Nao Kanzaki's Japanese and Korean drama emporium: Hinako Sakurai: Happy.... 25th Birthday!!!!

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. The first few weeks there many not be too many posts for new dramas as I'll be copying many recaps from the old blog along with some film reviews and actress posts.

Won't be going too far back, perhaps to 2015 with a few exceptions and will have an entire series in a row to make it easy to follow. Did find it a problem completing series at the Nao Kanzaki blog, won't be doing that here as all the series will have a post for every episode. Thanks for visiting, it'll will be a work in progress for a while here but hopefully not for too long. Comments are also appreciated, like to know your opinions on dramas and for any recommendations you may have.

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".

Thursday, April 7, 2022

Hinako Sakurai: Happy.... 25th Birthday!!!!

Here's such a fave of mine and why not have the second post of April for her! There is one thing Hinako is number one for but the other is something she may not boast about often. Which is that she's the most unpopular woman I post about and it's been the case for years. In 2019 and 2020 Hinako's posts had the lowest average of views for anyone who had six or more posts. The only reason she didn't defend her title last year is that she had only four regular posts. But on the bright side her posts in 2019 averaged 235 views and in 2020 that average did rise to 310. Do the averages in December so bet both may be a hundred or so views higher by now.

Back in 2019 Hinako finished fifth on the yearly fave's list and that was quite an achievement. In 2020 she tumbled to fourteenth but that was mainly because of her being so quiet that year, this is her second post for 2022 so let's hope she hits the magic number of six and can qualify for the fave's list. She wasn't in the first two seasons of 'Kimi to Sekai' but Hinako is in the third season, the sixth and final episode airs this weekend. The drama is supposed to be subbed but so far zero episodes have been and not too worried yet about it, will discuss it more in the above post which will be done very soon.

Those two above pics are from Hinako's 2022 calendar, so wasn't the first pic of the post. So mentioned that she's in the third season of 'Kimi to Sekai', first two seasons were good though not a must watch but still really want to see how things turn out. For the show she did an interview with the Yahoo Japan site, pics are from that and here's the link to it: Yahoo Japan interview

Hinako has a Line blog and she does a solid job at letting us know about her activities, these pics are from the past five weeks.

Almost forgot to mention that birthday #25 doesn't take place until tomorrow. So while Hinako posts a lot of pics on her blog she rarely does for that day which only happens once a year....

But there was a mini birthday celebration on March 30th for Hinako. Back in January she was appointed as an ambassador for Sabon which is a brand of cosmetics. At this event she acted out being the store manager for a day along with that mini birthday celebration. Shame there's no new CM for the product but here's a short video from the event: Sabon event

Tabiiro is a web travel magazine which has an actress as their 'Woman of the Month' and they usually travel to a resort, Hinako had that honor back in May 2020. For March she wasn't their official 'Woman of the Month' but did have a special feature for their FO-CAL on line magazine. There were also many short videos for this special feature, one is after the pics but once on YT you can view all of them. Hinako made her journey to the city of Nanao which is in the prefecture of Ishikawa.