it was a fun enough ep 1, even tho it was kinda frustrating to see another female best friend backstabbing the main character. let's see how ep. 2 goes.

on the most superficial level, the people aren't as pretty as in osen. even the cakes. still, everyone had pleasant enough voices--the kronos programmer is my favorite character from ep. 1. had to put the mute on the ED--felt kinda shrill to me for some reason.

i wonder if riko too will have a harem the size of miaka's.

so i downloaded rainbow song simply because aoi yuu is in it. and i cried, then had to play the Dutoit version of The Planets really loud--Jupiter, of course. must reclaim it from this sappy movie. which was actually good, thank goodness, since aoi chan was in it for all of 20 seconds.

juri ueno, huh? all i know is she looks hot in those last friends cap w/ the short hair (thanks for confronting stereotypes of dykes). i don't think i'll watch her in nodame--the hair is unbecoming. besides, not even ayako (seiyuu for lafiel in crest of the stars) could make me endure the anime version, so forget the live action. and last friends sounds like it has some overacting from masami n., so i'll pass. better to look at pictures and imagine the rest.

the actor who played kishida would've made a good takemoto. why doesn't any casting director realize this? sakurai sho was a terrible miscast. ikuta toma was a miscast too but he's so good that i could bear his turning takemoto into a perv who would chant 'nudo, nudo'...

still, the part of the movie where kishida almost lets the psycho woman marry him dragged for too long--a little judicious editing would have done. same with the end. aoi-chan did a good job, and was adorable in the goldfish scene. she was a bit of a wise yoda here and was convincing in her role.

thanks to aoi-chan i discovered osen, and now rainbow song. after the honey and clover j-drama i sort of lost faith in live action, so this is rather welcome.

another 5 minutes of cool down, and i'll put on osen to chase away the down.

osen 3 made me cry. ETA did an outstanding job translating this episode. when i first saw this in the raw, i just thought it was a dull episode that would lose all the momentum episode 2 built, but today i found it moving and nostalgic. i was even willing to forgive the extremely unflattering hairdo they chose for osen during the 'show ryu-san the flavors of today's ishouan' segment.

wow. been a while since a tv story moved me.

i thought ep. 2 was fun, super cute. i thought ep 4 was truly excellent--what a cutie, she even had a cute skip, could convey emotions without over-acting, and there were smooth transitions between the cute and the serious portions of the show. i love the scene where she is taking the ribbon out of her hair, inwardly reproaching herself for acting like a giddy school girl when she had the grown-up task of ensuring isshouan's survival right in front of her...

i sound like a sap. but it's nice to be pleasantly surprised.

still, ep. 2 and ep. 4 had much better hair styling (let's not forget what's important here). even counting the part of ep. 4 where she had the towel over her head and was watering the vegetables, the adorable 'ii desu kedo' moment...

so thankful i found this series.

can't get the BGM for osen out of my brain. and i keep referring to 'osen' as 'onsen.' the show, not the cutie :p

found a blog for someone who enjoyed the h&c drama, at least the early episodes. here.
http://astronerdboy.blogspot.com/search/label/Honey%20and%20Clover

he made some good points.

something smells yummy.

must play some spitz lest the osen sprain my brain...