Rich Man Poor Woman Ep 10

Yay, the second to last episode!  The majority of this episode was so warm and sweet.  Of course, being the second to last, it had to end with some sort of sad conflict.  I'm so looking forward to the final episode.  

Summary:

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The episode begins with Asahina's arrest for insider trading.  We don't see the trial, but we do see him settled behind bars.  Hyuga tries to visit him repeatedly throughout the episode, but Asahina refuses to see him.  Asahina reflects from jail on how wonderful their time together at Next Innovation really was.

At the Wonder Wall office, Natsui is giving Hyuga etiquette lessons and critiquing his social skills.  She follows him to various client meetings and gives him a 1 to 100 score after each one.  He's frustrated with the low scores she keeps giving him, but by the last meeting, where he presents a crowd with new 3D scanning technology to allow customers to try on clothing from home, he scores a more-than-perfect 120, even getting some clients' names right.  

Natsui is flustered by how perfect and handsome Hyuga has become, but she's also disappointed.  Now that he's mastered basic social skills and etiquette, she feels she's no longer of any assistance to him.  Having exhausted her purpose, she feels the need to distance herself because she of her feelings for him.  She takes a part-time job at a lab and messages Hyuga that she'll be taking a break for a while.  

With Natsui gone and not accepting his calls, Hyuga sets off on a mission to find her.  He stalks her house and frequent haunts and eventually ends up trying her rural home town.  On the train out, he runs into Yoko, who travels with him for the remainder of the trip.  They stay at Natsui's family inn.  The family, not knowing who they are, gossip about their oldest daughter who declined a prestigious job to start a company with the man she loves.  At this point, Hyuga is clear and open with Yoko about his feelings for Natsui.

Before they leave town, Yoko convinces Hyuga to visit his mother's restaurant.  He doesn't reveal that he's her son, but the visit leaves him satisfied.  He's surprised that he's not hurt or angry.  Yoko suggests that he's no longer searching for his mother and is now yearning more for someone else.  

Back in the city, the Next Innovation accountant had been trying to get Hyuga to come back to Next Innovation.  The company is on the verge of being acquired by a large tech company and the accountant doesn't want to see true innovators trampled under corporate giants.  Hyuga initially refuses, but by the episode's end, we learn that he plans to return to the company.  He leaves Wonder Wall to the three-amigo-coders and also asks the guy he'd previously invested in to support the venture.

Hyuga eventually tracks Natsui down at the lab where she's working.  He approaches her at the bus stop and they both have something to say to each other.  Hyuga chickens out and tells her he came to tell her he's rejoining Next Innovation.  He also tells her that there's someone he's been searching for, but he doesn't say its her.  Instead, he lets her share her piece, which is to inform him that she's taking a job at the lab and needs to do something on her own.  She apologizes for breaking her promise to always stay at his side.  He lies that he hadn't taken the promise seriously.  

They part ways.  As they walk, each looks back, but their timing is bad and their eyes never meet. 

;___;

Scenes of Note:

• Natsui harshly lecturing Hyuga on etiquette and giving him low marks.
• Hyuga searching desperately for Natsui, calling her millions of times and peaking in the windows of her apartment.

Taisetsu na Koto wa Subete Kimi ga Oshiete Kureta 5

This episode takes a turn that I was expecting, weakening the story's impact but also making it more palatable.  Ultimately, I'm OK with the change, if slightly irritated by how many problems have and will continue to stem directly from a lack of communication.  If characters just talked to each other in dramas, 99% of the issues would never even become issues...

It's set to continue with the angst and intensity in upcoming episodes, but they're now positioned to at least have the potential of a socially-acceptable happy ending.  But since it's a jdrama, they may decide to eschew the happy ending altogether.

Summary:
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As Kashiwagi is leaving, Uemura returns to the school and makes some attempt to defend him against the students' bullying.  Kashiwagi is awaiting discipline from the school committee and the principal insists he continue coming to school in the interim, to face what he's done to the students and Uemura.  Saeki's mother is keeping her home from school, but Saeki wants to go, saying she has something important to explain.

After school one day, Uemura meets Kashiwagi and explains her doubts that he actually slept with Saeki.  It's too unlike him and he could be covering up for Saeki.  She sets off, intent on finding the truth for herself.

She meets again with Kashiwagi's brother and learns the truth about that night after she left.  Kashiwagi's brother had attacked their mother and the brother had then proceeded to blame his entire life on Kashiwagi. Uemura then goes to the hospital to meet up with Saeki for her side of the story.  Before Saeki explains, Kashiwagi nearly collapses.  The nurse tells her she's anemic and should see a doctor; Uemura leaves again without an explanation from Saeki.

Tired of hurting people, Saeki goes to the school to the school to explain things fully.  As Kashiwagi is facing his students and taking the blame, she interrupts, saying everything was a lie.  We then learn the full explanation behind that night.

Saeki explains to the students about her condition, her dead sister, and her parents' broken marriage.  She says she had wanted to feel like her sister, so she'd dressed and put on make up, gone out that night and allowed herself to be picked up by a random man.  She slept with him and immediately regretted it.  She ran into Kashiwagi at a cafe later that night purely by chance.

Kashiwagi was drunk after the falling out with his brother.  Saeki struck up a conversation with him, then helped him get home that night.  He drunkenly stripped and went to bed and she followed him in without his knowledge.  Regretting her one night stand and wishing it had been with him, she crawled into bed with him and had taken the photo as a keepsake.

In the aftermath, Uemura talks about how everything can return to the way it was, but Kashiwagi worries that Saeki will have no one by her side.  When Saeki shows up to school the next day, Kashiwagi is the only one that greets her.

From a brief flashback, we find out that Uemura is 7 weeks pregnant and also submitted paperwork to cancel their wedding.  As the episode ends, she angstily muses that Kashiwagi may be in love for the first time and that she can't stand in the way...

Taisetsu na Koto wa Subete Kimi ga Oshiete Kureta Ep 4

Another crazy-intense episode and this time they break out the heavy hitting dialogue, too! This is definitely an "all grown up" series for Miura Haruma (although I suppose he's been playing some really mature roles even since he was a kid in "14 Sai no Haha").

Summary:
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After reading her worrisome journal posts, Kashiwagi runs to Saeki and meets her at a cafe.  Presumably, this is the cafe where they first met? It's unclear how he knew where to find her.  Uemura calls Kashiwagi while he's there and Kashiwagi hangs up on her.  Kashiwagi gives Sonoda's cell phone to Saeki and tells her the entries made him want to "see the real her".  She asks if they can just go back to being student and teacher, but Kashiwagi says he can't pretend nothing happened.

Kashiwagi missed dozens of Uemura's calls while he was meeting with Saeki and sending her home.  They meet in front of a park and Uemura freaks out on him a bit.  She asks if he's in love with Saeki.

The Nurse, Aya, visits a grave site and meets with Saeki's father.  Aya was apparently in the same accident as Saeki and her sister.  She also has a mini-flashback to her phone call to the school--it turns out she didn't tell them about the affair.

At school, Uemura is starting to lose it, while Saeki claims she's trying to forget the entire incident for Kashiwagi's sake.

Later, Uemura and her roommate are opening wedding RSVPs when Uemura begins to cry.  She tells her roommate about Kashiwagi's affair and admits she doesn't feel like herself anymore.  She skips school the next day.

Aya stops Kashiwagi for a chat after school and tells him it's because he's a teacher that she can't forgive him.  Kashiwagi takes it to heart and visit's his family's shop afterwards.  He apologizes in advance to them that things are going to be difficult, but he will work them out.

Kashiwagi then tells Uemura he plans to tell the school he's slept with a student (although to protect Saeki he plans to keep her identity a secret).  Uemura asks him to forget about it, saying that she can forgive and forget, but only if no one else knows what happened.  She freaks out again, asking "What's wrong with living as a scumbag teacher who sacrificed his student for his own happiness?!"  Kashiwagi has too many principles and Uemura feels burdened by them.

Nurse Aya messages Saeki that she's coming to the school to tell them what happened.  She can't let it go.  Saeki runs to stop her, abandoning her cell phone on her desk in the classroom.  A classmate picks up the phone and finds the blackmail photo of Kashiwagi sleeping.  Soon, the entire class knows.

Kashiwagi walks into the classroom and they confront him.  Saeki tries to pass the photo off as something else, but no one buys it.  Kashiwagi admits it and apologizes to the class.  A lot of powerful accusations are tossed around and one kid attacks him.  The teachers get involve, send Uemura home and isolate Saeki in the nurse's office.

As Uemura is on her way home, she gets nauseous and then very worried--perhaps she's pregnant?

Saeki goes to leave with Sonoda but stops when she sees Kashiwagi bowing down to all the other teachers...

Scenes of Note:
There were a ton of noteworthy scenes in this episode, but the best might be the class confronting him.  There are a number of great Uemura-freak-out bits, too.

Taisetsu na Koto wa Subete Kimi ga Oshiete Kureta Ep 3

Another intense episode with character development out the wazoo--none of the roles are black-and-white at this point.  So much happened in this episode, I'm curious to see how the series will run for 10 episodes if this pace keeps up.

I wonder if it was weird for Toda Erika to be romantically involved with a younger actor?  It's only 2 years, but the difference between a 21 year old and a 23 year old can be pretty big...Miura Haruma was playing a high-schooler just one year ago (Bloody Monday 2) and Toda Erika's been playing post-high school characters since at least 2007 (Liar Game)...

I'm torn between loving the soundtrack by Pink and hating its upbeat placement among really serious scenes.  But her typically angry music sort of fits and it definitely adds to the tension of the serious scenes...

Summary:
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The episode starts with Uemura seeing the blackmail picture of Kashiwagi, sent by Saeki.  She now has no doubt that the two slept together. Before Kashiwagi & Uemura can talk things through, Uemura gets a call that her father's been hospitalized.  The two rush over and nearly run into Saeki at the hospital.  They learn that Uemura's father will be fine with just a hernia and they quickly go to leave.  Kashiwagi heads down to the lobby ahead of Uemura and has just enough time to run into Saeki and the nurse before Uemura catches up.  Saeki happily introduces them to the nurse as "the man I slept with and his fiancee".  Saeki makes it clear to the nurse how much she's enjoying messing with the couple.

In this episode, we learn the details of Uemura's condition.  She has Congenital Ovarian Dysfunction, in which medication is needed to produce secondary sexual characteristics such as breasts and menstruation.  We also learn that Saeki acquired her arm scars in an accident 4 years previous.

Kashiwagi follows Uemura home and says its up to her to decide if she wants to stay together or proceed with the wedding.  Uemura flips out at Kashiwagi, saying that she shouldn't have to decide all the important things and leaves it up to him to think about their future.

At school, they are both noticeably depressed.  Saeki corners Kashiwagi in the cafeteria, promising she'll do anything to separate them.

Uemura confronts Kashiwagi's brother at the family liquor store to ask about the night before school started. The Kashiwagi brothers were together when she had left early, that evening.  Kashiwagi's brother claims Kashiwagi had left early and that nothing had happened.

Uemura and Kashiwagi arrange to meet after school one night to talk things over.  When Kashiwagi gets home, he finds Saeki had used the key to get into his apartment.  Uemura walks in shortly after and almost flees, seeing the two together.  Kashiwagi gives a great little speech about how he loves Uemura and he's sorry that he hurt Saeki, but he has no intention of letting things continue.  Saeki returns the key and flees, while Uemura stays.  Kashiwagi then tells Uemura he wants to cancel the wedding before the school hears anything about the affair.  He's clearly still feeling guilty and wants to protect Uemura.  Uemura leaves, hurt and angry, grousing about how Kashiwagi is too honest and she would have forgiven him.

Saeki flees in tears to Sonoda, her short-haired friend with the money problems.  It becomes clear that Saeki  had been putting on a brave front and she truly did have feelings for Kashiwagi.  She associates Kashiwagi rejecting her with her not being a "real girl" because of her disorder.

Saeki skips school for several days and Sonoda begins to worry.  After Kashiwagi gives a lecture about how "slugs are not defective snails," Sonoda ties Kashiwagi back to Saeki's mystery man.  Saeki had posted the same comment to her blog, saying she'd overheard a man saying that and fell in love with him for it.  Sonoda corners Kashiwagi about the affair, claiming he'd played with Saeki's feelings.

Because Saeki had skipped school for so many days, Kashiwagi has to do a home-visit.  He meets with Saeki's mom while Saeki is at the hospital.  Saeki comes home as he's leaving, along with the nurse from the hospital.  The nurse is now able to connect Kashiwagi as both the guy Saeki slept with and her homeroom teacher.

Saeki and Kashiwagi go for a walk, in which Saeki explains about the accident which killed her perfect older sister, some details about her illness, and her true feelings for him.  Kashiwagi begins to feel bad for her.

Uemura goes to the wedding planning office and picks out the cake and menu.  She calls Kashiwagi to tell him she needs him and still wants to get married.  They're on the verge of making up, when Kashiwagi gets a call that Saeki is missing.  Seeing her recent foreboding blog posts, he gets a bit freaked out and goes running off.  Meanwhile, the nurse calls the school office with some information about Kashiwagi...
Scenes of Note:
The scene where Uemura tells Kashiwagi she still wants to be together on the phone, then Kashiwagi goes running off and you're not quite sure who he's running to...

Lie to Me (Korea, 2011, Cinderella Romance)

http://wiki.d-addicts.com/Lie_to_Me
Lie to Me is a Cinderella story based on a web of lies.  It's unapologetically cliched and the series of extreme circumstances through which the couple get together are in no way believable.  Nevertheless, the crazy scenarios manage to highlight the couple's involuntary chemistry.  You've got two very strong leads in Yoon Eun Hye and Kang Ji Hwan, although their looks might take some time to grow on you--he's the uber-masculine type (look at those eyebrows) so it weirds me out to see him act dorky and I had a terrible time seeing her as anything but Coffee Prince's Eun Chan.

This series is absolutely enjoyable for the first 3/4 of the series.  There's a love polygon between four relatively likable characters, the main couple has by far the best screen chemistry of the polygon, and the female love rival is neither super-pitiable nor super-obnoxious.  It's always enjoyable to see the lavish gifts and extreme makeover that come with a Cinderella story and Eun Hye's character is a great mix of independent strength and peer-pressured weakness.  The most painful part of the first three-quarters is watching Sung Joon's character, Hyun Sang Hee, play the too-nice, forgotten, underdog love interest. (I seriously love him, but he's even better in Shut Up! Flower Boy Band.)  And even as you feel bad for him, he's fantastic in his role as self-appointed fairy-godmother.  (Actually, the most painful part might be the cringe-worthy setups and coincidences that have the leads embarassing each other in public...but still, totally worth watching up to this point.)

Then comes the last quarter of the series.  It's terrible.  It's honestly bad enough that I would recommend avoiding the entire series, no matter how much I loved the first handful of episodes.  It dives deeper into the realm of painfully forced conflicts and unrealistic separations than any other Cinderella-story I've seen.  Even a Hong-sister's drama's forced separation doesn't compare in senselessness and aggravation.  Grr...it still makes me mad just remembering the last few episodes (and I gave myself several weeks to cool off before writing this summary).

The final three episodes are by far the worst.  While you get something of a happy ending (however dissatisfying it may be) for the main couple, many supporting characters' problems were left unresolved.  One of my favorite characters was almost entirely left in limbo.  What a disappointing end to what had started off as a wonderfully addictive series.

Arang and the Magistrate Ep 3

Jade Emperor/King of Heaven--shouldn't he have better cheekbones?  >.<

So by the third episode, three things particularly stand out:
1.  I'll be so surprised the day Jun Ki plays a mature character.  He's certainly not delving into that new territory as Eun Oh.
2.  What happened to great cheekbones on important characters?  Maybe it's the hats and hairstyles, but Yoo Seung Ho (the Jade Emperor/King of Heaven) and Yun Woo Jin (Joo Wal) are both surprisngly round-faced so far...Lee Jun Ki has always been pretty-round faced, but it's his look...
3.  I'm really enjoying the fact that Eun Oh is the only person who can see ghosts.  The townsfolk must think he's insane, as they often see him talking animatedly to no one, walking awkwardly as he's carrying nothing, and engaging in crazy acrobatic fights with invisible foes.

Summary:
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Overall, Joo Wal is being portrayed as more evil, Eun Oh is developing more affection and empathy for Arang, and the Kings of Heaven and Hell continue to play boardgames while clearly worrying about their growing soul-related problems.

In this epsiode, a corpse is found after a long rain. It's the late magistrate's daughter and definitely Arang's body, but Eun Oh is disappointed to see that his mother's hair pin is missing.  Arang, understandably upset by the sight, runs off and Eun Oh takes the body back to her room.  Joo Wal also shows up and argues against Eun Oh taking the body.  He makes it clear that, although they may have been engaged, he never had any feelings for the girl.

After Eun Oh arranges for the body to be cleaned up and guarded (I wonder if they're going to provide a convenient explanation why it's not decayed after 3 years), he goes in search of Arang.  Meanwhile, she is working with the female shaman at a holy site, where tehy trap the Death God and hold him until he agrees to let her meet the King of Heaven/Jade Emperor.

The Kings of Heaven and Hell are playing Go, aware of the negotiations Arang is attempting on the earthly plain.  The King of Hell reasserts his claim to her soul, but after the Jade Emperor makes a particularly great move in the game, the two negotiate a new deal: if Jade Emperor takes back his last move, the King of Hell will consider letting him meet with Arang...

Scenes of Note:
The fight scene in the barn, which ends with a random villager looking into the barn to see why the magistrate was making such a ruccous by himself.

Arang and the Magistrate Ep 1 & 2

I've been so excited for this series, as it marks Lee Jun Ki's return to dramas after serving his 2 years in the military.  It's an interesting premise, taking a more supernatural-approach to a historical drama.  But regardless of the particular story line, it should be a good fit for Jun Ki, who captured my attention in "The King and the Clown" and "Iljimae".  Yay, he's back!

The choreography looks like it will also be a major draw for this series.  There are a ton of fight scenes among otherworldly and supernatural creatures, which lends itself to a lot of impressive wire-work and impossible-looking moves.

Summary:
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Arang and the Magistrate starts with a government official (Kim Eun Oh, played by Lee Jun Ki) wandering in the forest with his manservant.  We learn from the manservant that Eun Oh is looking for his mother and his quest is particularly ill-timed--they are traveling through a forest known for its ghosts, toward a town that had lost its three most recent magistrates to ghosts.  The manservant is terrified of ghosts, but Eun Oh scoffs that they don't exist.

In the same forest, a lone girl, Arang, is cursing because she's become separated from her band of ghost-buddies.  She finds her ghost-buddies as they begin harassing a troop of living travelers.  Because they've interfered with living humans, they've called down the otherworldly ghost-catchers upon themselves.  Her ghost buddies quickly are captured and dissipated by the ghost-catchers, but Arang flees and is followed by a single ghost-catcher.  She runs past Eun Oh and his manservant and it becomes apparent that Eun Oh could see her, while his manservant could not.

We get some exposition in the beginning of the episode--Arang is apparently a virgin ghost with no memories of her previous life.  She does not know her name or how she died and refuses to pass on to the next world until she finds the truth.  Eun Oh is the (presumably illegitimate) son of a retired official who still holds a great deal of politicl clout and a slave woman.  His mother sent him to live with his father years ago, but all Eun Oh has ever wanted was to live with his mother.  He secretly posesses great shaman-powers to not only see, but also touch, ghosts.

Arang and Eun Oh first meet in a tiny shack in the woods, where both had taken shelter from the rain.  Eun Oh pretends not to see or hear Arang, as it has been his experience that ghosts will immediately ask for inconvenient favors if they know a human can hear them.  They don't interact until the next day, in a town, when Arang catches Eun Oh shooing away some persistent street-ghosts.  She nags him persistently, asking him to find out who she was and how she died.  He argues that he's not a magistrate and has no responsibility toward her.  She gets him to agree that if he were a magistrate, he would help her.  He has no intention of ever becoming a magistrate, so he quickly makes the promise.

Arang, having haunted around the area recently, knows that the town is desperately looking for a magistrate. They've lost the last three magistrates to ghosts on the first night of their appointments.  (In reality, Arang had attempted to appear before each one to ask their help and she had scared each one to death...)  She blackmails a weak female shaman into helping her and soon three low-ranking government officials are kidnapping Eun Oh to become their new magistrate (just for the night, as they believe he too will be killed by ghosts).

The next day, Eun Oh is still alive.  Eun Oh has no intention of sticking around as the magistrate, until he realizes that Arang is wearing a hair pin he had given to his mother.  She had the hair pin since before her death, so the only way to learn how she acquired the pin is to help her recover her pre-death memories.  He resigns himself to sticking around as the magistrate until the mystery is solved.

The three low-ranking government officials are upset because they don't actually want a functioning magistrate in the area.  They are corrupt and in service of the evil local official, Nobleman Choi.  Choi was sent to the area after a demotion, but he rules over the town as if he were king.  He and his son, Joo Wal, are up to some very shady activities and feel threatened by the new magistrate.  They refer to the next full moon (a "rotten moon" that comes once a year) as an impending deadline.  Joo Wal needs to acquire enough girls by the full moon for some seemingly otherworldly purpose.  Throughout the episodes, rumors hint that bad things happen to young women around this time of year.  It's the same time that Arang died, three years ago, so it seems that Joo Wal and Arang's death are linked.

We learn that the late-Magistrate (presumably 4 Magistrates ago, since Arang killed the last 3) had a daughter who went missing around the time of Arang's death.  Eun Oh investigates and finds that the needlepoint on Arang's dress matches with the needlepoint-in-progress of the late-Magistrate's daughter.  Although Arang doesn't feel like the identity is the right fit, they proceed to investigage.  The late-Magistrate's daughter had been engaged to Joo Wal, so Arang & Eun Oh plan to go meet with him to learn more about her.  When Arang spots Joo Wal, she has a major panic attack/heart-palpitations, which they chalk it up to her having been in love with him.

Meanwhile, Joo Wal had been looking for a particular girl that he must find before the full moon.  He goes to a gisaeng house, but doesn't find anyone appropriate.

Throughout the episodes, we see the King of Heaven and the King of Hell playing a game of Go and talking about recent troubles with the souls.  Many more ghosts are staying on the earthly plain and a number of souls have gone missing altogether.  They reference Arang several times and the King of Hell asserts that he has claim to her, since she's disobeyed the order of things by walking the earth as a ghost.

Scenes of Note:
Episode 1, end, where Arang fights the townspeople, the ghost-catchers descend, and Eun Oh comes to her rescue on horseback.