Waters

Starring: Oguri Shun, Hirayama Hirouki, Morimoto Ryoji, Kirishima Yusuke, Matsuo Toshinobu, Suga Takamasa, Katsurayama Shingo, Narumi Riko

Seven guys who need money start working at a host club. When they all get there, they discover that the manager of the club has run off with all their desposits. But the owner is kind and says that they can stay and work as hosts if they also run the entire venue themselves. With nothing left to lose, they decide to accept his offer. Also in the story are five women who are now successful entrepreneurs. Oguri Shun’s character knows the CEO and they had one of those friendly acquaintances/almost-lovers-but-not relationship.

Waters is your basic friendship story of several people who get thrown together randomly. The host club backdrop gives it a little spice, as well as plenty of humor, since they are all amateurs. It’s a lot of fun and Oguri Shun is really good in this one. I absolutely love the ending, though. It’s just too funny. Waters doesn’t have the most compelling storyline, but it is a definitely a fun watch.

Buy this movie: HK DVD | Korea Limited Edition

Backdancers

Starring: Hirayama Aya, hiro, Sonim, Saeko, Tanaka Kei, Hasebe Yu

The story starts out with Miyu (Hirayama Aya) and Yoshika (hiro) as high school students who love to dance. They always sneak into clubs just to dance, but one night are caught by the police and are forced to quit school. After that, they meet Juri (Hasebe Yu) and the three begin dancing as a trio. Juri is eventually scouted and debuts as the next big pop sensation. Miyu and Yoshika are brought in as back-up dancers along with Tomoe (Sonim) and Aiko (Saeko). Together they are known as the Backdancers. But what are they to do when suddenly Juri decides to retire and get married?

Although Backdancers is a friendship story, it also mixes in a bit of romance, family life, and music industry criticism. I’ve watched this movie like three or four times, but for me it doesn’t get old (or at least, it hasn’t yet). The plot is fun and interesting and the cast is great as well. They all come off as very good friends and get along really well. It’s like in romance stories, one of the most important thing is for the two leads to have good on-screen chemistry, well Backdancers has really good on-screen friendship-chemistry and that’s what makes this movie so good.

Buy this movie: HK DVD

Secret

Starring: Jay Chou, Guey Lun Mei, Anthony Wong, Tseng Kai Xuan

Jay Chou stars as Ye Xiang Lun who transfers to a music school where his father (Anthony Wong) is a teacher at. There he meets Xiao Yu (Guey Lun Mei), a mysterious and charming pianist. The two become very good friends, but everytime Xiang Lun asks anything personal about Xiao Yu, she would only say that it is a secret.

I enjoyed this sweet love story and the entire thing was very pretty to watch. Also being set at a music school, the soundtrack was really good (especially since Jay Chou is a great composer). But this movie has a lot of plot holes and unanswered questions, which if you can ignore them all, it will the movie more entertaining. Guey Lun Mei is really charming and a dream to watch and is definitely the star of the movie.

Buy this movie: HK DVD

Ao to Shiro no Mizuiro

Starring: Miyazaki Aoi, Oguri Shun, Aoi Yuu, Konishi Manami

Actually, this isn’t a movie, but a drama special. So it’s like a movie, right? Anyway, Kaede (Miyazaki Aoi) and Kasumi (Aoi Yuu) used to be best friends. But when they entered high school, Kasumi became more popular than Kaede, causing her to start bullying her ex-friend. One day, she meets new student Takumi (Oguri Shun) who is an expert at picking locks. She asks him to open the door to the school roof, but he refuses, saying that he’ll teach her how to pick locks instead.

Maybe this sounds like a friendship story, but it’s more like a bullying story. It’s rather short, clocking in at a mere 45 minutes, but it definitely accomplishes as much plot-wise as a full-length movie. The leads are all very good, you get to see a young Miyazaki Aoi, Oguri Shun, and Aoi Yuu. It’s interesting to note that they are all accomplished actors/actresses now (including Konishi Manami). There aren’t any subtitles available for this special, but it should be mostly okay, because there isn’t very much dialogue and most of the story is conveyed through body language.

Buy this movie: Japan DVD

Nodame Cantabile

Starring:
Ueno Juri as Noda Megumi aka Nodame
Tamaki Hiroshi as Chiaki Shinichi
Eita as Mine Ryutaro
Koide Keisuke as Okuyama Masumi
Mizukawa Asami as Miki Kiyora
Saeko as Saku Sakura
Uehara Misa as Tagaya Saiko
Takenaka Naoto as Franz Stresemann
Endo Yuya as Okochi Mamoru
Ibu Masato as Mine Tatsumi
Nishimura Masahiko as Tanioka Hajime
Toyohara Kosuke as Eto Kozo
Kondo Kouen as Tamaki Keiji
Sakamoto Makoto as Hashimoto Yohei
Fukushi Seiji as Kuroki Yasunori
Mukai Osamu as Kikuchi Toru
Hashizume Ryo as Kimura Tomohito

Nodame Cantabile is a Japanese drama that aired in the fall of 2006. It was broadcasted on Monday nights on Fuji TV. Based on the manga of the same name, Nodame Cantabile averaged rating of 18.79%.

Nodame Cantabile is the drama for all of us orchestra dorks (or more generally, music dorks). It takes places at Momogaoka Music Academy, focusing on the life of Chiaki Shinichi and his strange relationship with Noda Megumi, nicknamed Nodame. Chiaki is the top piano student at the Academy, as well as a talented violinist, but secretly dreams of conducting. He longs to return to Prague, where he spent his childhood, but feeling trapped in Japan because of his phobia of flying and sailing. He wonders what his future in music will be like, since one must study abroad in Europe to truly have a career as a conductor. Soon after, he transfers to the conducting division of the school.

He and Nodame meet coincidentally and she falls head over heels in love. Chiaki, however, is repulsed by Nodame since she is everything he is not - messy, dirty, and very eccentric. She is also a piano student. Though she cannot even read a piano score correctly, she is ridiculously talented and chooses to play by ear.

One day the famous conductor, Franz Stresesmann, comes to Momogaoka and requests to start a new orchestra. The students are surprised to see that the new orchestra is not made up of all the top students, but all the underachievers! Stresesmann takes Chiaki as his one and only pupil and as Chiaki begins to conduct, he realizes that this orchestra is made up of people like Nodame; talented and into the music, but cannot follow a score or the conductor. It’s the story of an up-and-coming conductor and an eccentric but talented girl who loves him.

Nodame Cantibile is one of the most hilarious dramas I’ve watched. All the characters are so full of life and totally exaggerated. A lot of the manga-actions are also translated into live-action. Like when Chiaki hits Nodame, she goes flying across the room, rolling around and everything. At first, it’s weird, but after a few of them, it becomes much more fun and it sticks out less (especially since everything is so wild).

A huge strength in this story in the uniqueness of each character…they are all very different, so there is no getting people mixed up (which is sad but happens to me sometimes). And since they’re all so different, there should be at least one character you will like. The most entertaining part of the show is the interaction between all the characters; it is so fun and energetic…sometimes I can’t understand how the actors and actresses didn’t just break out laughing with all the extremities of the script.

Even though there is a lot of slap stick comedy, there is also a huge amount of character development and two plot arcs included. I thought the cast was excellent; they all fit and looked the part.

There’s almost no reason to not watch Nodame Cantibile. Well, that’s not true. If you don’t like music, Nodame will be hard to watch (and listen!). If you don’t like comedy, there’s way too much in this story to overlook it. But that’s probably it. It’s a super fun drama with an interesting plot and relatively fast pace.

Buy the boxset: Japan Version