Showing posts with label Kami no Shizuku. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kami no Shizuku. Show all posts
Friday, March 4, 2011
[Drama Upload] Aiba Masaki - Bartender Ep 1
Bartender ep01 A
Uploaded by kkftw2. - Classic TV and last night's shows, online.
It's definitely not as still as the anime.. there're movements everywhere, and we get to see the Bartender outside of his bar.
Demo, since it doesn't present an arc right in the 1st ep... I don't feel any urgency to watch the 2nd ep. However, if you're an Aiba fan.. his presence is enough to make you impatiently wait for the next story, right? :)
And I'm not happy that it doesn't have a cocktail-making session with recipe at the end of the story, the way it is in the anime. They should get a real bartender making an appearance and make a cocktail in front of the camera. I want to see the honmono no baatenda at work! ^^
Watched the drama up to ep 3 and got curious about the difference between the bar in Kami no Shizuku and the one in the Bartender drama. So there are specific bars catering to specific people/serving specific drinks? Omoshiroi...
Saturday, February 5, 2011
[Investigation File] Detective Academy Q manga
My most favourite manga of all time. No matter how many times I read it, I still feel so motivated by how Q faces life within and outside of his detective work. If I can say a fictional character is my idoru, that'll be Q... a kid much more alive than the real people I have around me.
I've just finished re-reading all the 22 malay-translated volumes I collected a few years ago, despite having a stack of other still unread manga volumes languishing on my shelves. I wonder what sort of life the japanese mangaka face that they can come up with so many stories that inspire and, at the same time, entertain readers from all walks of life from all over the world. Maybe it's because of that magical place they're living in... Nihonland.
Despite knowing the storyline, I still cried and felt the same emotions I felt when I read it the first time. Will I ever be able to write something this good one day? This time I want to write down the things I 'learnt' from the story. One day, when I re-read it for the 3rd time... will I learn something new?
- Raja Hades boleh berfikir untuk bermula semula walaupun umurnya dah sangat tua. Q class semuanya muda-muda belaka tapi mereka yg tumpaskan musuh utama En. Dan sedangkan pembantu-pembantu En. Dan yg pro pun tak dapat selesaikan kes-kes yg dirancang oleh Pluto. Umur memang tak sepatutnya dijadikan sebab untuk mengehadkan pencapaian kendiri
- Tak boleh sekali-kali berputus-asa, tapi mesti juga tahu bila tiba masa untuk undur diri. Undur diri bukan setiap masa bermaksud kalah
- Walaupun dikelilingi oleh organisasi yang hebat dan sahabat yang berbakat, akan tiba beberapa masa dalam hidup perlu membuat keputusan sendiri dan bergantung kepada keupayaan diri sendiri. Tidak boleh sentiasa bergantung kepada manusia lain
- Takut sampai menggigil tapi maju ke hadapan tetap dalam jalan yang telah kita pilih sendiri dan menyelesaikan apa pun masalah yang timbul, itulah keberanian yang sebenar
- Walaupun kurang berbakat... walaupun menjadi diri sendiri yang mungkin cuai, suka bergurau, dan kurang berdisiplin tapi walaupun bersifat begini, tanggungjawab yang telah diamanahkan kepada kita mesti dilaksanakan menurut kemampuan sendiri dengan bersungguh-sungguh sehingga selesai
- Jangan sekali-kali memandang rendah masalah atau kesusahan yang dihadapi oleh orang lain, walau macamana sempurna pun dia di mata kita (macam Ryu dan Ukon) kita tetap juga perlu bersungguh-sungguh mendengar dan menjadi sahabatnya pada susah dan senang
- Walaupun impian kita boleh menjadi bahan gurauan orang lain (macam Q yg nak masuk sekolah detektif padahal keputusan akademik sekolahnya rendah), tetap kena percaya kepada impian sendiri dan teruskan usaha. Bila kita dah berjaya nanti, impian kita tu takkan digelakkan lagi. Oleh sebab tu juga, jangan gelakkan impian orang lain walau betapa tak logik pun bunyinya
- Lebih berbakat bermakna kena lebih berusaha untuk menonjolkan bakat supaya dapat mencapai impian (macam Kazuma). Selepas berjaya sekali, mesti nak berjaya beberapa kali, lepas tu mesti nak berjaya setiap masa. Ini lah sifat tidak mahu kalah yang mesti dimiliki
- Walaupun dah mencapai kejayaan tahap gaban sekalipun, masih ada lagi kejayaan tahap yang lebih gaban untuk dicapai. Analogi panjat gunung boleh digunakan... dah panjat Gunung Kinabalu, ada lagi Gunung Everest. Jadi jangan melengah-lengahkan usaha. Masa yang berlalu takkan kembali lagi
Even though the malay-translated version I have is complete and can be found in one of my favourite manga shops and can be mail-ordered too, the english-translated online version is still ongoing:
Since I've collected all the 27 volumes of the malay-translated Kindaichi Case Files and several other later Kindaichi volumes as well, I consider myself a fan of Seimaru Amagi sensei's works. But only today I went on the net to know more about him and I found something so shocking that I nearly fell off my chair. He wrote another story I'm interested in under a different pen name. This one:
He also wrote Psychometrist Eiji and GetBackers, the two manga I'm collecting. Is this a coincidence?? I don't believe in coincidences though. I believe that you will always be able to find the things, or people, you're looking for... if you look hard enough. Ma ii ka. I know now that I have to hunt down the rest of sensei's works. Maybe one day if I search hard enough, I'll even be able to meet him face-to-face.... errr, and get his autograph... :P
Other works by sensei I found online are below...
Disclaimer: Please buy his original works. This list is only to introduce you to some of his works so that you'll be interested enough to go and buy them later:
He also wrote Psychometrist Eiji and GetBackers, the two manga I'm collecting. Is this a coincidence?? I don't believe in coincidences though. I believe that you will always be able to find the things, or people, you're looking for... if you look hard enough. Ma ii ka. I know now that I have to hunt down the rest of sensei's works. Maybe one day if I search hard enough, I'll even be able to meet him face-to-face.... errr, and get his autograph... :P
Other works by sensei I found online are below...
Disclaimer: Please buy his original works. This list is only to introduce you to some of his works so that you'll be interested enough to go and buy them later:
- Remote
- Psychometrer Eiji
- GetBackers
- Oniwaka to Ushiwaka - Edge of the World manga
- Psycho Buster: ONE, TWO
- Bloody Monday
- Bloody Monday Season 2
- Area no Kishi
- Gakkou no kowai uwasa: ONE, TWO, THREE (These are download links. I'm not sure if the link is okay or not, so download at your own risk)
- Shibatora
- Kunimitsu no Matsuri
The ones in the wiki list that I couldn't find online (so anyone who have found them, could you please please give me the links in the comment section? Thanks!):
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
[Uploaded Drama] Kami no Shizuku - Kamenashi Kazuya
"Using one's own strength to bring out the best"
Can wine teach you about life? Can wine bring you closer to your family? In my opinion, Kami no Shizuku gives us more understanding of the humans who pursue the path of wine than the wines they introduce to us in each episode.
Despite working on a script based on a still unfinished manga (it's still ongoing), I thought the drama wraps up everything very nicely. I can understand why Maki-san's behaviour was so erratic and bordering on self-destruction and I learnt to appreciate her feelings for what it is (although, she should have been honest with it from the beginning as that would have saved Issei-san and herself a lot of anguish), from being mesmerized with Issei-san's seeming fascination with the dark side in the first few episodes to liking him a lot more than Shizuku by the final episode, I cheered for Shizuku all the way despite screaming at him occasionally when he tries to run away yet again, I like his nakama and wish that I had such a supportive bunch at work too (but I think that's asking too much), all the while being able to stare at various beautiful shades of wines in various beautiful settings... I think this is a drama I can watch over and over again. I think I want to try finding it in a video store. Kame is pretty popular in my country so hopefully they stock all his dramas. In fact, every drama I've watched him in (Nobuta wa Produce, YamNade, and now this) is a keeper.
I have no idea how such a nice drama can receive such a low rating despite it winning awards and Kame getting Best Actor for it, but I guess the japanese TV watchers are as incomprehensible as the korean ones, so I won't grumble about that kinda thing anymore. I've had my fill of grumbling over domestic ratings when I was following Playful Kiss, and now Marry Me Mary. I'm not gonna start another rating rant post over jdoramas since it would be a complete waste of my time. And I seriously don't want to get into discussions on the anti-Kame movement who supposedly boycott any drama or episode or project he appears in (how can they deeply hate someone they don't even know personally??). Maybe I'm too old to understand that kind of irrational shiz. Are those kids for real? I like whom I like, what I like... and if I can't stand anyone or anything, I won't spend hours writing about them in my blog or mobilize a mob to attack them online or off.
I can't dislike any of the characters in this drama.. everyone has his/her own place in which to shine. Some may seem more lackluster than others but they're still necessary to the story. I still wish to list all the wines in this drama, but I'll try to find that VCD boxset first. It'll be nicer with screencaps. I also have a craving for the manga. Did you know it won the French Wine Mag's Top Award? In the manga, there are 13 wines to be found... 12 Apostles and the 1 Kami no Shizuku. It has only got up to the 27th volume and the 7th Apostle. Mada mada desu.
Friday, December 17, 2010
[Rambling About Drama: RAD] Kami no Shizuku: Ep 1 - 4
I have a preference for manga-based jdoramas. Add that to my mania about wine and my crush on Kame-sama, Kami no Shizuku is a perfect blend of several things I adore.
The plot is predictable.. I pretty much could guess who wins the challenge up to Ep 4 (yes.. even the result for the first try on the 3rd Apostle), but the characters make it a compelling story. And instead of finding the heroine annoying, as I find most jdorama heroines are, I keep squeeing over her cuteness that at times I even forgot to look in Kame's direction. I can even appreciate Tomine Issei's psychotic madness over his wine. The scene with him tasting the 2nd Apostle mixed with his own blood was fascinating (somehow, my own sentence reminds me of Sunako of Perfect Girl Evolution.. LOL). The only person I have this "urusai naaa" feeling for is Maki. Even though I know it's impossible, I wish she'd go away from Ep5 onwards so I can concentrate better.
Since this is, as I've said... my RAD corner, there won't be screencaps of the dorama. And since it gets such violently bad reviews on pretty much everything from the cast to the plot (what plot?) to pretty much everything, I doubt you can find screencaps of it anywhere either. I'm one of those (probably rare) people who enjoy the super-boring Bartender anime so perhaps that will help explain where I come from when I talk about how much I love the drama so far. Because the story was built on such a fantastical premise, it helps that I refuse to try searching for logic or rationale at every turn and accept it as it is.
Despite not being able to drink wine, something about it has always attracted me to it.. whether it's the shapes of the bottles, or the many rules people have to follow in order to consume it, or the obnoxiously high-sounding names that they are told to memorize in order to appreciate it, or the history of each wine production that differentiates one harvest from another... I think if one asks me for a comparison, I'd liken it to classical music. They both seem to induce similar complexes in the hearts and behaviour of their lovers.
I've read a bit on the manga, and maybe this is blasphemy.. but I find I can connect with the live action better. Maybe because I feel like I can understand the motivations behind the changes they made.. tatoyeba, the scene in Ep 1 where Shizuku declines to explain why he switches glasses. I also think that even though the Shizuku in the live action is as childish and innocent as in the manga, he is also more dignified and reckless and thoughtful.
Shitsumon desu.. do all parents treat their children this way? At least in the dramas, anyway. I've just come off a drama where a mother tells his son that he's a mistake (You're Beautiful), I'm in the middle of a drama where 3 parents literally scramble over each other to win Worst Parent of the Year with the mother also telling her son that he's a mistake (Mary Stayed Out All Night)... and now this? There's a lot of parent-to-children: "I made this mess and I want you to clean it up coz it's your fault" theme being used in drama plots, isn't it? Too much of this stuff and you'll start doubting humanity's ability to propagate.
One little thing, did you know that the drama was nearly adapted to a Korean version starring Bae Yong-Joon? Too bad Korea is rather kibishii with product placement in drama/movie so the plan was dropped... but not before Keyeast bought the rights to the popular wine-themed Japanese manga though.
Story summary:
Ep 1 - Shizuku goes to his late mother's grave on the anniversary of her death only to find his dad there bearing a bottle of wine instead of a bouquet of flowers. The kid blows up at the sight of it and his dad goes away in silence. Enraged, Shizuku smashes the bottle to pieces, when suddenly the fragrance of the wine wafts towards him due to the strong wind. He is clearly affected by it. Later on we learnt that he has always been sensitive to smells.
Cut to Shinohara messing about with a bottle of wine for the customers at the place where she works. She's the type who thinks that stealing gulps of expensive merchandise from your employer is considered an effort to learn on the job. The customer is not pleased with her presentation and challenges her to a drink. Of course she won't pass up the opportunity... but what is this? The wine she selects with care tastes so bad it shocks her out of her wits. If she has any, that is. Then we found out that one of the 3 customers is actually Shizuku who immediately offers his assistance. Apparently decantering is not an easy task, despite Kame making it look so simple. I wonder if our 'teh tarik' guys can perform it with ease too. The techniques certainly look similar. The customers are pleased and Shinohara gets to keep her job for awhile longer.
Shizuku turns out to be an employee in the beer division of his company. So he hates wine but still wants to work in an intoxicating environment, eh? That's denial for ya. He finds out that he's been transferred to the wine division,, much to his annoyance. He takes a phone call from his dad's lawyer and is told that his dad has died. Apparently he's been sick with liver cancer for 3 years and he is the only one who isn't told about it, courtesy of his dad's specific instruction. Nice work, daddy-o.
Suddenly he's crammed with all the info on his supposed inheritance...bla bla bla... and oh, you have a brother who's just got adopted a week before your dad died. Huh? Your inheritance? Technically it's not yours yet coz you have to fight your onii-chan for it. Hello? Not interested, capiche? But his dad's lawyer and, for some reason I still can't fathom, his adopted brother (Issei) can't let him off the hook, despite him protesting about how he won't ever ever ever ever drink wine ever, and forces him to drink the wine his father has prepared for Round 0 of the quest: the winner will get to live in the gloomy mansion all by himself. Shizuku takes a sniff and the glass falls from his hand to break into a million pieces on the floor, splashing the precious liquid in all directions. With that, he just runs the heck outta there, straight into our resident irritating biatch, Maki-san.
Issei, in his arrogant way, explains the wine to the lawyer and writes down the name and year of the wine he has just drunk.. and of course he's right on the money. He's the genius wine critic after all. Shizuku, being young and curious, is naturally intrigued with the terms of the inheritance. Even the name invokes a sense of mystery and the promise of deep fulfillment: Kami no Shizuku. Hence the title of this drama.
Shinohara, like all the jdorama heroines before her, stalks Shizuku and pesters him to teach her the decantering technique he previous employs. Then, most probably because a jdorama heroine must be a scatterbrain in order for the hero to shine, she forgets all about her request to study from him as soon as she sees a restaurant that serves delicious food. Likely she's gone there before. They find that it's closed for 'preparation' but that won't stop our duo. Anyway, I find it icky that the father and daughter can show their animosity so openly in front of strangers.
So Issei and Maki-san have a kinky relationship, in which he pours wine into her mouth until it drips right into her bathrobe-wrapped cleavage, and Shinohara, in her scatterbrained way, pesters Shizuku to help save the restaurant. Why? Why would you care if the restaurant is going to be closed down, Shinohara-san? You don't even know anyone from there. She's a good-hearted girl who is carelessly stepping over the boundary to become a meddling do-gooder, dragging Shizuku with her. Shizuku is in on the plan for a different reason as the person whose lethal review on the restaurant in his regular column is none other than Issei. So you've been hiding your combative spirit under that boyish smile of yours, Shizu-kun? Shizu-Shino find an eccentric old man (or rather, he finds them) who lives in a tent and survives mainly on the wine he has buried around the place.
The decantering technique is used once again and it's happy-ending for the daddy-daughter pair with her immediate employment as the sommelier-in-training. Wine brings people happiness.. THE END.
Ooops, apparently it's not over yet as they still haven't solved the mystery of the wine in Round 0. Am I seriously going to summarize all the episodes despite knowing that no one would bother reading any of it anyway? *THINKS* ... na ah. From now on... I'm just going to concentrate on the part where I'm very interested in. The wines.. and Kame-sama, of course. Later.
The plot is predictable.. I pretty much could guess who wins the challenge up to Ep 4 (yes.. even the result for the first try on the 3rd Apostle), but the characters make it a compelling story. And instead of finding the heroine annoying, as I find most jdorama heroines are, I keep squeeing over her cuteness that at times I even forgot to look in Kame's direction. I can even appreciate Tomine Issei's psychotic madness over his wine. The scene with him tasting the 2nd Apostle mixed with his own blood was fascinating (somehow, my own sentence reminds me of Sunako of Perfect Girl Evolution.. LOL). The only person I have this "urusai naaa" feeling for is Maki. Even though I know it's impossible, I wish she'd go away from Ep5 onwards so I can concentrate better.
Since this is, as I've said... my RAD corner, there won't be screencaps of the dorama. And since it gets such violently bad reviews on pretty much everything from the cast to the plot (what plot?) to pretty much everything, I doubt you can find screencaps of it anywhere either. I'm one of those (probably rare) people who enjoy the super-boring Bartender anime so perhaps that will help explain where I come from when I talk about how much I love the drama so far. Because the story was built on such a fantastical premise, it helps that I refuse to try searching for logic or rationale at every turn and accept it as it is.
Despite not being able to drink wine, something about it has always attracted me to it.. whether it's the shapes of the bottles, or the many rules people have to follow in order to consume it, or the obnoxiously high-sounding names that they are told to memorize in order to appreciate it, or the history of each wine production that differentiates one harvest from another... I think if one asks me for a comparison, I'd liken it to classical music. They both seem to induce similar complexes in the hearts and behaviour of their lovers.
I've read a bit on the manga, and maybe this is blasphemy.. but I find I can connect with the live action better. Maybe because I feel like I can understand the motivations behind the changes they made.. tatoyeba, the scene in Ep 1 where Shizuku declines to explain why he switches glasses. I also think that even though the Shizuku in the live action is as childish and innocent as in the manga, he is also more dignified and reckless and thoughtful.
Shitsumon desu.. do all parents treat their children this way? At least in the dramas, anyway. I've just come off a drama where a mother tells his son that he's a mistake (You're Beautiful), I'm in the middle of a drama where 3 parents literally scramble over each other to win Worst Parent of the Year with the mother also telling her son that he's a mistake (Mary Stayed Out All Night)... and now this? There's a lot of parent-to-children: "I made this mess and I want you to clean it up coz it's your fault" theme being used in drama plots, isn't it? Too much of this stuff and you'll start doubting humanity's ability to propagate.
One little thing, did you know that the drama was nearly adapted to a Korean version starring Bae Yong-Joon? Too bad Korea is rather kibishii with product placement in drama/movie so the plan was dropped... but not before Keyeast bought the rights to the popular wine-themed Japanese manga though.
Story summary:
Ep 1 - Shizuku goes to his late mother's grave on the anniversary of her death only to find his dad there bearing a bottle of wine instead of a bouquet of flowers. The kid blows up at the sight of it and his dad goes away in silence. Enraged, Shizuku smashes the bottle to pieces, when suddenly the fragrance of the wine wafts towards him due to the strong wind. He is clearly affected by it. Later on we learnt that he has always been sensitive to smells.
Cut to Shinohara messing about with a bottle of wine for the customers at the place where she works. She's the type who thinks that stealing gulps of expensive merchandise from your employer is considered an effort to learn on the job. The customer is not pleased with her presentation and challenges her to a drink. Of course she won't pass up the opportunity... but what is this? The wine she selects with care tastes so bad it shocks her out of her wits. If she has any, that is. Then we found out that one of the 3 customers is actually Shizuku who immediately offers his assistance. Apparently decantering is not an easy task, despite Kame making it look so simple. I wonder if our 'teh tarik' guys can perform it with ease too. The techniques certainly look similar. The customers are pleased and Shinohara gets to keep her job for awhile longer.
Shizuku turns out to be an employee in the beer division of his company. So he hates wine but still wants to work in an intoxicating environment, eh? That's denial for ya. He finds out that he's been transferred to the wine division,, much to his annoyance. He takes a phone call from his dad's lawyer and is told that his dad has died. Apparently he's been sick with liver cancer for 3 years and he is the only one who isn't told about it, courtesy of his dad's specific instruction. Nice work, daddy-o.
Suddenly he's crammed with all the info on his supposed inheritance...bla bla bla... and oh, you have a brother who's just got adopted a week before your dad died. Huh? Your inheritance? Technically it's not yours yet coz you have to fight your onii-chan for it. Hello? Not interested, capiche? But his dad's lawyer and, for some reason I still can't fathom, his adopted brother (Issei) can't let him off the hook, despite him protesting about how he won't ever ever ever ever drink wine ever, and forces him to drink the wine his father has prepared for Round 0 of the quest: the winner will get to live in the gloomy mansion all by himself. Shizuku takes a sniff and the glass falls from his hand to break into a million pieces on the floor, splashing the precious liquid in all directions. With that, he just runs the heck outta there, straight into our resident irritating biatch, Maki-san.
Issei, in his arrogant way, explains the wine to the lawyer and writes down the name and year of the wine he has just drunk.. and of course he's right on the money. He's the genius wine critic after all. Shizuku, being young and curious, is naturally intrigued with the terms of the inheritance. Even the name invokes a sense of mystery and the promise of deep fulfillment: Kami no Shizuku. Hence the title of this drama.
Shinohara, like all the jdorama heroines before her, stalks Shizuku and pesters him to teach her the decantering technique he previous employs. Then, most probably because a jdorama heroine must be a scatterbrain in order for the hero to shine, she forgets all about her request to study from him as soon as she sees a restaurant that serves delicious food. Likely she's gone there before. They find that it's closed for 'preparation' but that won't stop our duo. Anyway, I find it icky that the father and daughter can show their animosity so openly in front of strangers.
So Issei and Maki-san have a kinky relationship, in which he pours wine into her mouth until it drips right into her bathrobe-wrapped cleavage, and Shinohara, in her scatterbrained way, pesters Shizuku to help save the restaurant. Why? Why would you care if the restaurant is going to be closed down, Shinohara-san? You don't even know anyone from there. She's a good-hearted girl who is carelessly stepping over the boundary to become a meddling do-gooder, dragging Shizuku with her. Shizuku is in on the plan for a different reason as the person whose lethal review on the restaurant in his regular column is none other than Issei. So you've been hiding your combative spirit under that boyish smile of yours, Shizu-kun? Shizu-Shino find an eccentric old man (or rather, he finds them) who lives in a tent and survives mainly on the wine he has buried around the place.
The decantering technique is used once again and it's happy-ending for the daddy-daughter pair with her immediate employment as the sommelier-in-training. Wine brings people happiness.. THE END.
Ooops, apparently it's not over yet as they still haven't solved the mystery of the wine in Round 0. Am I seriously going to summarize all the episodes despite knowing that no one would bother reading any of it anyway? *THINKS* ... na ah. From now on... I'm just going to concentrate on the part where I'm very interested in. The wines.. and Kame-sama, of course. Later.
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