Konnichiwa and Annyeong Haseyo minna-san

Konnichiwa and Annyeong Haseyo minna-san

Hope that's correct above but what I'm saying is welcome everyone. May 10, 2019 is the first day of this blog and many may know me from 'Nao Kanzaki and Friends'... aitoda.com. There I have such a mix of things and finally decided to branch out with just a blog devoted to Japanese and Korean dramas. Will also be having some film reviews but one thing you won't see are any J-Pop idols or gravure models except for their dramas, this blog is dedicated 100% to dramas and films.

Also actresses as will be having many, many posts for them. Such as them appearing at events, mag spreads, interview pics and whatever else. So you should be seeing a lot of my bigger long time faves such as Erika Toda, Park Min-Young, Lee Yeon-Hee, Tsubasa Honda and too many others to count.

News and upcoming projects

News and upcoming projects

Should have done this on my Aitoda blog which is to let viewers know what's going on. Seems like a good way to let everyone know if I'll be taking a break, what to look forward to and any other tidbits.

Updating update, May 19th:

Whew, have finally finished transferring over enough posts from the Aitoda blog. May be a few here and there in the future for some new that's being introduced but there shouldn't be too many. Have also included announcers for women that I'll be posting about as my top two current faves just happen to be in that profession.

The first five episodes of '3-Nen A Gumi' have now been posted. For series over five shows will be doing two batches of them as I figure ten posts are way too many to read through during one sitting so will have the second half of the drama coming up in 2-3 weeks, highly recommend the show.

June 4th.... Have written up the recaps for episodes 7 and 8 of the '3-Nen A Gumi' show and will have those long with episode eight by June 6th. Up next for Korean dramas is up in the air but leaning towards a pair of shorter series which will be either "Splish Splash Love" or "The Universe's Star".

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Sunday, May 24, 2020

Hinako Sakurai: Finally an extraordinary post for such a massive fave....


 Unfortunately she's not a massive fave of most viewers out there but there aren't too many who I'd take over Hinako. 😍 Was getting a tad worried about her lack of recent posts and whether she'd qualify for this year's faves list, no worries as this is her fourth post of the year as I had forgotten she had two back in February. To the surprise of many Hinako finished fifth on last year's top twenty list and she really wasn't that far off from taking the top spot. Last year seemed to have the highest quality of faves who made the top ten, seven had a chance at being number one.
 So far it's been kind of a slow year for Hinako as she hasn't appeared in any dramas or films, none were cancelled because she hadn't been scheduled to appear in any. Hopefully that means the second half of the year will be much busier for Hinako but that's only if things change. She does appear at many events but obviously hasn't been at one for over two months. But even so do have about forty recent pics and a few oldies which may have never been seen, it's also a belated birthday as on April 2nd she turned 23.



 Nao certainly doesn't think Hinako is(too) weird but then again if she swam an ocean just to pay me a visit.... 😂

 Been slacking on my drama recaps lately, I did do many of them from September to mid April have become a bit burnt out on writing them. Not all but mainly Korean shows though may have some for "Memorist" coming up. Those hour shows take over an hour to view once you add in the time for taking screenshots and notes, then close to an hour writing the recap up. So you can see how long it takes to write up posts for series that last 12+ episodes so did need a break from them.
 Just the long ones as I'll still do recaps for shorter dramas. One I did earlier this year was her "Janus no Kagami" series that aired the end of last year. Do recommend it as you wouldn't be giving up too much of your time, the drama was just eight episodes that were 22 minutes in length. It was a bit of a intense and dark show, she played the main character of the nice and sweet girl Hiromi. However she had an evil alter ego named Yumi who ended up killing her father, won't go into any more details as you can read those recaps.









 Haven't done any movie reviews in eons, perhaps it's been close to a year. Still watch many but usually on my DVD player as I am a bit old fashioned. One of these days will do a post or two for Hinako's 2018 film "Marmalade Boy", watched it once and did enjoy it though I'm not much into sappy high school stories and she did have the lead role in the movie. It came out on April 27, 2018 and the following day the main premiere was held. The first batch of pics is from it while the other pics are from a screening that took place two weeks prior.




















 Back in December did a pair of post where I figured out what the average view counts were for every Japanese actress, model and Idol who had six or more posts. In all that meant 28 gals and seventeen ended up making my top twenty list which also includes Korean actresses. But of the 28 Hinako finished dead last(!) as far as popularity goes, number one's average was almost four times higher! Hard to understand why she's so unpopular here, could be because there's never any gravure pics but to me that's actually a plus.
 Now on to some newer happenings and as mentioned there hasn't been many. However the last month the activities seem to be picking up a bit for Hinako though like all other actresses she won't be able to appear in a drama or film for a while. That means her Line blog hasn't been updated that often this year, just these few pics since March.






 Hinako never did much modeling work in the past though that's changed a bit in the past year as she did some work for two sites. Now a third site/clothing line has signed her up to be a model which is Magacol and these are some superb new pics from their site. She seems to be the perfect model for that kind of clothing.









 Tabiiro is a travel web magazine which features actresses who take trips to resorts and they have a 'Woman of the Month'. To my pleasant surprise Hinako is their 'Woman of the Month' for May, she took her trip to Ito which is on Izu peninsula and she visited Mt. Omuro. Plenty of fine looking pics from her trip and this is one of the bigger features I've seen from the mag. Have the link to the site here if you want to read her interview plus after the pics is a short promo video from the site.