Aya Ueto; Thermae Romae 2 promo event pics and trailer

 Think this is the first post for Aya since last year, there's really been zero to post about her but that should be changing soon. "Itsuka Hi no Ataru Basho de" was a fine drama of Aya's that aired from January to March of 2013, it's coming back as a special TV movie and it'll be airing on April 1st, hoping that it will be subbed and fairly confident that it will, the drama is highly recommended. Also the Thermae Romae movie is having a sequel, it's coming out on April 26th and here's some pics from a promo event that was held last week and after them check out the trailer for the film.

Masami Nagasawa: Chocolat drama episode 1 recap

 Masami Nagasawa as Chen Qian Hhi, not her Japanese name but her name in Manadrin

 Blue Lan as Qin Shi Wu

 Not going to go into too much detail for this drama yet but before I forget what happened will do a brief review. The first episode has been subbed and supposedly some of the others are too but it's been 3 weeks since this was done so have no clue when the next episode will be subbed, if ever. There's more of a cast and if there are more subbed shows then will get into much more detail, hard to give a thorough breakdown of everything after just one episode but it was a long one at 70 minutes.

 Masami plays a Japanese college student who has fled to Taiwan to look for her father, he's not a good man as his company went bankrupt due to his shady dealings with the mob and he has left the country. Masami's name in Taiwan is Chen, she went there because her father had a villa there and perhaps she could find him there but he was nowhere to be found in the first episode. Also Chen's mother had lived in Taiwan which is one of the reasons she went there, her mother had gone out with a mob leader there and Chen somehow was able to locate him almost as soon as she arrived in the country.
 The mob leader no longer has a mob to run though, he's had some sort of mid life crisis and for some strange reason has opened a bakery with two of his former gang members. Right around the time Chen arrives in Taiwan Qin has been released from prison where he had served a 5 year sentence. He used to be a member of the gangster turned baker's gang and need less to say was shocked when he found out the gang had been disbaned and their old headquarters was now a bakery. At the bakery Qin met Chen for the first time, she'll be staying at the bakery as she has no place to stay plus her mother's ex-boyfriend wants to keep an eye on her for safety reasons.

 It's a good thing that someone was keeping an eye on Chen as she was kidnapped when she was visiting her father's villa but luckily for her Qin had escorted her there. He is one rough character, you need a small army to beat him and even then that might not work as he squared off against 40 or so of the gangsters who had kidnapped Chen and with a bit of help from his ex-boss those gangsters were quickly history.
 That's really about all that happened in the first episode, will get into much more detail with everything if there are more episodes subbed, really hope more are as this was an enjoyable start to the drama, it was 70 minutes long but only seemed to run about half that as the pace of the show was quite good, it was also quite interesting and never dragged at all. Next post has many more screenshots of Masami from this episode, she looks like she always does which to me is really incredible.

Masami Nagasawa: Chocolat drama episode 1 screenshots

 There's also some videos on YT that are subbed from episode 2, they're just a few of Masami's scenes though but the quality on them is fairly good, really hoping as I mentioned in the above post that the remaining episodes get subbed or at least a few more of them as this drama had a solid start to it and would recommend as least watching this episode. Not sure how many shows there are in total but think it was 13, also not sure if the length of them will be as long as this one which was 70 minutes.