Tuesday, December 11, 2007

J Drama REWIND: Strawberry on the Shortcake

A bizarre but intriguing love story with an unusual twist.

 Strawberry on the shortcake ep1

Wiki entry @ D-Addicts

This aired in 2001 and is voted in at number 34 all time Japanese drama by viewers at JDorama.com.

Takisawa Hideaki plays final year student Irie Manato, who has become so withdrawn that his outward "persona" is completely different person.

One day he meets a strange girl - Misawa Yui played by Fukada Kyoko, who is totally up front and honest and helps him put his "persona" behind him.

He gets drawn towards Yui, but is caught in limbo when he finds out his father is remarrying and the woman's daughter is non other than Yui!

No matter how hard he tries to resist he ultimately gets drawn to Yui's vibrant personality.

The drama also stars Uchiyama Rina as Sawamura Haruka (the Girl next door who has a long unexplained longing for Manato)and Kubozuka Yosuke as Saeko Tetsuya (IWGP, GTO) who eventually becomes the person Yui chases after and ultimately Manato's nemesis.

No matter what Manoto tries or who ever else gets between him and Yui his feelings increase to such a point that he will do anything to protect her and keep her happy - even turning against his friend Tetsuya.

The last episode kind of reminded me of Hana Yori Dango Season 2's finale - trapped in a snow storm and being forced to find shelter in a safe house till the morning.

I guess the only down side is the Manato and Haruka relationship which is complex and subtle but kind of branches off into nothingness and Haruka's final demise is a bit sudden and not very well laid out as the Manato x Haruka or Manato x Yui or Yui x Tetsuya or even Tetsuya x Mariko (the class English teacher).

It is an interesting watch - only 10 episodes, and moves along at a slow day to day pace almost - which is good to see once in a while as you get to see the character interactions and the pretty decent written script.

I would give this a 7 out of 10 since it wraps up nicely at the end not leaving you dissatisfied or wanting more.

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3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi! I watched 6 episodes of SOS, and I love it. But I can't find the others. Do you know where I could find them please????

Sarg said...

Hi, Thanks for reading.
I got the whole series from D-addicts :http://www.d-addicts.com/
They have a batch of all the series!

Anonymous said...

thanks a lot! I can't wait to see the end of the serie.

oh, and by the way, your blog is really great!!
bye!