One of these things is not like the other~
Something that has always perplexed me is why anime fans don’t watch more Jdramas. I’m sure this could be for any number of reasons but many dramas are based off anime (Hana Yori Dango, Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, GTO, Nana, etc.) and some seriously seem to have been animes in a past life. That’s where Samurai High School comes in. It’s got all that you ever wanted in an anime ridiculous faces, great acting, awkward shots focusing on things that aren’t important and the absurdest characters in strange places. Yet still these two worlds will never meet eye to eye I suppose.
In that way it’s kind of like the plot for this show. The main character Mochizuki Kotaro (played by Miura Haruma, who also was in Gokusen 3) is an unsuspecting and frankly average high schooler who shares the name of his ancestor, a heroic general from the Sengoku period. While for normal people this would just be an omen of good luck when Mochizuki meets a strange librarian things start to change. When trying to save a classmate he bumps his head and turns into his samurai ancestor!
It’s all in this book! I swear!
The first episode starts out with Mochizuki in a battlefield in Sengoku Japan, about 400 years ago when samurai were overtaking something in Osaka. I’m the first to admit I don’t like history very much. He’s woken up in class and tries to explain himself but he’s in math class so there’s very little reason to be dreaming about history. As a punishment the teacher assigns him a paper on the Campaign he was dreaming about. On his way home some girls harass him for money but evetually he heads home. On the way he sees a library sign that leads him to believe he can find books about history in there.
This smile makes me smile. Oh ho ho ho~
The creepy librarian woman sees his name of the paper to sign out books and brings him a very special book which glows. Inside the book is the tale of a boy the same age (17) and same name as Mochizuki.
The second-hand embarrassment is so high right now.
When he gets home instead of writing his paper he pretends to do samurai moves with a ruler. At that point he gets a call from his best friend Ai who sees their classmate Nakamura in trouble. He does what any good samurai would and runs to the rescue.
Yanki’s are pretty bad ass but even I think I can take these girls. Especially if I were 6’2″…
Nakamura is kind of a helpless boy. He stutters and looks down all the time but because he’s played by Shirota Yuu (former D-boys member) I forgive him. Mochizuki is immediately scared and stutters out a bunch of nonsense. When he tries to defend himself he trips down a flight of stairs and hits his head.
Somehow as a samurai Mochizuki has perfect hair and a TON of eyeliner. Very stylish for the Sengoku era.
The bump on the head makes his ancestors personality come out. Even when we (the audience) can hear the real Mochizuki on the inside he seems powerless to make his own body move. Samurai-Mochizuki easily takes care of the three pansy girls while freeing Nakamura. He does this with the ruler that was still in his pants ^^;;. He moves in to kiss Ai but then this happens.
Warning: May explode when kissed.
He wakes up as normal Kotaro and has trouble trying to explain to Ai what happened. He doesn’t have time anyway because Nakamura has already gotten himself in trouble with those yanki girls again. This time Nakamura has let them talk him into stealing watches. Mochizuki runs to try and convince him not to do it but ends up there at just the wrong time.
Neither of these men is articulate enough to explain that three evil girls did this.
They are taken the police station, picked up by their teacher and manage to clear their names in front of the board while the girls get off scot-free. There’s a long scene of lamenting where Nakamura tells Mochizuki that they’re both weak and so they can never win at life and it’s as simple as that.
Stop moping you pretty boys this isn’t a Final Fantasy game!
When he arrives home Mochizuki’s father tells him that he is the ancestor of the samurai bearing the same name proving something that we’ve pretty much known all along. The yanki girls from before kidnap Mochizuki and Nakamura a few hours later to beat them up for some reason even though everyone got off without more than a slap on the wrist.
Look, they brought friends…
They throw Mochizuki out the window when he fights back and he bumps his head and turns into a samurai again so he can kick butt with a broom!
Becoming a samurai also puts his hair in a ponytail for some reason?
He beats all the bad guys up and the day is saved with no thanks to Nakamura because he pretty much cowered on the ground and made sad noises the whole time.
I’m trying not to read anything sexual into this but I have trouble.
♥ It’s a bromance ♥
Final Thoughts:
If you have some time and you’re out of anime (amazing but it happens) then I would definitely tell you to give this series a watch. It’s a pretty great series and there’s already has five episodes out. I had a ton of fun watching it and even my fiance kept starring at my screen to try and watch it with me. Unless I get some overwhelming response I don’t think I’ll be blogging other episodes of this but I figured maybe every now and then I’d show you guys a great Jdrama that’s anime-ish. This one gets a full 5 stars out of 5 for wild ride awesomely acted ridiculous anime-esqe comedy.
Confession Corner:
I have something to get off my chest and I won’t be able to move on until I do. I started watching this for Shirota Yuu. You do not know this about me but I am in love with the Sailor Moon Musicals and Yuu played Tuxedo Mask from 2003 to 2004 (where I fell in love with his body singing). Someday I may bring you some Sailor Moon musical reviews and recaps but until then I leave you with this picture:
22 Comments
Took a long break after watching about 25 of jdorama.com’s top 50. I’ll give this a shot.
I… can’t help but…. I must say this… PUT YOUR GUNS ON!!!
I did a paper on the Siege of Osaka that I think is referenced and could boil it down for you if you want…
Soriaaaah! *Crack* eh? eeeeeeeeeeeeeeehh?
Kinda stupid to bring back a samurai that fights with a broomstick, atleast take the iron pipe that punk dropped.
*Sigh* at first glance this dorama looks nice. However, there is some over acting (even for japanese sitcoms). Also what is the genre? slice of life, school comedy?
To me this is good entertainement, but i’m not expecting much anymore.
kinda hoped for some good sword action. *Still hoping*
Omg, i think I’ll give this a shot if I have time… And yes, the only reason why I’m gonna give this a shot is because of Yuu, except he wasn’t my favourite Tuxedo Kamen….
anyways, SERAMYU FTW
Who was your favorite then? I think Urai Kenji was my favorite even after so many musicals with Yuuta -.-
I love the gar samurai x girl moments. Kinda like tomoya and the tsundere twin in the gym closet (clannad).
“your to sudden, what are you doing, i’m not ready, well if it’s you i’m okay with it” “guy comes back to senses and is scared senseless
I love the gar samurai x girl moments. Kinda like tomoya and the tsundere twin in the gym closet (clannad).
“your to sudden, what are you doing, i’m not ready, well if it’s you i’m okay with it” “guy comes back to senses and is scared senseless
Mochizuki Kotaro… somehow the image of a little blond vampire boy who used to be a maidenly blond source blood vampire appears in my head…
AaHAA… this sort of looks hilarious. May check it out when one of my other drama series finally ends.
This just piqued my interest.
Due to constraints in my time, I generally give priority anime over j-dramas in terms of my to-watch list. The only live action which I could watch comfortably (because at times it’s hard to think how the actors/actresses _barely_ resembled their anime counterpart) was Nodame Cantabile. I’ve yet to watch Gokusen though…
…And by golly, Shirota Yuu’s the guy who played Tezuka in the live action Prince of Tennis movie! I have to watch this…
Looks interesting~ *can’t stop staring at the hot guys* xD
Jdramas are awesome. Some are way better than animes, but it is true barely anyone watches them… I don’t get why though.
What is the song at the end episode ?? please
I love this Jdrama for some reasons:
1. Miura Haruma, my ultimate crush ever, is the major character.
2. Shirota Yuu, my first ever japanese crush was also here.
I love this 2 guys i swear!
3. This show is sooo funny.
そう、ですね面白っていいだはねJドラマはねええ
I think if you come to the point where just looking anime is not enough and really start to be bored this is the point i entered jdrama (an also because i heard of freinds who look em )
because the scene isn’t that big its hard to enter for oneself and most of the time it was only live action i saw in news blog ect.
but when i started to learn / speak japanese i went to lok for better mateial movies ect to learn from ect so i found that j dramas are somethimes even better than anime ^^also because there are some good sotry idears i never saw in anime (and i saw aaaa lot) but unfortunally there are too less dramas ;P もうすぐ全部見たしまった！！大変だは、嫌だ！
ah and i forgot one good thing about the j drama scene,
you get a lot of raws and separate softsubs… even japanese softsubs.
because the japanese softsubs are faster (and ripped from tv original ones) you feel more temped to watch the drama with japanese subs and you learn japanese kanjis ^^ and to recongnize spoken japanese and get the proper understanding (sometimes subs are just not enough)
i’ve seen the whole series for this drama, its the typical j-drama like any other, where at the end of each episode, the characters says something about good values, the meaning of life etc. in a cool manner, don’t put your hopes up, because in each episode, you kinda able to expect what’s gonna happen in the end, it has no surprise factor, but i’ll give it credit because it has a cool finale.
p/s. i think the best j-drama of all time is gto, and mop girl is a revolution..check it out
is this yaoi??
NOOOOOOOOO!!!! >.<
seem’s.. interesting o_0
This show is so funny!!! especially if you understand Japanese, the old samurai way of speaking is soooo funny lolz