k a m i . n o . s h i z u k u

Kami no Shizuku
Year: Winter/Spring 2009
Genre: Drama
My Rating: 3/10
Recommend: No

It has been a while since such mediocrity has inspired me to write. Okay okay. I admit I haven't been watching anything new...at all. Not even the Korean version of Hana Yori Dango. I dread the prolonged dramatics of it all. I broke down because I have taken a renewed interest in actual reading and adding a comic in the mix. So I had to watch a Japanese drama. And why not try Kame's new one? Why not?

Kami no Shizuku is about a young man venturing into his father's world of wine after shunning it for so long (mangaupdates summurized it waaaaaay better than me).

I read the manga. Yes the drama is based on a comic. And that made me feel a combination of anticipation and apprehension. I only read a few chapters of the manga, but I was quite taken with it. As you may expect the drama gave a completely different vibe then the comic had. Cheap is the first word that comes to mind. Despite the 2 billion yen inheritance and the high class wines cheap is the consistence feel. Maybe it was the mannequin stand-in for Kame in the beginning of the show (Haha...not really). Maybe it was the actors trying so hard to do their jobs...which would be acting I presume. The flimsy sets also factor in.

Kame, I am faced with the undeniable fact, is a bad actor. I admit it. And it is actually annoying me to see him continue acting. Stop it boy! He can't sing much better but that doesn't stop him. I feel as if I am stating a (very very very) well-known fact. Kame Kame Kame. Tsk tsk tsk. The child actor who played the same character did far better in my opinion. I think I only liked Kame in Suppli...at the height of my obsession with him. On a side note his hair is looking quite horrendous. I mention hair too much? Well, I have issues.

Kame's character was a pretty boy to some degree in the manga. But he was not Johnny's pretty boy with long flowing locks and delicate features. So when a Johnny's pretty boy is let out from the stable and is made a central fixture in a drama the oh so fragile balance is disrupted. Instead of a feisty woman as the love interest we get a plucky (petite, beautiful, dainty, etc etc) GIRL. Kanzaki Shizuku (played by Kame) in the manga seemed younger and more naive than love interest Shinohara Miyabi (played by Naka Riisa). But the unspoken rule is that...well it just doesn't work that way in "real life." I doubt those fuddy duddy Japanese men like to see capable women near their main characters. Just devious ones. Sure Shinohara, in the drama, is capable in her own way. But compared to the manga version she is a weak and helpless damsel.

Well enough about that babe in the woods with that thick mask of foundation. I think she actually had trouble moving her face. Maybe it was the Botox...except that she is younger than me (dammit!).

Rival, food critic, wine connoisseur, and who knows what else, Tomine Issei (Tanabe Seiichi) is just sad...and pathetic. His flowery speech is supposed to make him seem lofty, but it just sounds like poo poo. Spewing such nonsense about peasants thanking God for the potato famine or some such. Moreover his insights sound stalkerish and suspicious...as if sounding stalkerish isn't suspicious enough! He also has a pet trollop...I mean a lady friend (Uchida Yuki). And they drink wine together...creepily.

The story need not be talked of...it is just so random, and bad. I don't know if he is an addition or not but Takenaka Naoto plays the lovable drunken bum Robert (Rowbare!). Due to his huge success (???) in Nodame Cantabile, and his oh-so-precious accent, he NEEDED to play a foreigner once again. Oh goodness!

Wah wah wah. I don't like this drama. It tis very sad and all...but predictable. Since I have a feeling they don't even try. I laugh at their viewer ratings! Haha! Single digits and falling people! It doesn't teach them to stray from mediocrity though. Sad business.