dangermousie | Largely about my mad love for Mukodono

If there are a lot of better things than waking up after an eight-hour sleep on the plane, munching on almond crush pocky and grape juice, and starting your rewatch of Pride, I have yet to experience them.

I always adore flying: both being on the plane and in the connecting terminals. It's a feeling that normal course of life has been indefinitely suspended and that you are free of any past, future, connections, obligations, or anything. It always puts me into a good mood.

Sadly, I have failed to discover any magazines of sexy Japanese celebrities (though I did discover a poster of Oguri Shun hawking green tea. Only my non-existent Japanese prevented me from being the weirdo who would ask the sales clerk whether I could buy it. It would gave given her something to talk over dinner: the freaky foreigner). Notwithstanding that, Narita remains my favorite airport. Not only did I have omerice for dinner (eeee!), they have a glorious invention known as 'day rooms': $19 for two hours and you get a teeny room with a bed and a shower and a wake-up call. My idea of heaven.

Anyway, am now in Perth, and preparing to spend the day sleeping, working my way through the remaining pockys, and watching Pride.

But most of the post will not be about that. Most of the post will be about my newly-finished darling, Mukodono. I inhaled episodes 5-12 on the flight, alternately laughing a bit too loudly (I tried to muffle it, I truly did) or getting ridiculously sobby. I wish to say it was jetlag or lack of sleep that turned me into such a bipolar mess, but that would be lying.

Mukodono is the rare drama, for me, that manages to balance gut-bustingly hilarious and quite sad equally well, sometimes within the space of minutes (I guess akin to Yu's on a dime transformations from cool superstar to dorky spouse and vice-versa). I am thinking, for example, of the episode which is in part set at hot springs, and how it goes from the hilarity of the bathing (with hapless Yu flashing the ladies by mistake, LOL) and the loudness of the birthday party, to the angst of how Sakura got her burn scar and the family's method for coping with it, and Yu and Sakura's Dad drinking and talking.

Another thing I adored was how well-written it was, big 'explosions' foreshadowed by little ones. Yu going on a rampage and beating the crap out of the paparazzi, not caring the damage it would do his career (oh boy, I was cheering) is really foreshadowed in the ep where he was defending Satsuki from that sleazy sponsor: he really lost his temper and pinned the man against the wall, growling 'you wanted to see the real me?' Mmmmm. I must have antisocial tendencies because I thought that was hot.

Or the fact that despite putting her best face on it, Sakura is bothered that she can't admit that she is married to Yu, publically. It's the little things, like her act of 'ownership/reclamation' when she draws glasses on the sexy cover picture of him of his photobook where he is every inch the star (side note: if they were selling this photobook, I'd so buy it). And yes, it's sort of resolved when she visits her mother at the cemetery, and screams out for the world to hear that she is married to Yu, and Yu is actually there and he begged off his tons of committments to be there for her on her Mom's deathday (and there is hugging and kissing!), but it's not resolved entirely, and I think it would keep nagging her more and more if it wasn't for the ending, where the marriage is revealed and it all can be in the open.

I really do think Yu is my newest drama boyfriend. In some ways, he is very much like Tamaki from Ouran High School Host Club: he is extremely emotionally open (even vulnerable) and warm-hearted and not in the least worldly, and in some ways a total not grown-up. But, just like Tamaki, he can be very perceptive and grown-up when it counts, with Sakura's family and Sakura herself. Because he never had a family, he prizes hers so much. I think that is why it throws him so off-kilter when the whole mess with the paparazzi happens and he beats up Masaki and gets arrested: he loves performing and he loves his family and the two sides being so head-on and both imploding is more than he can take. He isn't really hardened enough for that sort of thing.

I also liked how the situation with Sakura's brother was handled. Yeah, the evil paparazzi Masaki turning out to be Sakura's brother was a drama thing (but OTOH, he wouldn't have been able to get in-depth info otherwise) but what I loved is that at the end, there is no miraculous reconciliation with hugs. The most is that he is now going to come to the family once a year, for Mother's deathday. Because, even if Yu did shame him into being a bone-marrow donor for his little nephew, the fact still remains Masaki is a failure as a human being and caused his whole family a huge amount of grief, not to mention Sakura's divorce (oh, and he put Yu through total hell and the Arais do consider him part of the family now).

I also liked how they did the separation between Yu and Sakura and the time-leap, so beloved of dramas. Because, let's face it, end of career or not, or shock state or not, not only were Yu and Sakura crazy about each other, they are both lovely, unselfish people, so the only way they would have split up is Sakura's belief that their being together is hurting people (and that is the only rationale Yu would be able to accept, though I think she might have had a tougher fight on her hands if he wasn't in such a state of shock from everything).

Actually, that was my favorite scene (you know me and my love of angst), when the Arais 'kidnap' the still borderline catatonic Yu from his hotel room and take him to meet Sakura, and he runs there and there is clutching and she tells him not to let go, and then tells him they should break up. And he steps back a pace and goes 'I beg your pardon?' Oh, woobies, angst!!!!!

I loved the happy ending though, with his music comeback, and his declaration of his love for her and her family, in public, and saying that he has to be both (the husband private dork type person, and the polished entertainer) and the whole family coming there, and Sakura too, and the whole 'okairi/tadaima' thing and the hugging and clutching and happiness!

Also, I liked the whole thing about him with glasses, like a superman/clark kent thing. Not that is isn't recognizable in glasses, but I think a lot of it goes with his own sense of identity. It's pretty significant that when he marriage disintegrates and he is at the grave of Sakura's mother, and the only thing left for him is to be Sakuraba Yuichiro, the superstar (if his fans still want him, that is), he throws away his glasses.

Btw, just as well his manager was a caring, if eccentric, father-figure. Yu is so nice and unworldly, I could totally see him having an interesting time in Johnny's :P Since Nagase Tomoya is in Johnny's (breaking rules by being not only tall, but actually looking very masculine :P) let's hope he is a bit worldlier and together than his avatar in Mukodono. LOL.

Hmmm, other things. I loved that Yu and Sakura were married for most of this. They were such a healthy couple too, in all sorts of little things, her cooking his favorite food or what not. My favorite 'normal spousal moment' was at the end of some ep where they are in bed at night and are talking about children in general and Yu mentions he would like some sometime and then he asks her if he can come over (to her side of the bed) and she grins and says yes, and he moves over under the blanket and the camera pans away. SQUEE.

I think, in a lot of ways, this is a drama that would not culturally translate well into American context, btw. Not just because the concept of a star having to hide he is married in order not to lose fans is not conceivable outside of Asian or Bollywood context (I remember Kimura Takuya's announcement of his marriage which came across as an apology, and I am completely boggled by the insanity of it all). We are used to our celebrities being serial monagamists at best or male/female sluts at worst. Same goes for Yu's career being destroyed, temporarily, because he roughed up a paparazzi. Back in the US, that's a matter-of-course.

No, I think what would be hard to translate is the importance of family to the whole story. Mukodono is as much, if not more, about Yu's integration and relationships with Sakura's family and the family love, as it is about Yu and Sakura as the OTP. Coming from somewhere where extended families are both close and important, I loved that, but I think that would be considered an anomaly in a Western context, a lot of the times.

Hmm, a few miscelanneous thoughts to round this up:

1. Oh God, Nagase Tomoya. How hot are you? He is the only Japanese actor, except for Takeshi Kaneshiro (and occasionally Fujiki Naohito), where I kinda keep blinking and staring and not believing my eyes, and where from the first moment I see them, I am completely smitten with the wave of HOT. (I adore Kimura Takuya, but it's his charisma and presence: when I saw his pictures, he did not come across as this purely gorgeous thing at all. And I love Yamapi and younger Takki, but they come across as boys, which is something else entirely).

2. Normally I don't care if the drama actors also happen to be pop idols, but here, as with Full House, the fact that Yu, the pop idol, is played by Nagase Tomoya, a pop idol, adds a layer of deliciousness. I wonder if the producers saved a ton of money by not hiring extras to play devoted fangirl crowds, but by letting real-life fangirls know Nagase Tomoya is going to be performing a single, they can show up if they want :)

3. Much as I love the toothbrush song, surely this wouldn't be the only song in existence which Yu would perform (especially since they keep talking about him writing more and more songs). I do the thing I always do in such circustances and pretend they are all different songs and the toothbrush song is just a shorthand abbreviation for all of them. It would be unreasonable, probably, to eexpect TPTB to order a whole album of songs for Nagase Tomoya just for the drama.

Phew, was this long or what?

And now I am off to watch Pride and fall in love all over again. There is nothing I don't love about that drama: Aki's first glimpse of Halu (herself a complete alien in the sports-pumped and/or fangirlish crowd), Halu's eyes when he sees Aki in a bar *drowns in them*, and going 'this is bad, she looks like someone from last century', the goalie's sweetness, the guy-bonding, the sheer absurdity of Halu staging to be beaten up just so he could get Aki's email making Aki laugh. Everything.

I know I owe everyone replies!

Current Mood: chipper

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

timescout.livejournal.com

Heh, what a coincidence - I just finished it too! ;P It's almost 5am and I'm going to be dead, totally, utterly DEAD tomorrow (or today, more likely) but I just had to see how it would end. So much for not mainlining on any drama for a while. *add sarcasm here*

What a lovely rec... and spot on. Can't find anything to add, sorry. ;)

Have fun with Aki and Halu! Ah, 'Halu' always makes me giggle a bit as it means want, lust, desire etc in Finnish. *g*

From:

She's a mite whimsical in the brainpan.

Largely about my mad love for Mukodono

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