Smashing the Glass Slipper

Sometimes (not often) the Japanese do produce romantic dramas that I like, and falling squarely in that category is Cinderellas of Midsummer, which has a trio of interesting love stories that don't slither down the usual depressing/arty/everyone dies path that so many other J-dramas do.

The eleven episode series is lead by beach girl Natsumi Aoi (Nana Mori), who works hard to teach paddleboard surfing, run her family's tourist cafe and take care of her younger brother and her mostly useless father. Mom left seven years ago, so Natsumi has had to shoulder a lot of responsibility, and doesn't really have time for romance. The same could be said of her two childhood friends, fledgling hair stylist Airi Takigawa (Ai Yoshikawa) and single mom dry cleaner Risa Ogura (Sawa Nimura). Naturally three princely guys appear on the scene, led by Kento Mizushima (Shotaro Mamiya), a busy construction company executive who stands to inherit the business from his dad. Natsumi and Kento are complete opposites, so of course they have to fall in love.

The usual problems with Japanese dramas are pretty sparse in this series. Everyone is excessively polite, of course, and the romance is Victorian-era conservative, but the three intersecting storylines were interesting. I didn't quite buy the love story between the leads, especially considering the lethal attractiveness of both characters' competition. It was fun, and yet there were some real nail-biting moments with the leads (especially when Kento's co-worker decides to interfere.)

An interesting fact came up when I recognized one of the secondary characters (in the photo, the guy on the left end of the bottom row) as Kenshi Okada but was listed under a different name. I did a little research and he left his old agency and decided to work under his real name, Koshi Mizukami. He's excellent in his role and quite convincing as a pediatrician who falls for the single mother friend. The resolutions of all three romances were fairly satisfying, too, so I'll recommend this one. Available on Viki.com.

Comments

Other Stashes

Along with clearing out the spare bedroom and tidying my office and our guest bedroom, I decided to reorganize some of my stashes. This is all the yarn I have on hand, sorted by color. It looks like a lot, but lately I've been using up a minimum of half a bin every month, so this is approximately a year's supply. All of my solid color cotton perle thread. I go through a lot of this every year, too. I need a container in which I can fit all of it together, but I haven't found the right one yet. I won't show you all of my fabric -- I'm still reorganizing this stash -- but I went through everything and donated two bins of fabric I won't need to the local quilter's guild.

Goodwill Gamble #2 Arrives

My second Goodwill gamble arrived; this is one I paid ten bucks for last month. Just inside the lid was a big roll of plastic mesh that I think is for latchhook work. In the auction listing it looked like fabric to me, so that was unexpected. Someone at the seller's end was nice enough to put a note on this pinned fabric. I'll put on my gloves before I take it out to inspect it. The embroidered green fabric turned out to be 1-1/2 yards of sequinned and three-dimensional designer fabric. I'll guess this cost somewhere between $20.00 to $30.00 a yard, and it's in pristine condition. But here's a shot of everything in the lot, which is mostly crafty odds and ends with a small amount of cotton fabrics, a large amount of synethetic fabrics, and some other surprises. The original owner of these was probably a Catholic school teacher; these beads, crosses and medallions are the kind of rosary kits for kids to make at Sunday school or Bible camp (and s...

Love Means This

Invested in a couple of hand-dyed bundles from one of my favorite fabric artists. This one said "Make me into something for Valentine's Day." So I went for a quilted and embellished tote. I kept thinking about what love means to me as I worked on it. Here's the finished tote. Although I was tempted to embellish with beads and pins, I got sick and only felt well enough to do a little stitching every night. As I worked I thought about how often love seems disappointing to us, especially when it fails to live up to our expectations. But now that I've experienced love in many forms, I can say that it's made me a better person than I might have been without it. Love is a precious thing, and should be appreciated in all its forms. I am very grateful for the love of my guy, my child and my friends who have stuck with me all these years. That's you two, in case you're wondering. :) Also finally found something to do with a ve...

Valerean

Search This Blog