Life As A Girl (Japanese Drama, New)
Synopsis: Dismayed to come home to see his high school classmate sitting in front of his door, Miki Ogawa impatiently explains to his dumbfounded classmate that since leaving high school he has started following his true desire to live as a woman…even though he is still attracted to women not men. In short, Miki Ogawa is a woman living in a man’s body but he is still attracted to women. As one can guess, Miki’s situation makes it a bit difficult to find true love but that of course will not stop our hero/heroine.
I checked out the first episode and it was a light but quite interesting watch…actually, it made me feel like “Wow, I should appreciate being a girl more.”
Kiss That Kills (Todome no Kiss)
Synopsis: A popular male host, our hero Eito makes a living romancing rich women. Filled with excitement when he finally meets a mega heiress, Eito gets ready to hit it big…until a strange woman kills him with a kiss on Christmas Eve. Thinking everything he experienced was simply a dream when he opens his eyes to find himself before Christmas Eve, Eito goes on with his day thinking it was rather weird that everything around him feels eerily familiar…until he is killed by the strange woman with a kiss again. Realizing his dream was all real when he wakes up once again before Christmas Eve, Eito is determined to figure out a way to not get killed and still get the mega heiress at the same time.
I thought at first that this one was going to be one of those Japanese kinky dramas, but I couldn’t be more wrong! The first episode of Kiss That Kills was fast paced and very intriguing with a surprisingly amount of emotional development on our hero’s character as well. One issue I usually have with stories that have a similar premise to Groundhog Days is that the story gets repetitive. However, Kiss That Kills avoids most of that because everytime our hero goes back in time after he is killed, the timeline moves forward a bit (so we are not repeating all of the same stuff every time) and he usually lasts a while longer before he is killed again so that also helps. The other thing I really appreciate is that despite the frequency of our hero getting killed, the show doesn’t feel depressing or somber. The show is not a silly comedy by any means but the director has skillfully added light touches whenever he can.
Todome No Parallel (Japanese Drama, New)
This one is a spinoff of Todome No Kiss. The producers of Todome No Kiss has brilliantly decided to make another show to tell the story of what happens to the world our hero left behind after he dies.
Video Girl AI 2018 (Japanese Drama, New)
Based on the popular manga series “Denei Shojo: Ai-hen” by Masakazu Katsura, Video Girl AI 2018 is set 25 years after the original and tells the story of Sho who is the nephew of Youta Moteuchi (the hero in the original). Harboring a seemingly hopeless crush on a girl in his class because she actually likes his best friend, our hero, Sho Moteuchi moves in with his uncle after his parents’ divorce. Curious when he comes across an old VCR tape, Sho Moteuchi fixes the broken tape and puts it into the VCR. Shocked when a girl appears on tv then steps out of the screen to introduce herself as Video Girl AI, our hero begins his own adventure.
Despite having some vague memory of this manga, this is really not my sort of show so I am passing on this one.
My First Love (Korean Drama, New)
This one is a time traveling story where our hero goes back to the past to get another chance at a happy ending with his first love. Different from the other time traveling stories though, in My First Love, our hero goes back in time in his own body as his twenty eight year old self and meets his high school first love along with his high school 18 year old self. Having been trained by all the time traveling shows in the past that “one’s future self MUST not meet one’s past self” or something terrible will happen, it was kinda odd at first to see our 28 year old hero just willy nilly interacting with his 18 year old self…but I actually find the set up rather refreshing once I got over the “Oh, no. What about the time fabric thingy?!”
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