Umi no Hajimari / 海のはじまり

Photo info: Apple iPhone 15 Pro, 6.7649998656528mm, f/1.8, 1/60 sec, ISO250
“Umi no Hajimari” Cedar Park, 2025

I started watching Umi no Hajimari / 海のはじまり after a fellow co-working Twitch streamer recommended it, and I’m completely hooked! It’s a really sad show, but the acting is excellent, the story is engaging, and the characters feel very real and believable. I might end up binge-watching the whole series over the next couple of days.

Tokyo Love Story (1991) Rewatch

Photo info: Apple iPhone 15 Pro, 6.7649998656528mm, f/1.8, 1/60 sec, ISO200
“Tokyo Love Story” Cedar Park, 2025

Tokyo Love Story (1991) recently arrived on Netflix, so I decided to revisit it. I believe I first watched it in the early ’90s while living in Los Angeles. One of the local TV stations used to air Japanese doramas on Sunday evenings, and I’m pretty sure that’s where I saw it.

I only have a faint memory of the storyline, but the theme song? That’s unforgettable – so nostalgic! And that bassline…

Mental Tsuyome Bijo Shirakawa-san

Photo info: Apple iPhone 12 mini, 4.2mm, f/1.6, 1/60 sec, ISO500
“New Dorama” Cedar Park, 2024

Today I finished up the Japanese dorama “Mental Tsuyome Bijo Shirakawa-san“. I haven’t watched a dorama in a while, but I think this one has gotten me back on the wagon. As far as stories go, it’s nothing too special, but I did pick up a few bits of wisdom that I think will be valuable in real life, so I am happy. All-in-all I did enjoy this one! I think I am pretty good at deciding pretty early on in a series if I want to continue or not. It feels good to just say, “no, this isn’t for me” and not feel guilty about not finishing.

Finished Dragon Zakura Season 2

Photo info: FUJIFILM X-E4, 27mm, f/2.8, 1/100 sec, ISO1600
“Dragon Zakura Reunion” Cedar Park, 2021

Today I watched the final two episodes of Dragon Zakura 2. It was a great continuation of the first series, which aired 16 year earlier. What I really liked about it was that besides Abe Hiroshi reprising his role, Nagasawa Masami returned in a starring role. In the original series, she was one of the students in the class that was aiming for admission into Tokyo University, and in this series, she is now a lawyer, after graduating from Todai.

The plot of Dragon Zakura 2 is more complicated, with deeper subplots, but both stories were interesting, and both casts were also very good. It was really cool that almost all of the original students came back for cameos in the second series. I actually didn’t think Aragaki Yui (whose is enjoying a successful acting career) would come back, but in the final few minutes of the last episode, she makes her cameo. In fact, only Yama-P didn’t return, which I didn’t really care about anyways. 😄

I highly recommend both Dragon Zakura and Dragon Zakura 2. Lots of fun!