#11 Bloody Monday

Bloody Monday is a TV drama apotion of a manga of the same name. This drama's main character is Takagi Fujimaru (Miura Haruma), who is a student by day, and genius hacker 'Falcon' by night. A biological terrorist attack kills off the population of a Russian town overnight. The terrorist organization plans to unleash the same virus known as Bloody-X into Tokyo, and it can kill about 8 million people in no time. Fujimaru becomes involved when his father is wanted as a member of the terrorist group and his sister's life is on the line. Working with THIRD-i (Japan's special defense unit) and his best friend Kujou Otoya (Satou Takeru), Fujimaru begins to unravel the organization's sinister plot and find out the truth behind "Bloody Monday."

A scene from Japan Sinks

The apocalypse have became a huge topic though out the last decades, many Hollywood movies bases on different theories of the end of the world is made. Many people now talks about if 2012 will be the end of Earth, and what will happen at doomsday. But in Japan, their view of idea of doomsday is very different from ours, it is already part of their life.
Recently I read an article about Japan's view on disasters. Japan is an island country located right on seismic zone, with threats of volcano, typhoon and other natural disasters. Japan's culture, which is influenced by Buddhism, accepts the fact that people's life is very fragile, and continue to live a humble, meaningful life everyday. Japan's cultures are very fascinated by how the way Japan will end. From Japan Sinks
in the 1970s to the recent Bloody Monday, Japan have one of the largest disaster film collection in the world.
 

 

Season 2 of Bloody Monday. This time, it's a nuclear bomb.

This is part of Japan's unique culture, and speaks a lot about the Japanese teachings. As evident in the 3.11 Sendai Earthquake, Japanese people reacts completely different from other nation under the attack of natural disaster. They were calm, collected and were prepared (although not completely) for the worst. They do not 'add oil to the fire' but instead helped each other and conducted themselves in a manner that outsiders like us can only stand and admire.



P.S. SNOW IN TORONTO!

#7 Q10

Recently I've finish watching a Japanese Drama name Q10, although not being a fan of love-themed dramas, I found myself taking a liking to this particular drama. The story begins with high school student Fukai Heita (Satoh Takeru) found and activated a robot name Q10 (Maeda Atsuko). Q10 (pronounced as Kyuuto) is a robot in a girl model and is still at learning stage. This 9-episode drama follow the adventure of these two and their classmates and teachers. Q10 have a theme that would become reality in the future - relationship between human and robots. As the story progress, Fukai face many dilemmas and begins rise many philosophical questions.

To be honest, story with a similar premises is not uncommon, but that made Q10 stood out for me is how realistic it is. The story was shown in a calm yet touching way. There was no emotion forced to the audience, everything seemed very natural. Which I think is appropriate because when one day robot is living among us, they would not come with a 'BANG!', but instead they will just blend in with the rest of the society. The problems that they will bring are not just wars and political matters, but something smaller yet affects us much stronger.

What also make Q10 interesting is the classmates, in Fukai's class, there is a hidden rocker, otaku, poor loner, star chaser and many more interesting characters. Each of them struggle against problems with society because who they are. They are show a large amount of character development though out the series. Although being the supporting characters, all of them are interesting in their own way and it's not hard to find connection between ourself and one of the characters.

Q10 says a lot about technology, but I think what really made Q10 what is it is how it talks about life and our generation. In conclusion, I think Q10 is a interesting drama and it's story might become reailty in the near future.