mokudekiru

About six episodes into Massugu na Otoko, it occurred to me that the best episodes were behind me, and I was only continuing to watch for Fukuda Kyoko’s fashion sense. Oh boy.

Massugu na Otoko (“Straight Man” or “Honest Man” in english), an extremely recent drama (aired Jan-March 2010 in Japan) stars Sato Ryuta as Matsushima, an incredibly honest, upstanding dude who is confronted by the existence of Narumi (Fukuda Kyoko), a cheating, mischievous girl who effectively tricks Matsushima into giving her money, free food (mostly parfaits) and, eventually, falling in love with her. Whoops!

Fukuda Kyoko has left a bad taste in my mouth since Strawberry on the Shortcake so she made the perfect pretty bad-girl. She is bitchy, she’s self-centered, she can’t hold a steady job, she had a rocky childhood, but even though she’s borderline homeless at times, she still manages to have perfect hair and makeup and a killer wardrobe. Hmmm…

Fukuda Kyoko (left) doesn’t need a roof over her head at night to maintain flawless makeup.

Sato Ryuta on the other hand, normally a pretty funny guy, had way too straight of a character for this show to be any fun. He’s great because he’s bizarre, not because he can lecture people about ideals of honesty during coffee break at work better than any other actor. His main skill in this role was being able to pull off naiveté like nobody’s business, which is pretty important, as only really naive people ACCIDENTALLY FALL IN LOVE WITH CRIMINAL WOMEN.

And then decide to raise someone else’s child for said criminal woman.

LOOK HOW HONEST HE IS: REALLY HONEST

But I guess on the inside, Massugu na Otoko is just another Upstanding Guy Meets Unconventional Girl and Falls In Love genre of drama. Let us recall: Nodame Cantabile (Nodame is freaking bizarre, and can’t keep her room clean), and Hotaru no Hikari (Hotaru definitely does not have her act together whatsoever, also does not have a clean room). In both of these other dramas, as well as in Massugu na Otoko, the girl just kinda shows up and throws herself into Upstanding Male Costar’s life, wreaking havoc on the perfect world he has constructed around himself.

The side characters were as slimy and perfect as the main two: Kanjiya Hihori played the good girl-next-door, who Sato Ryuta was SUPPOSED to be in love with. She’s just the girl next door and boy is she boring.

The girl next door could use some help with her wardrobe

And finally, we have Watabe Atsuro, the creepy ex of Narumi, who kinda just hung out with her at the bar, constantly. I guess they slept together sometimes? It wasn’t clear what his role was, because although he was unreliable theoretically, he did seem to ALWAYS SHOW UP AT THE BAR whenever she wanted. I guess she just wasn’t that into him.

Watabe is just as smiley and weird in this show as in ROOM OF KING

There was also a female bartender who seemed to exist for the sole purpose of (other than serving the occasional drink), making sexy eyes at Watabe Atsuro for no reason.

This also brings us to an important point about jdramas that will need to be eplored later: WHY DOES EVERY SHOW HAVE A FREAKING BAR IN IT!? I know they’re convenient sets to have, but it’s getting a little odd how almost every drama has a minor character who happens to own a bar that is doing so poorly that only the 3 main characters in the show ever visit said bar, and yet the bar never goes out of business and is never closed. Either something fishy is going on, or all of my friends in Japan also must own bars and I’d better get into the bar-owning business right away because it seems to run on magic and dreams and fairy dust.

Empty bars are an essential part of Japanese social life.

Sadly, as expected, Sato Ryuta manages to turn Fukuda Kyoko into a nicer, more upstanding young lady. I’m not sure whether they live happily ever after, but I do know that when Fukuda Kyoko’s character turns good, I worry that her fashion sense may suffer.

Also, she has a giant Rilakkuma pillow that I am insanely jealous of. If you are a fan of mokudekiru, please buy me this pillow immediately!!

AND a kotatsu? Fukuda Kyoko is LIVING MY DREAM here.

Marriage hunting. That’s the meaning of the title of one of this summer’s jdramas, Konkatsu!, which ended this past Monday.

Kuniyuki (played by SMAP’s Nakai Masahiro) is a tragically unlucky guy, and when he gets accidentally and unfairly fired from his job, he has to go job-hunting. In today’s crap economy of course, this means he is especially desperate, and ends up lying to get a job that is looking for a married person, claiming that yes, he is intending to marry soon.

Everyone who knows Kuniyuki’s family hears the news, assumes he’s engaged, and throws a big engagement party in his honor. Great, now all he has to do is find someone to marry, so he doesn’t look like a complete ass.

Instead of going for the girl-next-door, Haruno (Ueto Aya) who has clearly been in love with him for YEARS, he remains completely oblivious to her feelings, and instead twiddles his thumbs while wondering, “who can I get to marry me?”

Kuniyuki and Haruno at their best:

He gets two other coworkers to accompany him on various 合コン (goukon) excursions (group dates), arranged by a matchmaking service. He has to be kind of sneaky about this, because it’s really not smooth to be seen at a goukon when you’re supposedly engaged…

The matchmaking (konkatsu) dates are essentially a bunch of different parties where the men and women mingle for fixed periods of times and then switch partners. In the show, konkatsu parties included: golf-konkatsu, cooking-konkatsu, pottery-konkatsu, even buddhist-meditation-konkatsu parties!

The woman who runs the matchmaking service, played by Ryo, is Kuniyuki’s childhood friend, and though she appears as a potential marriage candidate herself, she has gone through divorce before, has two small children, and is a little too wise to just let Kuniyuki marry her out of some obligatory feelings.

Ryo, just as hot as she was in her premier Long Vacation in 1996:

At the matchmaking dates, they discover Shaku Yumiko’s character, who is an unapologetic gold-digger. She considers herself too old, wise, and down-to-earth for those romantic ideals that Haruno, in her early 20s, still possesses. Every guy just has to fall for her at some point in the show, but she’s pretty hard to get.

Shaku Yumiko knows what she wants.

Meanwhile, the best friend, Sato Ryuta, goes through heartache after heartache, as he falls for each girl in turn, none of who return his feelings. He’s not the brightest crayon in the box, but his naiveté is charming and he’s very loyal to his friends. Kuniyuki would be nowhere without him.

Sato Ryuta is lovesick:

Konkatsu is real:
So it turns out that marriage hunting is an actual trend in Japan, perhaps to help counteract that pesky old declining birthrate. Even the matchmaking agencies depicted in the show are real and apparently thriving. See this Japan Times article for more info — apparently there are dating services that match women up with single doctors and dentists (maybe Shaku Yumiko should have tried one of those!)

On the title of the show:
I already explained that konkatsu is marriage hunting. Normally the word would be written like this: 婚活, and see Japannewbie’s article on konkatsu, a great explanation of where the word came from (it’s not a standard Japanese word, it’s actually one of those hip new combo words). But note that the show’s title is written 婚カツ in which the second character is written in katakana (but pronounced like “katsu” still). The title is actually a pun (Ohhh Japanese and puns…) on the word トンカツ tonkatsu, a food you may be familiar with. Kuniyuki’s dad runs a tonkatsu restaurant in a declining shopping center, and sees almost no customers. Kuniyuki himself, hates tonkatsu. There’s probably lots of cute symbolism here that I don’t care to explore.

Kuniyuki’s dad is played by Kohinata Fumiyo, who, if you haven’t seen before, you’re probably living under a rock. But seriously, he’s great in any and every role I’ve ever seen him in.

In Konkatsu, Kohinata is a stubborn dad and tonkatsu chef:

The show is cute, has an all-star cast, aside from the weakest link is Kuniyuki himself. He’s not awful, but a little dull and I don’t see what Haruno sees in him… Otherwise though, all the other characters are scene-stealers and despite a slightly underdeveloped script, the cast kept me coming back for more every week.

If you’re still desperate for one more reason to watch the show, and you happen to be a fangirl of the KAT-TUN member with some seriously oversized lips, Ueda Tatsuya… you can see him play Kuniyuki’s little brother, an ultra-feminine hairdressing fiend who has a small but memorable role.

Tatsuya’s lips from an angle that makes them look almost proportional. Don’t let them fool you:

And one last thing I just had to include…
Although Tatsuya’s character is allegedly straight, there is this one really weird moment halfway through the final episode, between Kuniyuki and his creepy coworker. I didn’t notice any similar incidents anywhere else in the drama, so while all the other characters ended up with their mates predictably, this was some way random unfinished business. All I can say is, uhhh……. enjoy? I left a few seconds of Haruno at the beginning of the clip so you can see her with an undistorted face, unlike in the screencap above :)