Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Boys Over Flowers

Boys over Flowers is the third television drama adaptation of the popular Japanese manga Hana Yori Dango. It is a drama and romantic comedy series created by Kamio Yoko.

It stared Geo Hye Sun as Geum Jan Di; and Lee Min Ho, Kim Hyun-joong, Kim Bum, and Kim Joon as F4 Goo Joon Pyo, Yoon Ji Hoo, So Yi Jung, and Song Woo Bin respectively.

This is a story of an average girl Jan Di who met the four richest and most spoiled and powerful boys known as the F4. Jan Di who stands by her decision to fight the F4 due their bullying acts became the only one who stood up to F4 specially with their leader Jun Pyo. Eventually, as Jan Di spends more time with F4 Jun Pyo develops feelings towards her but Jan Di's eyes is into someone else. But as Jan Di teaches Jun Pyo a lot of things Jun Pyo also teaches Jan Di to learn to open herself to his love as well.

I can't compare Boys over Flowers to other adaptation as I didn't really had the time to watch the other two before. I've seen some of the episodes of the Taiwanese and Japanese Series but I didn't watched the whole thing. Personally, I love watching this adapatation than the others due to the casting as I found the Korean cast more high school like than the cast of other adaptation, plus the fast roll of the story. With the cast I love Lee Min Ho and Kim Bum. They have different charm that you will love to watch.

There are a lot of reasons to watch Boys over Flowers, first the love story of Jan Di and Jun Pyo; its progress and the problems that they will encounter. Plus the love story of Jan Di's best friend Ga Eul and one of the members of F4 Yi Jung.

Sunday, November 2, 2008

Gokusen Series

Gokusen series revolves with the story of a granddaughter of a Yakuza boss. She's been with her father since her parents died and that became Kumiko as the next in line to head the family business as "Ojou".

Kumiko's life long dream is to become a teacher. Her grandfather approves it but the others in the family wanted her to take over and become their next boss.

Gokusen Series 1:

Yamaguchi Kumiko (Nakama Yukie) is a young, idealistic teacher. She enters Shirokin Gakuen and become the homeroom teacher of 3-D. Section 3-D is the hardest to maintain class in the school. The principal let her to be their teacher as long as no one will ever know about her family background, her being the 4th generation to the Ooedp Group. The students in this section have multi-colored hair, sloppy uniforms, absolutely NO respect to her.

Sawada Shin is the leader of the class. He is lazy but bright. He shows some interest in Yamaguchi when he become aware of her difference from other teachers. The class tried to bully her to make her quit but their attempts didn’t make anything. Yamaguchi encounter different types of students and learned about their background and help them out to graduate as a whole class. She struggle as they struggle and join them with all the pains and fun they will experience.

Eventually the class learned to respect Yamaguchi and gave her a nickname “Yankumi”.

Gokusen Series 2: (This is my favorite among the three series.)

Shirokin Gakuen has been closed. Yankumi finds herself a job as a teacher of a few kids who doesn’t really benefit with her style of teaching. Through some twist of fate she was offered a job as a teacher in Kurogin Gakuen.

She was assigned to be the advisory teacher of the delinquent 3-D class. Her previous students became angels compare to this new set of students that she’s handling. On her first day she discovered that one of her student, Odagiri Ryu (Kamenashi Kazuya) has not been going to school. And when she asked, she was told that Odagiri has caused problems in the school and that Odagiri’s father and the school had a meeting and agreed that Odagiri will not go to school but still he will graduate. Yankumi don’t like this kind of set up and so she did everything for him to go back to school not knowing that there is conflict between Odagiri Ryu (Kamenashi Kazuya) and Yabuki Hayato (Akanishi Jin). They are the best of friends that became enemies due to a misunderstanding.

The stories of the students have been revealed and lots of lessons have been shared. Such stories are from the students namely Takeda Keita (Koike Teppei), Tsuchiya Hikaru (Hayami Mokomichi), and Hyuuga Kosuke (Koide Keisuke).

Gokusen Series 3: (I like Takaki Yuya. He’s sooo Kawaii.)

Sawatari Goro (Namase Katsuhisa) told the director of Akadou High School that he had an experience on handling delinquent students. And so he was assigned to be the advisory teacher of class 3-D yet it shows that he can’t really handles those guys and so he recommend Yamaguchi Kumiko (Nakama Yukie) to be the teacher of class 3-D as he know what’s she’s capable of as they’ve been colleagues.

Sawatari Goro searched for Yankumi and he found her in a far away land waiting for a bus as she has been fired from her job as a teacher to foreign students. Sawatari and Yankumi agreed that she will be a teacher as long as she will not reveal her family background.

On her first day, she thought that Ogata Yamato (Takaki Yuya) was the leader of the class but Kazama Ren (Miura Haruma) and his gang comes in and all of the students salute on him like he is the captain of the class. She found out that Yamato and Ren has been the leaders since they are grade 1 and now they are on the same class and no one wants to come down as the leader. But, Yankumi will not settle for a class that is divided and so she did everything for the two groups unite and became one.

Monday, October 15, 2007

One Litre Of Tears


One Litre of Tears

"To be able to smile and tell everyone this; i have, atleast, cried one litre of tears. "

A heart warming Japanese Series. A person with shallow tears will definitely cry with this series. This is about a 15 years old girl that was diagnose with an incurable disease. Her name was Aya; smart, love sports (basketball), good with everyone, and loved by everyone young lady.

Aya didn't easily accepts her disease just like others who was also diagnose with some diseases. But with the help of her family, friends, and everyone that understand and believe in her she accepts it and sees life differently. After 10 years of suffering, she died at the age of 25.

This is a series that will definitely touches your heart. And gave you courage to live on and make the most out of it. A series that might change the way you see the life in front of you.

Some Memorable Quotes from the Series:
  • I really don't want to say things such as "I want to go back to how things were before". I recognize how i am right now, and I will continue to live on.
  • Even though I have been hurt before by those heartless glares this also helped me to understand that around me, there still exists some gentle glares. Therefore, I definitely won't run away. That's what I'll do. Definitely. Always.
  • The quiet classroom after class; The view outside the window; the wooden floor of the corridoors; Talking in homeroom; I like all these. I'm likely to only cause trouble for people and it might not really do me any good to stay here. Even if it's like that, I still want to stay here. Because this is the place where I am.
  • To be able to smile and tell everyone this; i have, at least, cried one litre of tears. Therefore, even when i leave this school, I definitely won't think that some things have ended.
  • If you look up at the sky after falling down the blue sky is also today stretching limitlessly and smiles at me...I'm alive.
  • For those people who are really listening, they will definitely understand.
  • People shouldn't dwell on the past. It's enough to try your best in all that you're doing now.
  • Reality is too cruel, too brutal. I don't even have the right to dream. As I think about the future, the tears will come out again.
  • Where should I head towards? Even if there isn't answer, I'll feel better by writing it down. I've looked for a pair of helping hands but I couldn't feel them, couldn't see them. I only face towards darkness and hear hear the sounds of my hopeless screams.
Poems by Ikeuchi Aya from One Litre of Tears:

The Other Side of Suffering

Everyone feels pain
But surely, after suffering satisfaction will arrive
Even with sports; studying or other ordeals with life,
It's like that for everyone
If we can beat the pain, on the other side
a rainbow of happiness awaits us.
That will definitely become a treasure
Lets believe in that.

Step by Step

When my existence seems to disappear
I will look for the place where I can do the best I can
From now on, I'll deliberate slowly
I won't be impatient
I won't be greedy
I won't give up
Because everyone takes things step by step