Saturday, August 06, 2005

Jdorama review: Dragon Sakura ep 1

Man, has this been a slow week for jdoramas. Anyways lets get right down to Dragon Zakura.

GTO, the fish out of water tale of a former biker gang member who became a teacher if IMHO, one of the best doramas ever. Since then, I've seen two similar type doramas being Salaryman Kintaro (biker turned Salaryman) and Gokusen (yakuza turned teacher). Kintaro is pretty good with minor flaws while I found Gokusen being funny in the 1st half of the eps but boring in 2nd halves.

Now comes Dragon Zakura, starring one of my fav actors Abe Hiroshi as Sakuragi Kenji, a former biker gang member turned jobless lawyer turned teacher. My enthusiasm for this series is also due to my similarities with the character. No, I was not in a biker gang. I'm talking about good looks and being unemployed lawyers.

The basic plot of the series is that he has to save this 'baka-school' from bankruptcy by getting 5 students into Todai (Tokyo Uni). Finally, A school drama about teaching. After all, wtf did GTO and Yankumi actually teach? On a side note, I didn't know lawyers in Japan get some sort of badge so that ppl knew they lawyers. They must really look up to their lawyers since they call them sensei as well. If I went to Japan, would all the cute girls have to address me as Akiramike-sensei? hhhmmm.....

Hasegawa Kyoko from Staa No Koi and the nurse from Itsumo Futari De stars as the lone hot female teacher who is against Sakuragi Kenji but of course come to her senses later. Unfortunately, as can be seen from the picture below, she does not look as hot as in her other dramas.

Someone from TBS change her hairstyle back pls and reduce the freaking make-up. Only 4 eps have aired in Japan so there's still time. She was so cute in Staa no Koi and hot in Itsumo Futari de. (ok, maybe the nurse uniform had a lot to do with hot)

Here's the main girl played by Nagasawa Masami. I wonder what intentions does our hero have, paying her 10,000 yen just to stand. I'm sure my fellow sukebes have plenty of ideas. You just have to watch to find out.

I see hot chicks. Ok, she's not that hot. It can't be helped that since the school is a baka school, all the girls have to have super heavy makeup and look slutty.

This is your typical best friend of main actress character. If only the chicks in this show were cuter.

Damn, how come I never did this type of stuff in high school? How can they glorify this type of acts on prime time national tv? Will there be an increase of skirt-flipping in Japanese high schools after this? Me, I'm just hoping to see a pantsu shot soon. :)

On the whole ep 1 is ok. The visual appeal from the female cast is lacking, especially compared with H2. GTO is THE high school dorama that every other high school dorama not in the Kinpachi sensei style will be compared to. I'd be happy if Dragon Zakura turned out to be a watchable series but Abe Hiroshi is a good actor so fingers crossed.

Props to pbfansubs for subbing ep 1.

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