mokudekiru

Buzzer Beat: The show that seems to think I should take Yamapi seriously (yeah, like that’s happening anytime soon!)

The story of the first episode, told in pictures…

Yamapi is a 24-year old salaryman, on the basketball team (at his company).

Their team colors are delightful and masculine (I promise I did not photoshop this.)

The delightfully adorable Aibu Saki is his girlfriend. And, a cheerleader. I’m glad to see she has stopped dating robots like she did last summer. Whoops.

But clearly, Yamapi is a very insecure dude. Especially about his relationship with Saki. But luckily, we can be assured that he will not end up alone. Through a series of coincidental run-ins, he meets a violinist (Kitagawa Keiko). One night she sees him practicing, and appreciates the *rhythm* of his *basketball* skills. No, I’m serious.

But during a recital, she breaks a violin string. AWKWARD. Also, the recital was happening in parallel with the basketball game of pinkness above.

Yamapi has great matching pants & bag. True fashion sense, man.

Yamapi’s mom is the ever-wise and amazing Maya Miki. I’ve never seen her be anything other than fabulous. She did give Aibu Saki great advice last year about that robot boyfriend, so I’m sure she’ll advise everyone well again this time.

Buzzer Beat appears to have basketball as a backdrop, but it’s clearly not *about* basketball (thank goodness) — more in a Seventeen Again kind of way, where Yamapi=Zac Efron is dissatisfied with his life, and has something to do with basketball, and cute hair. (No, actually, Yamapi has weird hair in this show.)

Episode 1 aired this week on Fuji TV at 9PM (not that I was there). Now, this means it’s a 月9 (getsu-ku) drama. (Japanese language explanation– 月 is the first kanji in “Monday” and the 9 refers to the time). In general, this is *the* slot to have a drama with high ratings. I suppose everyone comes home Monday night and just needs to get their drama on (though, I don’t really think Japan has a case of the Mondays, not compared to the US anyway).

There is a Wikipedia page (Japanese) that’s a list of which dramas have been 月9 dramas since the late 80’s. Extremely successful 月9 dramas have included Love Generation, Long Vacation, Yamato Nadeshiko, and others.

One interesting thing is that last season’s 月9 drama was actually Konkatsu! which had the lowest rated 月9 episode ever. Hopefully Buzzer Beat fares a bit better, and I do love Fuji-TV.

Apparently this is what basketball guys do in the locker room.

And one last lovely picture:
Yamapi shows his matching skills again, as he selects a t-shirt, a girl’s bicycle, and graffiti in the same shade.