Isn't there a Sleeping Beauty in a forest?

[dictionarysays]

Nemureru Mori? FUUUUU
I even went so far as to upload my Tsuyoshi-bawling-in-one-of-the-most-beautiful-films-ever-made icon for this post. :*

☆ FIRST AND FOREMOST: I did not appreciate Naoki's afterthought death in like, what? The last minute or so? Don't get me wrong; I was invested and had grown to love him and thus very biased but if there had at least been some sort of BUILD UP then maybe I would've understood. Or at least been like 'sure okay fine I can deal I get it I mean there were hints being dropped along the way what're you gonna do?' but noooooooo, none of that. And if someone tries to tell me his headaches, which there were like two of after the Santa Claus beating, and him slowing down here and there were sufficient enough? Uhhhhh. No. If I didn't know any better, I would think they were just playing with our heartstrings - I was already in a very volatile position before episode 12, I thought we were over and done with the bs but nope. Unnecessary melodramatica had to strike again. NGEL. I wanted to go all yakuza on my computer's butt by the time the credits started rolling and It Wasn't Even My Acer's Fault. ;AAA; Just Wondering: How many of you actually thought he was dead and not, idk, unconscious? Did any of you... expect it?! I think I just need to know I'm not alone, lol.

★ I wasn't crazy about Kiichiro going crazy (yeah, I went there). Well, it doesn't bother me that much, but I guess I was sort of hoping he'd go on and do his best impression of a normal life while going crazy with paranoia but not literally for the rest of his days. I liked the idea of that and could sort of picture it in my head, so I wasn't expecting the psych ward-thing and I guess in the end, Kokubu still got his way.

☆ SPEAKING OF WHICH. What was the point of Kiichiro's mom? I was srsly misled by her in the beginning, thinking that maybe she had a hand in the murder, which, well, I guess she was sorta-kind of involved. BUT SRSLY. What was with that whole I won't forgive the woman who deceives your heart? Maybe I'm just not reading into it deep enough? I figured it had smth to do with Minako but even still, I don't know how to apply it. :/ IDEK. I just really wanted to fast-forward any scenes she was in (although I never did |D) by the 9th episode, and a shame too because I love Harada Mieko.

★ So exactly how many forbidden/incest-love dramas has Kimura done? Lol. As soon as he found the locket I was pretty sure it was an Ito, but still. I wanted to wish it wasn't because I was betting on a kiss-scene between the two because yes, by the end of episode 5 I was shipping them instead and firm in my belief that Kiichiro was the killer indeed. Kind of a shame too because I'd really loved their relationship (Minako's and Kiichiro's) in the beginning, especially the first scene in the first episode with the phonecall morning and siiiiiigh. It was fun while it lasted.


But you know, in general, overlooking those little things above except for Naoki's death - I'm never overlooking that I really liked this drama. There was even a few points in the show where I thought it might usurp Karei Naru which is my favourite drama ever and probably always will be unless Kitaoji Kinya works with Tsuyopon :DD but in the end it didn't. Kim' was Pretty Great in it though, creeper!Kim is slowly becoming one of the best things in this world and if only they had stuck with that a little bit longer, even just another episode or two. I've gotta admit, I wasn't pleased when the end of ep 5 brought about the death of creeper!Kim and introduced sympathy. It's refreshing to hate a lead like Kim once in a while and he played whackjob so well too - props for that gorgeous scene in ep 4? where Naoki gets all crazy-eyed on us and unleashes the beast and the transition happens physically/figuratively through a red light filter and uggggggh, prop-placement was beautiful. My ultimate favourite acting of his though is the him and Keita on the rooftop scene; emotions were literally being wrenched from his throat and rolling off his skin and just, dude, for that scene alone and the screaming after his friend I would rec' this drama.

I will always frown at the cut of his tank top though; I LOVE THAT HIS ARMS WERE CLOTHES FREE AND THE LINES OF HIS BODY WERE ALWAYS IN REACH but I just didn't like the way the tank top looked. Smth about the way it was cut on the sides and how it rounded around his chest and how any minute now there could've been a nip-slip. IDK. This means nothing but it bugged me enough that I've got to mention it again, ahaha. The hair-flipping-pushing-playing was very pretty and I loved the way he'd push it up and out of his face (I'm a sucker for shit like that), but I did wonder: how much of that was Naoki and how much of that was just habit-nerves? ♥

Omg, how could I forget? YURI. THE VERY BANE OF MY EXISTENCE AND THE MOST ANNOYING CHARACTER I'VE WATCHED THIS YEAR. DD8 I just couldn't for the life of me learn to love her, not even when Naoki was being a dick and she was crying and then she would try to assert herself... nothing could sway me to care. Okay, that's a lie, I did feel bad and cried when she died But She Was Stupid. Who goes after Santa Claus? ALONE? And then to make it worse it was Keita all along! I liked him and yeah, it probably had mostly to do with the fact it was Yusuke because I love me some Yusuke but still. He was cute sometimes and I liked his acting at parts. The look on his face when he saw Naoki and Yuri get back together though was just tragic. Also: Scene where Naoki and Keita are wearing the giant heads and confessing their Yuri-feelings was really sweet in this baaaaaw-the-boys-are-saying-shit-they-wouldn't-usually-say-if-they-weren't-disguised sort of way.

I guess I should talk about Minako, huh? She was good. idk, it's not that she was bad or anything but there were scenes (particularly big arse more truth is being revealed scenes) where I thought she could've given more. Admittedly though, I can ignore that because Miho is just so beautiful, every time she was on screen I was just all *__* for the first few seconds. And despite how not-excited I sound about the entire thing, I wouldn't have wanted the role to be played by anyone else. I liked her best when you could see her feelings toward Naoki change throughout the entire thing, just from the little subtle ways she'd look at him, the things she'd say - they were key.

Hmmm, I feel like there's more but at the same time I really just think I wanted to get the four bullet points out of my system, lol. I was raging really hard afterwards and needed to find the time to write these out so a few hours later, here I am. 8D;;

IF YOU'VE SEEN THIS
Rage/rant/flail/fuss/squee/anything under this as much as you want.
I neeeeeeeeeeeed more people to talk to about this. ಥ⌣ಥ

Comments

[dictionarysays.livejournal.com]

I don't think there's anything dimwitted about that! Afterwards I kept trying to come up with excuses like, 'oh no no, Naoki's just sleeping and having a terrible dream that causes him to Cry One Single Tear that's all' because Denial's my favourite place to visit this year. Honestly though, your explanation? I could've TOTALLY understood that and even approved after several days of therapeutic crying in the shower because idek, it didn't feel like after all of this, Naoki's storyline life? would lead up to this. I don't care if I was being naive, lol, I srsly believed he'd get a chance to start all over and maybe manage to live half the life he wanted to with Minako finally by his side - despite, you know, the cost of everything else. :/

But there went that. Evil writers proving us wrong once more~

Nemureru Mori really left me in pieces.
I KNOOOOOW. (屮ﾟДﾟ)屮 The drama definitely succeeded in that sense, it just leaves you wracked in pain and face covered in snot and tears or maybe that's just me?. Personally, I LOVE dramas that leave me feeling like that, it's not that I necessarily like feeling terrible, but I love when a drama can make me feel like that and leave me all unabashedly sobbing like a three yo while the credits are rolling. Baaah, I hope it didn't ruin your vacation completely! Not enough dramas leave me with that, that mass of afterthoughts and general thinking-process so when they do, it's awesome. it's actually pretty sad how often i end a drama not even remembering a lot of the characters names, lol - but i blame it on 'it's japanese, it's harder for it to stick' |D;;;

THANKTHANKYOUYES. If there had been some sort of lead-up, like, idk, just a little more backbone to the entire thing, I would've been much more fine than I am now. I wouldn't have liked it, but I would've understood and been able to move on faster. If that's how hematoma really works, like, sheeesh, what's to stop me from dropping dead in my social changes of lation america lecture tonight? DD8 /srsly writers you don't have to always write shit because it'll make us sob out entire meals

Oooh, your 2 cents is better than anything I've tried to cook up, lol. There was a point I even thought she was alive and not ethereal, ahaha, but then she started walking through walls and it hit me then. P: I think I was expecting there to be more to her, especially by the last ep - it was like, 'uhhhh, ghost mother, how is your story gonna end??' - but if they wanted to make Kiichiro come off as a little off his rocker, they managed that. Now why didn't they do this in Naoki's case? /forever bitter

UMM. CAN I JUST SAY? I FINALLY READ YOUR NEMUMORI REVIEW LAST NIGHT AFTER THIS POST, LOL, AND UGGGH, IT WAS TOTALLY WORTH THE WAIT. I'VE WANTED TO READ IT FOR MONTHS BUT I ALSO WANTED TO WATCH IT FIRST TOO SO I COULDN'T JUST YET. /i lurk your reviews all the time & i'm a terrible person because of that but omg Y U SO FUNNY?! ♥♥

tl;dr: IAWITHEVERYTHINGYOUSAID.

[enders-girrrl.livejournal.com]

=D =D =D Oyaoyaoya didn't know you've been to my brog -- and lurking too! :O -- but it's nice to know you're liking what you're finding (so far haha) xP

Re my NemuMori review, thanks for the kind words! I wrote that piece when I was deep in my Kimmy honeymoon stage and was feeling all romantic and moody and tended to over-process everything with rose-tinted glasses, etc etc. I put more thought into writing (and rewriting) it than I normally would and it's one of the few reviews I can say I'm proud of (even though the drama itself isn't a personal fave). ('Coz lately it's all been "Moon Lovers? hahaha *mock, mock*" on my blog >P Dammit Kimmy I need to BELIEVE, MAKE ME BELIEVE AGAIN T___T)

Speaking of Kiichiro I feel a little sorry for Nakamura Toru after having seen him play pretty much the same cold-blooded, creepy character in NemuMori, K-20 (Matsu and Takeshi Kaneshiro hihi) and Karei. You wonder if he can ever transcend the typecasting -- prolly not, not with those eyes of his lol

Personally, I LOVE dramas that leave me feeling like that, it's not that I necessarily like feeling terrible, but I love when a drama can make me feel like that and leave me all unabashedly sobbing like a three yo while the credits are rolling.

Ah. So that explains your partiality to doomed, dark and twisted Kimmy dramas. =P But don't you want to see him get the girl and be happy and survive the last episode at least? xP I do second hereticpop's exhortation to give Long Vacation a try, since it's the one drama that enjoys universal <3 <3 <3 within the Kimura fandom (and even outside it). There are no perfect dramas, but I find LV the closest thing to one -- along with Nobuta wo Produce that is.(Your exchange with hereticpop below is a total LULZ, if I may say!)

LoveGen is a far more polarizing drama (the prod.values are the PITS, and the story is the closest to a '90s soap that Kimura's ever done -- barring Asunaro Hakusho that is haha), but -- oh, it's the falling in love of Kimu and Matsu's characters that makes it worth the watch, IMO. Weird, but I would still choose LG over LV to take to a deserted island. Maybe someday you'll find yourself in the mood for Kimura as a horny, plaid-wearing Gen-Xer. hihihi

Omg did I read it right -- YOU HAVEN'T SEEN PURAIDO???? Nandeeeeeeeee