Anyone say Obsession?

Isn’t Internet just simply too fabulous??

While we were in Japan, one day we decided to go back to the hotel in the early afternoon and just chill after all the temple hoping (more of this in my next post, promise)

Flipping through the TV channels I came across a show that for some reason instantly caught my attention. Of course I couldn’t understand a word of what the characters where saying but I got that it was some sort of Japanese version of a telenovela (minus all the dramatic overacting) and even grasped the general storyline.

The show follows the story of a teenager girl that is the only poor student in the most prestigious (read: rich kids only) high school. The school is “ruled” by the 4 sons of the richest families in all Japan. These guys are mean, selfish, famous womanizers and sometimes even violent… and are of course as sexy and handsome as they come so all the girls in school (except Poor Girl) are in love with them and all the boys worship them. The leader of the gang is the meanest of them all (and the most popular). Anyway, when I started watching, the episode had already started but strangely enough I instantly understood that the Gang leader is in love with the Poor girl (both actors are so cute you just can’t help rooting for them) even though the entire school shuns her because of her poor background and less than “tame” attitude. She on the other hand can’t stand his arrogant show-off attitude and the fact that he is sooo mean to everyone. She is also the only one that dares to stand up to him and his gang and to fight back when he starts bullying / beating other kids (which in fact he usually does just to impress her).

Ok, so the story sounds a bit cheesy, but seriously, the acting, the setting, the music, the entire thing is sooooo well done you don’t really feel like you’re watching Days of our Lives or anything like that. The story moves fast and sticks to the main plot so you’re not side tracked (or bored) by less interesting subplots like in the Mexican/American novelas.

So I was hooked and when the episode finished I was left wanting more…. Lucky for me, for some reason I didn’t get, they were showing 4 episodes in a row!!!! Needless to say, we didn’t get much sightseeing done that day but the more I watched the more I wanted to see… more!

For the life of me after 4 straight hours of watching I still couldn’t figure out the name of the show nor the characters’ names or even the name of the channel it was showing on (that’s how complicated Japanese is!). The next day I tried to see if it was on again but it wasn’t. I was sooooo desperate to find out how the story progressed (from the previews they passed during commercial brakes I could see that exciting stuff was in store not to say the great cliffhanger I was left with!!!)

I kept obsessing about it during the remainder of the trip and when we got back to Paris I immediately began my research, which brings me back to my initial question: isn’t Internet just super duper fabulous???

I started out by googling “Japanese TV shows” and this is what came up:

I decided to start with Wikipedia. I slowly learned that in Japan there is a thing called: terebi dorama which is in fact the Japanese version of a telenovela only it’s much shorter (usually 20 episodes or so). Japanese are great fans of terebi doramas and so they come in all sort of varieties (detective stories, scary stories, educational stories and of course romance stories!). Still, I couldn’t find what I was looking for because Wkipedia spoke mainly of the evening doramas and mine had come on during the afternoon. However I did get one valuable clue to my puzzle: the name of the three main TV channels in Japan: Fuji Television, TBS and NTV.

So I started with Fuji Television. First their Wiki page where I didn’t get much useful info except the name of a few of their popular doramas but none matching the description I was looking for. Next I went to their webpage:


Um…. YIKES?????

I decided to move on to TBS. Much blah blah of no interest to me on Wikipedia but lo and behold the ENGLISH version of the TBS website!!!

I was getting warmer, I could feel it!!!
I clicked on Program Sales…..
Then on Program Catalog…..
And suddenly I was looking at an alphabetical list of all their Doramas!!!

I picked one randomly and clicked on it. A small pop up box with a picture of the show and a little summery showed up. Not what I was looking for but I was resolved to click on each and every one of them if I had to till I found My dorama.

Fortunately, I didn’t have to. The second one I clicked on made my heart skip a beat! THERE IT WAS!!!!

So Hana Yori Dango it was… the English name I later learned is actually “Boys over Flowers”. Not satisfied with the description they made of the show on the TBS site I set out to google Hana Yori Dango and found much much more.

Turns out initially the story is a Manga. Mangas are the famous Japanese comic books that are highly artistic and incredibly popular in Japan and worldwide (if you look at a manga it doesn’t resemble much the classic American comic books). The Hana Yori Dango manga came out in the end of the 90s and was incredibly successful. So they made it into an Anime.

Animes are the famous Japanese cartoons that are highly artistic and incredibly popular in Japan and world wide. Candy Candy and Sailor Moon are good examples of Animes and you’ve probably heard of them. Hana Yori Dango’s anime was also highly successful (although I don’t recall it showing in Mexico) and went on to run for 11 years!!!

So they made it into a Dorama. The Dorama came out in 2006 and ran for 9 episodes during the 1st season and 11 during the 2nd. And it was a huge hit.

So they’ve made it into a movie (which will be coming out next summer) and played the re-runs on TBS (which is what I saw at our hotel).

Now, you know that by now I have already found and watched a subtitled version of the entire 1st season on youtube (stayed up till 4:30am last night, but heck, I’m still on Jetlag so who cares) and am pretty proud of myself… I wasn’t that far off when it came to guessing what was going on!!

I wasn’t disappointed either. The show is great! I loved each and every one of the episodes and the story between Tsukushi Makino -Poor girl- and Tsukasa Domyoji -Gang leader- (I was sooo happy to finally learn their names!) is so cute and funny and real you simply can’t help to see what’s going to happen next. Both actors on the show have great chemistry together.

I’m saving the 2nd season for when Hubby will be away at a seminar in London next week to keep me company during his absence (and also because if he hears one more time the words “La Novela” I'm going to be hearing the words "Le Divorce").

Fned.

P.S. Photos of the trip are comming... I'm currently sorting through 1500 pics (that is, when I'm not watching la n-o-v-e-l-a) so bear with me please.