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Hajimemashite minna san....welcome to my site on my fave Japanese Pop Culture likes such as dramas, movies, magazine scans, promo events etc. Mainly concentrate on my faves...Risa Watanabe... Kyoko Saito... Yui Kobayashi....Nana Owada.... Nene Shida.... if you're a fan at all of any of them then you've come to the right place(!) but many others are featured here besides them. Do mainly quick reviews on things I've watched, try to make the reviews brief, quick to read through with not too many spoilers, just whether they're good or bad and why I thought so plus whether you may find them enjoyable. Many, many screenshots are included from everything I've watched plus any video trailers if they're available. Hope you find something that interests you, don't hesitate to comment, arigato gozaimasu!

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Sunday, October 9, 2016

Juice-Juice: "Budokan" drama episode five recap


 Air Dates: February 6 to March 26, 2016 for eight episodes on Fuji-TV 
 Air Time: Saturdays at 11:40 pm, average rating was 2.73%



 In this drama Next You is a struggling Idol group which has had so-so success to date. They have a single which I presume is "Next Is You" and that song hit #15 on the charts though their managers are a bit disappointed with that showing. The group's goal is to one day headline a show at Budokan, they have a long way to go before that goal can be attained. There are five members in the group, in this drama none of them use their real names and here are the starlets, their second screenshot gives a little info about the character. The "Next Is You" song was their single current single when the show aired and you hear it twice an episode.

 Will use that above paragraph for all of the posts along with these pics for all of the main characters, for this second episode we didn't meet any new ones.

Akari Uemura as Aoi Dogakiuchi



 Yuka Miyazaki as Rurika Tsurui



Sayuki Takagi as Mayu Adachi



Tomoko Kanazawa as Hana Sakamoto



 Karin Miyamoto as Aiko Hidaka



 These are the other main characters who have appeared in both episodes.

Seiji Rokkaku as 'Professor' Hakase, a fan of the group who often posts about them on the internet and attends all of their shows and is the show's narrator.

Keisuke Koide as Jun Natsume, the group's producer and songwriter.

Houka Kinoshita as Yoichi Nomura
Yuta Takahata as Haruki Maeda.... both of them are the group's managers though Nomura is the senior and seems to know everything about the Idol industry.

Ryo Yoshizawa as Daichi Mizushima, Aiko's best friend who lives upstairs from her.








 Four more episodes to go, actually just two more once these recaps for today are done. Today's episodes were completely different, while this show had more happen than any other one the next episode had the least and was really only a so-so watch.
 Despite a few bumps in the road the group's popularity is really soaring but that also comes with a few drawbacks. One is that some members, especially Rurika, are becoming a bit jealous of Aoi who is easily the most popular member in Next You. Aoi just finished appearing in a drama titled "17 Year Old Constellation", she did such a good job in that drama that she's now going to appear in a film with the very esteemed director Yamasawa.
 Rurika had also auditioned for that role but naturally was beaten out by Aoi. Another event was that Hana, who is the oldest member, just turned 20 during this episode. She's getting a bit worried about her age as Hana is wondering if she may be a bit too old or whether she'll be able to continue on as an Idol for much longer. The support for the group is very solid, their managers along with their producer convince Hana 20 isn't an old age at all and she has plenty of years left as an Idol.




 However a bit of a bombshell was dropped on the group by their manager Nomura. He's going to audition second generation members for the group which naturally leave them worried about their futures. He explains to them that all Idol groups need backups in case of injuries, graduations or other events that would leave the group with less than five members, grudgingly they accept his answer.
 For only 19 minute show so much happened, more than most 45 minute dramas it seems. The group now has it's first TV show though the name of it was never mentioned. On the first show the the group's guest was Mari Yaguchi who was a member of Morning Musume from 1998 to 2005, was checking her bio and she had a bit of a scandalous marriage.
 Mari was able to help the group out with what she went through as an Idol, she really helped Hana who was still struggling a bit with her age. Final event was another triumph for the group as their 4th single "Adult Reasons" was released, will give the details of that in the next recap it wasn't released until the end of this show.




 May not seem like a lot happened as the recap is short but quite a bit did but as mentioned it is only a 19 minute show. After the first episode there hasn't been any major characters introduced, we see a bit of Aiko's father now and again along with a classmate of Daichi's but that's been it. That's okay as it leaves more time for the group who actually have done an okay job with acting in this show and sure it's their first time appearing in any kind of drama.
 The group performs "Next is You" at least once an episode, it was their single at the time of this drama's airing and is their biggest selling one to date. Going to see if "Adult Reasons" is a video on YT as they performed it at the end of this show and also in the sixth episode. Recap for that episode is next and hope to find a video of Next You's 4th single.

















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