"A Thousand Years of Longing" - An 'Otogi Zoshi' fan-fiction

Mansairaku and Minamoto no Hikaru (Otogi Zoshi 2004)

Mansairaku watched as the short-haired girl skipping along the pavement, the hot summer sun made her sweating more than she normally would.

A drop of sweat fell on her  left eyebrow; still thick as a summer bamboo bush as he remembered it. Casually, she brushed the sweat away and continued walking, skipping along the pathway.

How come a girl skip so lively in such a hot summer day, Mansairaku wouldn’t understand; not that his body was particularly disturbed by the extreme heat of this particular summer. After all, since his tenure as Tenkai, he hadn’t felt extreme cold or extreme heat for centuries now, hence his indifference in donning the black coat since the turn of the century. He chose the coat more of from the practicality viewpoint, for it obscured him from the curious eyes of passer-by, though indeed there were women - and men - that would glance at him every now and then, mostly admiring his look, though some of them would also retreat after sensing his immense loneliness.

Musashi 2003 Taiga Drama

Left: the classic cover of Yoshikawa Eiji's "Musashi"
Right: Ichikawa Shinnosuke's NHK Musashi

Happy New Year! May 2019 be kind, healthy and beautiful for us all…

When I was a teenager, I happened upon “Musashi”, a novel by Yoshikawa Eiji about a well-known Japanese historical figure called Miyamoto Musashi (宮本武蔵). I read the seven volumes of the novel and I liked it. I do think it was a bit difficult for me to understand; not language-wise (it was in Indonesian), but because it spoke of Zen, something I didn’t get as a teenager.

Yet the story cling to my mind, such that in 2004, just before I had a surgery, I searched for the books again (I had misplaced my first copies).  Gramedia said the book was out of print, such that I eventually bought the copies (all the seven volumes) from my local book rental. The copies were dirty, but I treasured them so much. I read them again as I recuperated from my surgery. This time, the values in the novel was easier to understand. And this time, I appreciate the main characters more.

Lee Jong-hyun! (and the GongLee couple)

In which I lament my ambivalence towards My Only Love Song and celebrate my newfound love to Lee Jong-hyun and GongLee…

Song su-jeong/Nan-nyeon (Gong Seung-yeon) and On Dal (Lee Jong-hyun) in MOLS

So apparently I’m in love with Lee Jong-hyun now… and also with the GongLee couple. It started about two weeks ago when I watched ‘My Only Love Song’ (MOLS) at Netflix.

It wasn’t love at first sight, though. I stopped several times when watching MOLS because… Korean dramas aren’t my usual cup of tea. Of course being a normal girl, I love a good love story. However, being the first time watching a Korean drama (except for a movie about the Queen’s white hanbok dress – whatever the title is), I find myself baffled with the number of sweet saccharine lovey-dovey love scenes in MOLS. I’m also baffled with the amount of make up the male characters wore, which in many scenes were more prominent than that of the female characters. Only the dandiest of wuxia characters of recent years that I’ve watched (though admittedly I didn’t watch many Mainland wuxia dramas these days) wore half the amount of lipstick these male characters wore in MOLS.  I mean, of course the actors need to also wear a degree of make up for lighting etc., but – most likely because I’ve never watched a Korean drama before – I’ve never seen oriental male characters wore such thick foundation (and primer or BB etc.), lipstick and powder the way the characters in MOLS were.

Suggested projects for Okada Masaki

Masaki-kun is so cute with glasses...

That’s what happens when you leave a love for several years (or decades). When you return, he (or they) demand a lot of attention. Michael Miu and Barbara Yung demanded my attention for two years… Candy and Terry demanded my attention and brain cells for two months or so… and now Okada Masaki-kun demanded I spend time with him a lot since I last wrote about him in 2013. I’ve been cramming on Masaki series for the last two weeks that I feel my Japanese has improved slightly… and my sleep reduced significantly. Happy, Masaki-kun?

Anyway. After rambling about his latest projects here, I think a post on suggested future projects for Masaki-kun is needed. I have three suggested projects for Masaki based on my favourite manga, anime and novel. So anyway, the projects I suggested are: Yokohama Monogatari (manga by Waki Yamato), Prince Heinel in Voltes V (Toei), and the Cloud of Sparrow (Matsuoka Takashi). Beforehand, though, I just want to share a trivia about his name. Well, not really trivia, cos it’s beautiful and meaningful, actually.

Nicky Wu and Liu Shi Shi are dating!!!

They're finally dating! Pix from Nicky's weibo

Okay, I really need to work my deadlines now, but I just cannot stop myself from doing this:

SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!

OMG OMG OMG OMG!!!

Nicky Wu Qi Long and Cecilia Liu Shi Shi are dating! Nicky acknowledged this fact on 13 November at 2:06 am (Shanghai time, I think) from his weibo, and Liu Shi Shi confirmed it three minutes later (see this post from Dramamusing). They are officially dating, and they have actually been dating for quite a few months now! And no one, NONE of their fans (including myself) suspected this!

Okay, we hoped, of course. We rooted, of course. But they were never seen together other than in film festivals and awards and promo shoots, so we were like, yeah... never gonna happen (but it would be great if it could...). Totally missed this one news in August 2013 when someone spotted both of them buying ice cream together etc, but I might just dismissed it back then, for fear of getting my hope crushed.

But now apparently, they do!

Okada Masaki's new English-subbed movies: Space Brothers, Himitsu no Akko-chan, & Life Back Then

Update 26 Sept 2017: click here to read my update of Okada Masaki's performance since 2012. 

Okada Masaki on 'Life Back Then' Friday next week on RED!

It's a bit difficult to find new Okada Masaki movies with English sub these days.According to Asian Wiki, Okada has at least three new movies/series that are already released for 2013, but I haven't been able to see them due to the lack of English sub.

However! It's with real pleasure that I announce that the great subbers of Dramacrazy.net etc have uploaded the following movies for us:

Space Brothers with Oguri Shun (already seen it on RED, but I love the movie so I will watch it again!)

I'm watching the bits part of it now, and I think the RED translation of Space Brothers is better than this online version. Still, better than nothing!


Himitsu no Akko-chan with Ayase Haruka (click this link to see it online)

Pics from Akko-chan's Secret (from Jaewinter). It's really a good movie!

And last but not least...(click to read about Life Back Then and Ikuta Toma (!)):

Uchuu Kyodai (Space Brothers) in English subtitle next Friday!

Nanba Hibito (Okada Masaki) in the cockpit of Artemis, courtesy of RED

Fans of Okada Masaki and Oguri Shun, at long last, we can watch Uchuu Kyodai (Space Brothers) in English subtitle! RED (Screen Red Asia) is airing the cool movie in Japanese with English sub starting this Friday (1 March 2013) at 9pm Jakarta time (GMT+7). Indonesian viewers can watch this show if they subscribe to Indovision.

Click here for my past review of 'Space Brothers'. Under the cut is the complete airing time of 'Space Brothers' for March 2013. Thank you so much, RED! (anyone can tell me how to record this show from Indovision?)

Hanamizuki ~ a love lasting for 100 years

The beautiful Hanamizuki (dogwood flower)

After the contemplative post below, I'd like to close this year with this gorgeous, beautiful song titled 'Hanamizuki' by Hitoto Yō. Hanamizuki is the Japanese word for 'dogwood flower' and it is also the title of a 2010 J-romance movie starring Aragaki Yui, Ikuta Toma (!) and Osamu Mukai (!!). I haven't got the time to review the movie, but it's really really beautiful. The music is gorgeous as well. 

Herewith I present you the Hanamizuki MV, Hanamizuki OST by Hitoto Yō and another version by Aragaki. Also presented are the Romaji lyrics, English translation and the original Kanji lyrics from Jpopasia.

Happy New Year, and may the love we share with our loved ones lasts for 100 years!

OST Hanamizuki by Hitoto Yō

Taira no Kiyomori ep 43: Shanaō became Yoshitsune

Shanaō (Kamiki Ryunosuke) became Yoshitsune, ep 43

TNK ep 43 opened this week with Narichika asking Shigemori to beg Kiyomori to spare his life in the aftermath of the Shishigatani Incident last week. We also have Lady Tokiwa for the first time after more than 10 episodes, as well as Shanaō and Benkei, plus Yoritomo and Masako (of course!). Regulars like Kiyomori himself and the two-faced Go-Shirakawa were always there. Someone got sick, and someone would die in ep 44. Below is the NHK summary:

Narichika, who has been exiled by Kiyomori, dies from starvation. Shigemori becomes worn down by the passing of his brother-in-law and from the considerations shown for the cloistered Emperor Go-Shirakawa. Around the same time, Kiyomori learns of Tokuko’s pregnancy and prays for the safe delivery of the baby. Tokuko finally gives birth to a boy, the son of Emperor Takakura, who later becomes known as Emperor Antoku. In izu, Yoritomo and Masako are trying to get permission for their marriage from Masako's father Tokimasa.

By the way, I made a mistake in ep 42 last week. I said that Narichika was beaten several times by Kiyomori. Well, I was so wrong. Narichika was arrested and exiled (because of Shigemori’s plea), while the monk Kiyomori beaten to his death was Saiko. I’ve fixed ep 42 with this new info. So in ep 43, since Shigemori failed to bail out Narichika, the latter somehow died in exile due to starvation. It was a sorry scene which I chose to ignore (and browsed the net instead), for it was rather gruesome. 

Taira no Kiyomori ep 42: Yoritomo confessed his love to Masako!

Minamoto no Yoritomo (Okada Masaki), ep 42

This week’s Taira no Kiyomori brings me the happy news about Yoritomo confessing his love to Masako! Of course the feeling was reciprocal, but the confession did not happen before an arranged marriage and a girl’s escaping the wedding entourage. On the Heike side, we have Kiyomori murdering Saiko and Narichika, an action which appalled his darling son Shigemori.

You may be able to watch it online in Pandora TV, FC2 or the like, but perhaps you have to wait for more than 24 hours. The Pandora account where I usually watch the rerun of TNK episodes have deleted ep 41, and I don’t think he/she will upload ep 42. But I got lucky last night and found another Pandora account which uploaded TNK ep 41 here. I assume he/she will upload ep 42 as well. Fingers crossed. [Edit: Click here to watch ep 42 online! I've watched it several times by 16 Nov, and this is by far my fave TNK episode]

Episode 42 opened with a Heike scene as per NHK World Premium’s summary here:

Kiyomori receives secret information that the cloistered Emperor Go-Shirakawa and his aides, including Narichika and Saiko, are plotting to overthrow the Taira family. Kiyomori bursts in anger and captures Saiko to extort a confession out of him. Saiko, however, outrages Kiyomori by saying things that rub Kiyomori the wrong way, and Kiyomori orders for the execution of Saiko. Narichika is also captured and killed off by Kiyomori, despite Shigemori's desperate plea for Narichika's life. Witnessing Kiyomori's mercilessness to those who stand in the way, Shigemori becomes fearful of Kiyomori.

From the Genji side, Hōjō Masako (Watanabe Anne) was practicing her archery skill when her father Hōjō Tokimasa (Endo Kenichi) summoned her. Turned out, dearly beloved father wanted Masako to marry Yamaki Hangan Kanetaka, a powerful local Heike ruler. I am under the impression that this arranged marriage was connected to ep 41, in which two Taira goons (I think their names were Yoshiaki and Hideyoshi?) came to the Hōjō house and said something that concerned Tokimasa. Anyway, whatever. Tokimasa told her daughter how Yamaki Kanetaka was a good man; he was going to make her happy, etc etc etc. As expected, Masako politely declined the marriage offer (I mean, order). I’m not sure if she said that her heart was with someone else, but as the result, Tokimasa slapped his own daughter. 

Taira no Kiyomori ep 41: Yoritomo started to trust Masako

Minamoto no Yoritomo (Okada Masaki), ep 41

This week’s TNK brings us more Matsuda Shota – I mean, Go-Shirakawa – mourning Shigeko with Lady Gion (Matsuda Seiko) by his side. We also had quite a lot of Yoritomo-Masako, to my glee, in addition to the budding bromance of Benkei and Yoshitsune.  In the Heike side, we have Taira no Shigemori starting to question his father’s action. Below is the summary from Auberginefleur:

In 1177, Saiko's son gets into a skirmish with Buddhist monks at a temple on Mt. Hakusan, and the incident escalates into a brawl, involving Buddhist monks of Enryakuji on Mt. Hiei. The cloistered Emperor Go-Shirakawa orders Shigemori to take up arms against the warrior monks, however, Shigemori's retainer accidentally hits the mikoshi (portable shrine) carried by the monks with an arrow, which triggers a new problem. To quell the disturbance, Kiyomori again leads his troops into Kyoto.

As you may be well aware now, I’m not a Japanese speaker. So I rely on several times watching TNK to understand what transpires in each episode (or at least in the scenes I’m interested in). Unfortunately, the Pandora TV site hasn’t uploaded ep 41 yet (they even deleted ep 40, OMG!), so I am just writing this based on my memory and notes (yes, I did make notes while watching TNK, in between stirring my risotto tonite!).  

[Edit 27.10.12: Click this (Pandora TV) or this (FC2) to watch  TNK ep 41 online.]

'Haru comes down from the second floor' (Gravity’s Clowns commentary)

Haru (Okada Masaki) came down from the second floor

I got a new favourite song a few days ago, called ‘Sometimes’ by S.R.S., an indie Japanese music group. The song was the OST for ‘Gravity’s Clowns/Juryoku Pierrot’, a 2009 movie starring among others my favourite Okada Masaki. It was another beautiful movie of Masaki’s which showed his maturing acting skill back three years ago. 

In the movie directed by Mori Junichi, Masaki was paired with Kase Ryo, a very talented actor 15 years older than Masaki, and Kohinata Fumiyo – a very impressive veteran actor – as his father, Mr Okuno. The story was based on a 2006 novel titled ‘A Pierrot’ written by Isako Kotara and was translated into the wide screen by Aizawa Tomoko. Watch it online here.

The movie plot revolved around a dark family secret that was kept away from the two Okuno brothers (Ryo as Izumi and Masaki as Haru) until the death of their mother. Along the way, the movie introduced us to several arson cases all over the city of Sendai, some random graffiti, a female stalker and a chronic rapist let loose. The seemingly unrelated events came together after the Okuno boys discovered that the arsonist left a series of clue in the form of DNA codes. 

This deep movie is made deeper by the fact that the story was set in Sendai, one of the places obliterated by the Tohoku (east Japan) earthquake and tsunami on 11 March 2011.

Click here for the cool English version of ‘Sometimes’. The Japanese version and the spoilers for the movie are under the cut.

Taira no Kiyomori ep 40: Shigeko and Masako

Taira no Shigeko, NHK

This week’s TNK focuses on two important women in the Heian Era: Taira no Shigeko and Hōjō Masako. The episode takes us to a big event in Cloistered Emperor Go-Shirakawa’s private life: the death of Shigeko (his favourite court lady). In addition, Minamoto no Yoritomo started to interact with Hōjō Masako. Below is the summary from Auberginefleur for episode 40:

In 1174 in Fukuhara, Japan-Sung trade has already started. Kiyomori advises the cloistered Emperor Go-Shirakawa and Shigeko to visit Itsukushima Shrine to pray for the nation's prosperity. Meanwhile, Saiko and Narichika (Go-Shirakawa's aides) start to fear the growing power of the Taira family. Shigeko tells Saiko and Narichika to act as a bridge between Go-Shirakawa and the Taira family. However, after the passing of Shigeko in 1176, the power balance within the Imperial Court begins to fall apart. Around the same time in Izu, Yoritomo and Hōjō Masako are gradually nurturing their love.

'Yoritomo and Masako gradually nurturing their love' didn't quite capture what happened here. Read on to know why. 

Episode 40 (see here online) opened with the trade between Japan and the Sung Dynasty. I liked it how the Sung people spoke in Mandarin instead of Japanese. Then the story switched to Cloistered Emperor Go-Shirakawa and his wife Taira no Shigeko. Shigeo (Narumi Riko) was not only Go-Shirakawa’s wife; she was also Kiyomori’s sister in law because Shigeko was Tokiko’s sister (Tokiko was Kiyomori’s dear wife). Shigeko held an important role in the Heian court, because she was the bridge between the Emperor family and the Taira clan. Shigeko was also the mother of Price Norihito, later known as Emperor Takakura. Go-Shirakawa (Matsuda Shota) seemed to love Shigeko very much. Despite his monk status, he still flirted with her, read poetries with her and making love with her.

Matataki (Blink)

Poster of Matataki

a.k.a. ‘Piecing Me Back Together’ was a 2010 movie I watched this afternoon to quench my thirst of another Okada Masaki performance. The movie didn’t disappoint me, although Masaki’s screen time wasn’t a lot there. It wasn’t because he wasn’t the main actor. He was. But rather, because Matataki is telling the story of Sonoda Izumi (Kitagawa Keiko), a young woman whose boyfriend died during a traffic accident they experienced together.

Yep, Matataki is a sad story. Sad, but encouraging as well in the end. It didn’t stop me from crying like a baby, though. My eyes were wet into the first 5 minutes of the movie. I wailed – yes, wailed – during several scenes. I sobbed when I learned what truly happened to Izumi and Junichi Konou (Masaki’s character). But here I’m getting ahead of myself as usual. After the trailers below, I post the recap of Matataki. Heavy spoilers, so for those who want to see it online here (English subbed) without spoilers, you better stop reading this.  

Taira no Kiyomori opening music & Yoritomo ep 32-34

Yoritomo, Yae-hime and baby Senserumaru (NHK)

I've been listening to the opening music of Taira no Kiyomori so many times. The music is so beautiful. Alas, I can't find the opening credit in YouTube or other embed-dable sites. However, I found this video on YouTube containing just the music (without the video), but that should be enough to give you a taste of how it good it is. Click here to watch the opening credit (it's actually the first ep of TNK with English sub).



 
Also, since there isn't enough Okada Masaki these days (I'm still waiting for the English-subbed of Space Brothers and Akko-chan), I watched ep 32-34 of TNK just to know what happened to Yoritomo. Well, as I posted earlier, in ep 32 Yae-hime and Yoritomo had a son. A kawaii son called Senserumaru. From what I saw in ep 32, it seems that Yae-hime was scolded by his family for getting pregnant with Yoritomo's offspring. But Yoritomo insisted that he would protect Yae and the baby. So, when the baby was already delivered, Yae took the baby boy to see his father. Yoritomo's surprise and happiness were very apparent. For a while, he believed that he could be happy again.

Taira no Kiyomori 37-38: Enters Yoshitsune!

Arrgghh! What would I give to have the sudden ability to completely understand Japanese now? Or at least, to be able to watch the English subbed of Taira no Kiyomori from the San Francisco-based Tokyo TV? Click here, by the way, for you lucky souls who can watch TNK in San Francisco and adjacent regions. Click here to watch Ep 37 raw (without Eng sub). Click here to watch Ep 38 without English sub.

For someone like me who has very little understanding of Japanese (getting better with an excessive dosage of J-doramas these days, but still), I just have to guess what has transpired in Taira no Kiyomori eps 37 and 38. I do have Auberginefleur’s site to help my understanding, but it’s not enough, for it mostly covers what happens with the Heike.

Anyway, recapping episodes 37 (last Sunday) and 38 (this Sunday) of Taira no Kiyomori: it has been very interesting episodes for me, despite my mediocre understanding of Japanese. Now, before I summarise what happened to the Genji, I’ll give a Heike-Genji 101 about the names of Genji and Heike. Apparently, Heike is another way of reading the Kanji of ‘Taira’. Genji is another way of reading the Kanji of ‘Minamoto’. So when people say the Heike, they are referring to the clan/house that was ruled by the Taira. The Genji was then the clan that was ruled by the Minamoto.

The simplicity called ‘Halfway’

So, as you may know from my recent posts, I’ve been crazy about Okada Masaki, the cutie 23 years old Japanese actor who has such a beautiful voice and curly-bordering-to-messy perm hair. He’s a good actor and a lovely boy at the same time. After watching him in Raiou, I watched his other movies/series, up until I landed in 2009 Halfway, a movie by Kitagawa Eriko, starring Masaki (as Shinozaki Shu) and the cute Kitano Kie (as Konno Hiro). And once again, I was hooked.

Halfway is a very simple movie, such that it reaffirms my belief of the excellence that the Japanese own in making simple yet beautiful movies. Halfway has a total indie feeling all over it, it is refreshing and bringing contemplation at the same time. The premise was simple. You are a girl in the 3^rd class of high school in a small town. You are going to enter university next year. What will happen if you have just dated a cute boy (one of the cutest in school, in fact), and he wants to go to a university in the capital city instead? Are you going to let him go? Or are you going to beg him to stay, whatever it takes?

That is Halfway. Below is the English-sub trailer and this is where I watched it.

The girl is Hiro, and the boy is Shu. They lived in Hokkaido. Hiro always liked Shu, the basketball sweetheart of her school. But Shu never took notice on her, or at least, she thought so, until one day he overheard her babbling over how she liked him a lot (when she was laying on the school hospital bed after an anaemic attack). To Hiro’s surprise, Shu asked her out the next day. After a moment of hesitation (and a very cute bike accident), they began to date.

Taira no Kiyomori: What happened to Minamoto no Yoritomo?

I’ve been watching the first five English-subbed episodes of NHK’s Taira no Kiyomori , until I realised that the 6^th episode had not yet been subbed. In fact, no one has subbed the 6^th episode onwards since a few months back. The sole translator had been sick (God bless him, may he recover soon), thus we – non Japanese speaker Taiga fans – are left without knowing the details of what happened to Kiyomori (Matsuyama Kenichi), the leader of the Heike clan (Heike literally means ‘the House of Taira’) and the rest of the characters.

Taira no Kiyomori seems to be having low viewing rate. My Japanese friend suggested that its Heian setting seems to be the problem for Japanese viewers, for Heian Era was about 900 – 1,000 years ago and not many understood what really happened then. But then again, wouldn’t it be the good reason to watch it? Other than watching a series of hot guys playing samurai and emperor in ancient garb? Some netizens said that the Heian Era depicted here was too gloomy and dusty, and indeed the samurai and commoners portrayed in this series were in total need of total bath! But that is much more realistic than, say, having them all flashy and neatly dressed a la the Emperor and his cronies.

Taira no Kiyomori!

I am currently watching the first episode of Taira no Kiyomori, NHK's 2012 Taiga drama. I am so excited! The cast is superb, many of whom I've seen in Japanese dramas, delivering great performances. I am a bit bias here: the first drive for me to watch it is to hear Okada Masaki's lovely voice narrating the drama as Minamoto no Yoritomo. But when I saw the trailers etc, I realise the drama's potentials. I just hope that I can discipline myself and watch it just one episode per day. That is, hopefully my online links are not broken. This drama is still airing in Japan anyway, so fan-based attempts to sub it might be seen as breaching the copyright. Which is SO not the intention of those hard working fans who have been subbing this drama!

The Lightning Tree (Raiou)

I saw another movie on RED last night, and it made me saaad again. I have to stop watching those cute but sad Japanese movie. But I can't help it. The star couple were so cute together. Anyway...

The movie was "The Lightning Tree" (Raiou), which was basically the Romeo and Juliet of Edo era. It tells the story of Narimichi (Masaki Okada), the son of a Shogun (dunno which one) who disliked his life in general. His father abandoned his mother when Narimichi was still a child, leaving the poor kid bereft of paternal love. To make it worse, the kid had a habit to collapse out of the blue.

One day, when Narimichi was already a gorgeous young samurai lord, he ventured out to a village called Seta to convalesce. There, he met a rascal girl named Rai (Yu Aoi), who taught him how to laugh, dance in the rain, and basically be himself. As expected, the two youngster fell in love slowly but sure. It was a beautiful cliche, full of laughter and promises. I cannot help but hope that the two lovebirds would find their happiness in the end.