As with every drama, I’m fashionably late with this one as well… This time, it wasn’t a Chinese one. *gasp* For once, I actually decided to watch a Japanese one. I know, big surprise since I’m a big fan of wuxia. Initially, I wanted to see if I could find a historical drama based during the Sengoku Jidai period or at least something with people dying. Alas, I could not find a single one (I suppose they’re not very popular.) I did, however, settle on a comedy: My Boss, My Hero. I wasn’t disappointed and hope to see more comedy jdramas in the future ^^.

This one stars a 27-year old son of a yakuza boss, Sakaki Makio. If there’s one defining trait he has, it’s that he is utterly stupid. This is demonstrated when his failure to count and compare numbers ruins a deal that his father sets up with a foreign mafia. Angry that his son is so dumb, he makes a deal with Makio: either he returns to and graduates from high school, or his younger brother, Mikio, will take over the group.

So, Makio is enrolled into a high school as a senior, attending school with a bunch of kids ten years his junior. In his school, only one person, the principal, knows his true identity as a yakuza. If anyone else finds out, Makio will get expelled. Quite a bit of the comedy comes from how hard Makio has to restrain himself to not give himself away (the rest of the comedy coming from the hilarious faces he makes.)

The whole drama is pretty hilarious, though. The whole thing is pretty much ridiculous.

Of course, there’s always some kind of cute love interest in these types of dramas and for this one it’s Umemura Hikari, played by Aragaki Yui. Her name seems oddly familiar, I think she may have done some gravure before. Anyway, on the cuteness scale, I’d rate her an 8, right below Horitaki Maki (10 <3 ) and Shida Mirai (9).

Unlike the female leads I’m used to in most of the Chinese dramas I’m used to watching, Umemura doesn’t really become annoying at any time during the drama. Even when there’s an inevitable (and hilariously caused) big misunderstanding between Umemura and Makio, she doesn’t spend half of the series hating him.

There is also Sakura-something Jun… Unfortunately, Makio only utters his full name once or twice during the series, so it’s hard to remember. He literally calls him Sakura-something throughout the whole series, which I find hilarious. Anyway, Jun plays the role of Makio’s best friend/conscience. The thing I most remember him for is the way he talks. More like, what kind of motions he uses when he talks. They seem a little feminine to me, but that’s ok, he’s a fun character.

Besides being really funny, I think this series can be pretty touching at some points, especially towards the end. Even though Makio is still, at heart, a yakuza, he’s actually a pretty good guy in the inside. Later in the series, the extent he goes to protect his friends without letting them know he’s a yakuza is pretty sweet, especially when he can’t fight in front of them.

Anyway, if you don’t watch this one, I’m just going to say that you’re missing out. It’s one of the few dramas that had me actually laughing out loud.

You’ve probably figured out that I watch a lot of wuxia dramas by now. I’ll admit that most of them are really cheesy. You usually don’t get very deep stories away from them, either, a lot of them ultimately being about defending China from some outside force.

Quite frankly, I kinda get tired with all of the nationalism. I mean, it’s kinda unrealistic for people of most time periods to care about who is ruling them. Nationalism is actually kind of a recent “invention,” after all. Furthermore, sometimes it just becomes absurdly silly, like Return of the Condor Heroes. Thankfully, the Duke of Mount Deer, based on the novel, The Deer and the Cauldron, is nothing like that.

The story takes place during the Qin Dynasty, so it’s fairly modern for the dramas I’ve watched. At this period of time, China is have troubles with internal rebellions and outside pressure from Russia.

Actually, upon watching you the drama, you’ll find that it’s very different from other wuxia dramas. The first thing that you’ll notice is that the Wei Xiaobao, the main character, is pretty odd. He’s the son of a woman who works in the kitchen of a brothel, for one thing. He is uneducated and illiterate. He doesn’t know any martial arts and just doesn’t have any good traits in general, save for his wit and his loyalty to friends.

It’s his loyalty to his friends that makes the drama really interesting. Through a series of coincidences, he happens to become a member of the Heaven and Earth Society, a secret society serving the royal family of Taiwan that was created to restore sovereignty of China back to te Hans (the Manchus having invaded and taken over several decades ago.) Ironically, Xiaobao also becomes the best friend of Kangxi, the second Qin Emperor. Obviously, Xiaobao has a bit of a problem on his hands dealing with both sides.

One of my favorite things about this series is the soundtrack. It has one of the best soundtracks I’ve ever heard for a wuxia drama. It stomps all over my previous favorite soundtrack, Tiān Lóng Bā Bù. It’s hard to describe how good the music is, though, so you’ll just have to take my word for it or watch the drama for yourselves. Overall, I think everything makes this drama my overall favorite drama I’ve ever watched.

Recently, I had the chance to watch my third chinese drama: Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils, Tiān Lóng Bā Bù. I actually watched all 40 episodes in 5 days, clearly sacrificing sleep and schoolwork to watch as many episodes as I did. This may not seem special in any way, until you remember that a typical drama episodes is 40 minutes long (as opposed to 20) which means that I watched approximately 3 hrs and 20 minutes of the drama each day. Quite hard when you have four tests to study for.

Anyway, the story centers around a martial artist by the name Qiao Feng. To be frank, this guy is the definition of GAR, so there’s little reason to explain his character. At the beginning, Qiao Feng becomes the leader of the Beggars’ Sect, which few oppose since he is the strongest in all of China. There is actually a saying in China (in the story) “Mu Rong in the North, Qiao Feng in the South,” or something like that. Not like the directions are very important. You could say that things are looking up for Qiao Feng.

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