least).  I honestly thought the acting was horrible and the way the story progessed didn't flow well.  The story went from point A to point B without character development and you don't see much of the other characters that play into the story.  It felt like they just threw everything together without placing swift transitions.

One thing I did enjoy in this movie was the bright colors, it really draws attention, especially since this movie has a lot to do with fashion.

I'm going to hold onto this movie, for now at least.  I doubt I'll ever rewatch it, but it's nice to have for now.

Drama: IS~Otoko Demo Onna Demo Nai Sei~ ep02-10 Final

Official Site: TV Tokyo - IS~Otoko Demo Onna Demo Nai Sei~

Let's make this a short summary!

Story:
Haru is becoming more and more feminine as days go by, even though he knows he's a boy, he's physically becoming more like a girl (getting his period) and also emotionally (falling in love with Ibuki).  His feelings for Ibuki start to get stronger because of their time together.  Ibuki doesn't know that Haru is IS and associates himself as a guy.  It wasn't until Haru announces over the PA system that he is IS to the whole school, exposing his secret.  This prompts the student body to distance themselves from him as well as getting bullied by other students, especially the boys.  While Haru is on the verge of being expelled from the school by breaking the promise to keep his secret, the school board decides to let Haru stay, and better yet, enter the next school year as a male.

On the other side, Miwa is trying to break free from her mother's crazy antics about wanting her to become a female entirely.  It is revealed that Miwa is also IS, but does not fully harbor female characteristics physically.  Her mother wants her to get surgery to become more female, but Miwa doesn't want it as she wants to be who she is.  She's inspired by Haru to stay true to herself, which is the reason why she entered that school in the first place, to meet Haru who is also IS.  While Miwa is going through a hard time, Reon comforts her, chasing after and always wants to be with her.  She tells him she's an IS which shocks him at first, but it doesn't matter to him.

Ibuki, while falling hard for Haru, is trying to deal with his own family issues.  He hadn't seen his mother for years, nor his sister.  Ibuki as a child was embarrassed to have a disabled sister and let go of her wheelchair while they were stopped upon a hill.  The wheel chair kept going was almost hit by a truck before it was stopped by their mother.  The mother gets angry at Ibuki, but the father stuck up for him and the family split apart which still haunts him to this day.  After learning Haru's secret, stunned, he didn't know what to do.  He secretly left him messages in his question box, but in the end, Haru knew it was him encouraging him to stay strong.

Comments:
I wasn't really happy with the way the drama ended.  The series started off well, but then as it got towards the end it started to lose its magic.  The story just wasn't believable anymore which was really disappointing.  I liked the concept, but the story progressed poorly.

I didn't like Ibuki's secret, I thought it was pretty lame.  If they wanted the more dramatic effect, the best way would have been to have his sister getting hit by the car.  That would have sparked the storyline a bit.  But him just letting go on purpose, having his dad stand up for him, leaving his mom and not seeing his mom and sister again was not enough for his storyline to be interesting.

The ending was too cheesy with everyone at the Hoshino household helping Haru make a cake.  They didn't even bother inviting Ibuki over... Haru even talked to him on the phone too.  How did everything go from a trainwreck, to happy-go-lucky, especially with Miwa's family.

Another thing I didn't like was that they allowed Haru to stay AND enter the school as a male so easily.  It seemed like there was only 2 school meetings about this issue and just immediately let him stay all because ONE teacher backed him up.  I don't know how it is in Japan, but how likely would they come to the conclusion that they shouldn't expel him, even after joining the school with that promise of not telling, then agreeing to let him stay there as a male?  It's unrealistic.

I also need to mention how painstakingly annoying Haru's cooking class friends are.  I liked Usami's character, I had no problems with her, but the other 3, especially the one with the glasses. HELLA ANNOYING.  It was so hard to keep my attention to those scenes because that girl would act cute or was a cry baby. 

I have to give this drama a 5/10.  I liked the idea, and I thought it would go somewhere more, realistic.  I'm not even sure if I'm willing to rewatch it, but it is a keeper :)

Fall 2011 Drama Season

I'm not interested in too many dramas this season, although I may end up picking some up along the road when I'm not so busy.  I still need to finish up doing reviews for the other Summer dramas before I can start the Fall season, but I do have a list of what dramas I'm interested in watching, not necessarily watching:

- Hunter
- Kaitou Royale
- Kare, Otto, Otoko Tomodachi
- Kaseifu no Mita
- Mitsu no Aji
- Watashi ga Renai Dekinai Riyuu
- Youkai Ningen Bem
- Runaway

It's a long list yeah?  I've already stopped collecting Hunter, Mitsu no Aji and Watashi ga Renai Dekinai Riyuu after 2 episodes.  I've skimmed through Kaitou Royale, Kaseifu no Mita, Youkai Ningen Bem and Runaway and I can see myself watching those 4 thoroughly.  I've actually been waiting for Runaway to release since I heard the announcement and that was the only drama I was interested in watching for the Fall season.  I picked up Kaitou Royale because its only 30min long in the Friday Break spot, the series airing after Ouran.  Kaseifu I picked up because it's being subbed quick (to be honest haha) and I like Matsushima Nanako.  I also took a chance with Ningen Bem because of Kame, plus I like the idea that it's a CGI drama.

We'll see what happens.  It looks like as of now that Runaway isn't going to be subbed which I'm really disappointed in, but it won't stop me from watching it.  I've been waiting for this drama for awhile now.