What a fantastic ending to a fun ride all around from the recently wrapped Fuji TV renzouku dorama 5-ji kara 9-ji made (From Five to Nine) with charismatic and gorgeous leads Yamashita Tomohisa and Ishihara Satomi. I haven’t had this much fun watching a dorama since Rich Man, Poor Woman, which coincidentally also starred Satomi. I knew my Yamapi was just wasting his god given limited yet glorious talents as a romantic dorama leading man by trying to be all serious and stuff when he’s really only good for this.

I was sad not to have time to recap this baby due to time constraints but it’s really a barrel of laughs for the most part thanks to the opposites attract hilarity of a modern English tutor and a throwback Shinto monk trying to find love, with tons of family and friends around to help and hinder their progression. A running joke was how many times the two got close to kissing but was always thwarted at the last minute, so the ending was straight out out of fairy tale fan service land as Yamapi’s Takane donned a suit for the first time in the dorama and proposed on bended knee in front of a decked out giant Christmas tree to his Junko. It ended with kisses and more, proving that when J-doramas wants to do romantic it certainly still knows how. Continue reading →