Miori Takimoto: Tsuma, wa Kunoichi episode 1 screenshots and recap

 Tsuma, wa Kunoichi is Miori's latest drama that started on April 5th, it translates roughly over to My Wife is a Ninja which is what Miori is. Four episodes have aired, have just watched the first 2 which I'll be reviewing back to back, subs for episode 3 just came out today but think I'll be doing posts on this series two episodes at a time, though it's a 42 minute show it's rather slow paced with not too, too much happening which seems to be a trend as of late for dramas.

 Miori's character is named Orie who works for the Shogunate Kawamura, this drama takes place in the latter days of the Edo era before it's renamed Tokyo so would say it takes place in the early 1860's. Orie is sent on a secret mission to Hirado, for undercover purposes she marries a skilled yet socially inept astronomer called Futaboshi but after one month when her mission is complete she suddenly disappears back to Edo. Futaboshi is a quite upset as even though they had got married quickly he really did fall in love with her and as we learn she fell in love with him too. He has no clue what happened to her but figures Edo would be a good starting point and travels there to find her. There Futaboshi meets Hirado's former lord Matsuura and his old best friend Senemon who helps him to get settled in Edo. Meanwhile Orie is back living at the headquarters of Kawamura with her mother and preparing for another secret assignment which doesn't start until the next episode. As this episode ends by chance Orie happens to come across her husband Futaboshi, luckily for her he didn't notice her and looks like this may be a recurring theme for at least the first few episodes.

 In the 42 minute episode that's really the gist of what happened, much introducing of the characters and really very little else, didn't make it a bad or boring episode, though it may take a while to get to the main story lines least the show moved along fairly well. Only complaint really about the first episode was that Miori wasn't in it too much, she will be after this show but much of this episode focused on her husband who is hard to explain yet, more about him in the next post that covers episode two, check out these screenshots here of Miori from this show, not enough of them as she wasn't in it as nearly as her fans would have liked her to be, episode 2 her role luckily greatly increases.

Main Cast:

Miori Takimoto as Orie 
Somegoro Ichikawa as Hikoma Futaboshi, Orie's husband
Min Tanaka as Seizan Matsuura, the former Hirado lord
Mayumi Wakamura as Masae, Orie's mother
Soko Wada as Shinichiro Kawamura, Orie's superior
Keisuke Horibe as Senemon

Miori Takimoto: Tsuma, wa Kunoichi episode 2 screenshots and recap

 First two episodes may have been better by being put together as a mini movie because the second episode continued along the theme of the first as far as letting us know the characters a bit more and setting things up for future episodes. Orie(Miori) this time was given an assignment to protect an important woman but came up with a plan to avoid doing that job as she probably would come into contact with her husband Futaboshi. Her plan was eating poisonous mushrooms, she had just enough to disable her for a while so another ninja would take her place and it worked but the question that lingers is will it come back to haunt her? Meanwhile her husband Futaboshi has settled in quite nicely in Edo, most of his neighbors really like him and he ends up getting a job as a teacher in an elementary school. Futaboshi is still on the lookout for Orie but has no idea where to even start looking, little does he know she's been keeping a watch on him. It's a good thing for him that she was as towards the end of this episode he was attacked by some men of the Shogunates but he stated they acted on their own. It was Orie who came to his rescue, she is one skilled ninja and was able to take out the small group of men, she was disguised in her uniform the whole time so Futaboshi had no idea it was his wife, she disappeared right after her victory. And so ended episode two of this drama, yeah it's a bit slow going and is taking too long to get to the main plot but both episodes have been solid watches, mthe 42 minutes flew by and maybe it's been slow going as in order to set everything up for the rest of the series, really hope that's the case. so far would recommend it, to end off here's some screenshots of one fine looking ninja, that being Miori.

Maki Horikita: April magazine scans #4

 Couple posts ago was mentioning how I'd thought there would be more mag scans of Maki's seeing as how her new movie Kencho Omotenashi Ka was coming out in May but seeing as how this is the 4th post of mag spreads I've done of Maki's this month guess there have been quite a few. First one up is really one terrific spread of Maki, this is from the May 8th issue Weekly Shonen, she's done so many spreads for them over the years, all rate an A++++.

 June issue of TV Navi.

 Rest of these also feature Maki's co-star in her new movie which is Ryo, these pics here are from the June issue of Myojo.

 June issue of Non-no.

 And lastly from Pia's Spring Movie Special.

Yui Ichikawa: Otenki Oneesan episode 3 screenshots

 Yui's roles and characters in her dramas haven't always fit her well enough but when she does guest spots on shows she seems to get much better roles like the ones in Otomen, Lady and a few others and her appearance here is also a good one. Most of the plot revolves around her character Sanae who had just broken up with her boyfriend, right after that a series of firs broke out around her and he turned out to be suspect #1. Though he wasn't much of a guy being an arsonist and stalker wasn't something he could do and it turns out that a jealous woman friend of Sanae's was behind all these fires and she got saved just in the nick of time from dying in a fire, think the plot will have a few more details in the post above. Do have a bunch of Yui screenshots from the show, she just has always looked terrific and has for a real long time, hard to believe for as long as she's been around she's still only 27.