The top J-actresses appear to have a stranglehold in the audience love for the past decade and probably even earlier almost 15 years. A top J-news publication held a poll of viewers to pick their top J-actress of 2022. To no surprise Ayasa Haruka continues her perch in the top spot followed by Aragaki Yui second and Nagasawa Masami rounding … Continue reading →
The first movie trailer is out for Confidence Man JP: Princess, the next installment of the wildly popular over-the-top and endearing con man story with Nagasawa Masami as the Dako, the high flying grifter of many faces and talents. I watched the movie set in HK recently on the plane and was so entertained, but there is also the original … Continue reading →
Sorry this post is a few months late but I didn’t have the chance to watch it in the Japan theaters and only caught it last week on a long trans-Pacific flight but holy schmoly was it hella entertaining. I’m talking about Kingdom, not the Korean drama with zombies but the Japanese popular shonen manga of the same name adapted … Continue reading →
It’s hard being the most famous commercial star in Japan since every project starring Kimura Takuya is scrutinized for whether it conforms with his past string of successes or a sign that his star is waning with a less than stellar reception. KimuTaku’s dramas nearly double his movie projects his his most recently released detective movie Masquerade Hotel has turned … Continue reading →
More character posters are out for the highly anticipated summer Japanese movie live-action adaptation of popular shonen manga Gintama (Silver Soul). The first set of movie posters released last month were of the three main characters – Oguri Shun as the silver haired samurai Sataka Gintoki, Suda Masaki as his colleague Shimura Shinpachi, and Hashimoto Kanna as the red haired … Continue reading →
All my gushing over In A Good Way on Friday nights makes it seem like the only TW-drama airing that night but there is actually The Pursuit of Happiness with Sonia Sui and Tony Yang over on GTV that just ended last Friday. TPoH was from the production team behind the popular hit In Time With You with Ariel Lin … Continue reading →
It’s been four long years since Yamashita Tomohisa graced the screen in a Fuji TV Getsuku (Monday@9) when he stole my heart in Buzzer Beat, which to this day remains one of the best dramas at capturing the heady days and nights of Summer. He returns next Monday to Fuji TV with Summer Nude, which follows the time slot vacated … Continue reading →
I like to think the higher-ups at Fuji TV took a look at its upcoming line up and realized that Summer was coming and it needed to let loose and have some fun. Right now its Getsuku (Monday@9) time slot is filled by the high profile Galileo 2 (with Fukuyama Masaharu back but the leading lady got sacked for a … Continue reading →
Sometimes a mega ad campaign works wonders to gain brand recognition. A few years ago, Shiseido got Oguri Shun, Eita, Tsumabuki Satosi, and Miura Haruma together to hawk its line of hair car products called Uno Fog Bar. See, I’m not even a guy, and I don’t live in Japan, but I know that product thanks to a totally awesome … Continue reading →
Sometimes drama castings are so unbelievable I need to stop for a moment to even process the pairing. This so shocking I don’t even know where to start. Nagasawa Masami is currently in Taiwan for a long stay filming a TW-drama co-starring Blue Lan. Yes, you heard that right. It’s a 13-episode CTS adaptation of a Japanese manga called Gangster … Continue reading →
