It’s Fall which means time for the annual J-dorama homage to the Crown Prince that is Kimura Takuya. I’ve been meh with all his recent year doramas from Priceless to Nankyoku Tairiku to Tsuki no Koibito, but there is no telling when KimuTaku may pull a rabbit out of the hat so it’s always with a hopeful heart I await his yearly return to the small screen. Premiering next Sunday on October 13th is his first foray into science fiction on television (he did the live-action movie Space Battleship Yamato three years ago) as well as playing two roles. I joke that Japan will not let KimuTaku retire until he cosplays every major character type and this time he’s tackling playing a robot which he hasn’t done beofre. In Ando Lloyd ~ A.I. Knows Love? (Ando Lloyd = Japanese pronunciation of android), KimuTaku plays a genius physicist Matsushima Reiji with a beautiful and loving fiancee Ando Asahi played by Shibasaki Kou. He discovers a worm hole theory that leads him to believe that he and his fiancee will soon die. He later does die in a plane crash and soon his grieving fiancee finds herself face-to-face with a guy named Lloyd who looks just like Reiji but claims to be a robot from the future sent to protect her. This whole thing essentially boils down to a time-traveling A.I. (artificial intelligence) love story with a mystery to solve. KimuTaku and Kou are established veteran actors with acting chops and charisma to bring this far-out concept to life, not to mention chemistry galore since they starred in Good Luck!! together over 10 years ago. This thing will make it or break it with the directing and writing, which consists of the director behind Love Shuffle, Hana Yori Dango 2, Smile, and Ikemen desu ne, while the screenwriter is one who wrote SPEC: First Blood that has spawned the popular universe of SPEC movies and television special. I really want this dorama to be good for various reasons: if its good then I finally have something different and fun to watch, more KimuTaku on TV, and I’m rooting for ratings vindication for Kou since I’m still pissed at the producers of Galileo 2 for firing Kou because she was “too old” and replacing her with a young Yoshitaka Yuriko who can barely act and has a fraction of the charisma of Kou. I think KimuTaku’s dorama ratings seem to rise and fall with the length and wildness of his mane, in which case this return to liony-maned goodness likely means Ando Lloyd ~ A.I. Knows Love? may just be a hit. We’ll find out next Sunday. Continue reading →