Maid & Butler

Current Mood: Mischievous

Uwah! It’s been months since I last touched any jdrama. And since AI8 has ended, I get bored at home alone. I started to dig my HD to see if there’s any jdramas that I have finished downloading but haven’t watched. I saw Yukan Club, which I haven’t finish watching and Gakko Ja Oshierarenai. I thought I should go search for new dramas to download which watching these.

The 3 tenants of the same floor with Kei (Kikuta sensei, Airu and Ojiro).

So I wiki-ed out what projects has Tamaki Hiroshi been doing since he’s the first actor to pop up in my mind. And I found Love Shuffle. I want to start on how great the entertainment value is. It’s the type that keeps you wanting for more! Every episode is a cliffhanger. I like the flow and the storytelling compare to a lot of of strong cast but poorly executed dramas.

The guys of the shuffle.

Lets start on the concept. It talks about a 4 tenants of a luxury high-rise who are all neighbours of the same floor. They meet by-chance one night when the elevator broke down. They started to pour their hearts out about their life (ok, not that much) and soon they became friends. Later on, one of the main characters, Kikuta sensei, invited all of the tenants and their partners to join an experiment called Love Shuffle. Oh and btw, I just found out that Karina (Airu) is our Maquillage’s new girl! *claps and welcome her to the family. She looks much more glamourous in the ads cuz her eyebags are quite distubring in this drama… and before I  sidetrack even further….

Yukichi, Kei and Kairi together, quite a rare sighting :P

Although I started out rooting for Kei (Tamaki’s chara) but I find him quite pathetic and dumb at times and is it me or Tamaki has lost alot of weight? Even his cheeks looks so sunken already T_T He doesn’t have Chiaki’s charm anymore….. and that dumb hairstyle… I wanna kill his stylist! Anyway, I grow to love Ojiro more and more. He’s the badass guy at first but when get to know him longer, he ’s such a sweetie! And I actually look forward to his and Kairi’s story! I also disliked Kairi’s character at first but the growth was so immense that I can’t help but to side her ><.

Ojiro & Kairi pair VS Tara-chan pair!

Oh and you know what, Yukichi is quite a darling although he’s also quite pathetic in 80% of the drama but he’s not irritating. In fact, Mei is the most irritating person in the show. I dislike girls like her, those 1-slap-die kinda girls… Oh and Yukichi doesn’t look like a jrocker at all @_@ When I wiki him up, I found out that he’s the vocalist for BREAKERZ and started to look them up. Now, I’m hooked to their Everlasting Luv single XD. BREAKERZ has a very early 2000’s jrock sounding. They are quite similar to Glay, Plastic Tree, L’arc-en-Ciel’s etc. style.

Yay! Panda!

ANYWAYZ… Another thing that I love about this show is the fact that it has a few nifty elements that makes me warm up to the characters. For example, Kei and Yukichi are ‘bound’ by their Tara-chan believe, the birth of  ‘Yay! Panda!’ which I like ahaha, its funny. Not to forget to mention that this is the first time that I’ve heard of the term SOFT MACHO, LOL. That’s what they refer to Ojiro when he was showing off his lean but muscular body, kekeke.

Support 'Yay, Panda''s tagline!

All in all, I like this show alot! I don’t understand how it manage to fetch so little percentage of viewership but I really enjoyed it. It’s not cliche and the ending is unexpected but quite nicely wrapped up. There were some shocking scenes which I like so if you’re looking for a fun romance comedy, watch it!

Overall rating: 8.5/10
Concept & Story: 8.5/10
Character Development: 9/10
Potential age group: 20s - 30s
Genre: Romance