Okada Masaki Monogatari

Minamoto no Yoritomo (Okada Masaki), ep 42 This week’s Taira no Kiyomori brings me the happy news about Yoritomo confessing his love to Masako! Of course the feeling was reciprocal, but the confession did not happen before an arranged marriage and a girl’s escaping the wedding entourage. On the Heike side, we have Kiyomori murdering Saiko and Narichika, an action which appalled his darling son Shigemori. You may be able to watch it online in Pandora TV, FC2 or the like, but perhaps you have to wait for more than 24 hours. The Pandora account where I usually watch the rerun of TNK episodes have deleted ep 41, and I don’t think he/she will upload ep 42. But I got lucky last night and found another Pandora account which uploaded TNK ep 41 here . I assume he/she will upload ep 42 as well. Fingers crossed. [ Edit: Click here to watch ep 42 online! I've watched it several times by 16 Nov, and this is by far my fave TNK episode] Episode 42 opened with a Heike scene as per N...

Minamoto no Yoritomo (Okada Masaki), ep 41 This week’s TNK brings us more Matsuda Shota – I mean, Go-Shirakawa – mourning Shigeko with Lady Gion (Matsuda Seiko) by his side. We also had quite a lot of Yoritomo-Masako, to my glee, in addition to the budding bromance of Benkei and Yoshitsune.  In the Heike side, we have Taira no Shigemori starting to question his father’s action. Below is the summary from Auberginefleur : In 1177, Saiko's son gets into a skirmish with Buddhist monks at a temple on Mt. Hakusan, and the incident escalates into a brawl, involving Buddhist monks of Enryakuji on Mt. Hiei. The cloistered Emperor Go-Shirakawa orders Shigemori to take up arms against the warrior monks, however, Shigemori's retainer accidentally hits the mikoshi (portable shrine) carried by the monks with an arrow, which triggers a new problem. To quell the disturbance, Kiyomori again leads his troops into Kyoto. As you may be well aware now, I’m not a Japanese speaker. So...

Haru (Okada Masaki) came down from the second floor I got a new favourite song a few days ago, called ‘Sometimes’ by S.R.S., an indie Japanese music group. The song was the OST for ‘Gravity’s Clowns/Juryoku Pierrot’ , a 2009 movie starring among others my favourite Okada Masaki. It was another beautiful movie of Masaki’s which showed his maturing acting skill back three years ago.  In the movie directed by Mori Junichi, Masaki was paired with Kase Ryo, a very talented actor 15 years older than Masaki, and Kohinata Fumiyo – a very impressive veteran actor – as his father, Mr Okuno. The story was based on a 2006 novel titled ‘A Pierrot’ written by Isako Kotara and was translated into the wide screen by Aizawa Tomoko. W atch it online here . The movie plot revolved around a dark family secret that was kept away from the two Okuno brothers (Ryo as Izumi and Masaki as Haru) until the death of their mother. Along the way, the movie introduced us to several arson cases...

This week’s TNK focuses on two important women in the Heian Era: Taira no Shigeko and Hōjō Masako. The episode takes us to a big event in Cloistered Emperor Go-Shirakawa’s private life: the death of Shigeko (his favourite court lady). In addition, Minamoto no Yoritomo started to  interact with   Hōjō Masako.  Taira no Shigeko, NHK Below is the summary from Auberginefleur for epi sode 40: In 1174 in Fukuhara, Japan-Sung trade has already started. Kiyomori advises the cloistered Emperor Go-Shirakawa and Shigeko to visit Itsukushima Shrine to pray for the nation's prosperity. Meanwhile, Saiko and Narichika (Go-Shirakawa's aides) start to fear the growing power of the Taira family. Shigeko tells Saiko and Narichika to act as a bridge between Go-Shirakawa and the Taira family. However, after the passing of Shigeko in 1176, the power balance within the Imperial Court begins to fall apart. Around the same time in Izu, Yoritomo and Hōjō Masako are gradually nurturing t...

Poster of Matataki a.k.a. ‘Piecing Me Back Together’ was a 2010 movie I watched this afternoon to quench my thirst of another Okada Masaki performance. The movie didn’t disappoint me, although Masaki’s screen time wasn’t a lot there. It wasn’t because he wasn’t the main actor. He was. But rather, because Matataki is telling the story of Sonoda Izumi (Kitagawa Keiko), a young woman whose boyfriend died during a traffic accident they experienced together. Yep, Matataki is a sad story. Sad, but encouraging as well in the end. It didn’t stop me from crying like a baby, though. My eyes were wet into the first 5 minutes of the movie. I wailed – yes, wailed – during several scenes. I sobbed when I learned what truly happened to Izumi and Junichi Konou (Masaki’s character). But here I’m getting ahead of myself as usual. After the trailers below, I post the recap of Matataki. Heavy spoilers, so for those who want to see it online here (English subbed) without spoilers, you better s...