I finished my first Japanese Book!

やった！
I finally finished my first book entirely written in Japanese. It is called ベルナのしっぽ (Beruna's Tail) and is by 郡司ななえ. It's about 300 pages long and I would call it slice of life-ish, I guess? 

The story follows the author's life (it is based on real life events) who, halfway through her twenties, becomes blind. She then gets assigned a guide dog named Beruna, despite the fact that she is not fond of dogs at all originally. This is where the story starts- it tells a tale of growth and overcoming hardships, about bonding and learning from each other- I'm sure lovers of the film Marley and Me would enjoy this book. I thought it was really heart-warming and I was thrilled to hear it also got adapted into a movie. You can watch clips of the movie (without subtitles) here. 

I'm really proud I finally finished a book in Japanese <3 Especially one that wasn't aimed at Japanese 'learners' but this is real native speaker material. I didn't have many problems with the grammar or vocabulary in the story - in the beginning, there were a few kanji readings and translations I had to look up (for example 盲導犬 - もうどうけん - guide dog) but I found that after the first maybe 50 pages, the vocabulary stayed more or less the same, which is probably why I read through the latter half of the book quite quickly. I think the last ~150 pages only took me 2-3 days.

I wonder what I will be reading next? This book was such a bargain at 105 Yen in Book Off! I wish I could just stroll down to a Book Off again and pick up my next read...! 

Drama Review (Episode 01): 死神君

This is turning into a J-Drama review blog isn't it...! But what can you do when the Spring season has just started and has so many promising dramas lined up. I love watching J-Dramas not only as a way to relax and take a break from real life, but also as a refreshing study method for Japanese. Whenever I don't feel like using my good old flashcards or textbooks, I just pick up a drama with no English subtitles and there I go. It's better than nothing! 

Anyway, I just checked out the first episode of Ohno Satoshi's new drama, 死神君 (Shinigami kun) which looks promising. The first episode wasn't amazing, but the show has potential.

Picture from TV Asahi

The show is about a new Shinigami recruit whose job it is to let people scheduled to die know about well.. their upcoming death. He then guides their souls to the netherworld. It's a bit similar to Bleach and Death Note I suppose, but they do give it a new spin. Ohno Satoshi as the lead is really, really good- since he's new to the job, he tends to (more or less unknowingly) break the rule from time to time and tries to help people make the most out of their remaining time on earth. Judging from the first episode though, he's got quite a scary superior girl who's not afraid to shout at him and make it clear that he's supposed to stay neutral and needn't interact with humans so much... there's some special rules for a reason after all.

At first I thought this was just going to be it- the key message of the show being, you know, live your life without regrets but then at the end of the first episode something happened which might mix things up a bit. The first episode was good anyways, the acting wasn't THAT great to be honest (minus Mr. Shinigami himself! Ohno Satoshi was great I thought.) but it's an interesting story and looks like it'll only get better from here. I'll keep watching!

Drama Review (Episode 01): ファースト・クラス

I decided to give First Class a try this spring season because it looked sort of interesting with the premise reminding me of Confessions of a Shopaholic and 13 Going on 30. I enjoy reading fashion/lifestyle magazines myself so anything that takes place in the infamous publishing industry sparks my interest by default. After having watched the first episode, I think it's safe to say this drama is a keeper for me.

I kept thinking that one of the guys in it - a photo shoot assistant - looked awfully familiar. Turns out it's KAT-TUN's Nakamura Yuichi. The cast overall seems good, I also recognised Nanao from Last Cinderella but my favourite was probably the lead female actress (Sawajiri Erika). Most people might know her from 1 Litre of Tears? But I have yet to watch that. I just really like the kind of character she plays in this. Very straight-forward and open with a good heart的ね。

The story revolves around this new intern girl (Sawajiri Erika) who, with some luck, manages to get a placement at First Class, a widely-known fashion magazine. She always dreamed of working in the fashion industry and now finally has been given the chance to prove herself in it... but she soon realises, that the industry is a lot tougher and the people working in it a lot more selfish and cruel. The first episode already proved how far one of her superiors is willing to go to make life so much harder for the new intern than it needed to be. Bullying seems to be part of the routine as part of this industry. 

I'd recommend checking out this new series. I think it looks promising! Check out a press conference with the main cast and some scenes of the first episode here (no English subtitles).