This is the first Japanese series I’ve ever watched. In fairness, it made me cry. The last 2 episodes are the tearjerkers. Manato is one hell of a guy. I love him! How can he have kept his feelings for that long? Hay grabe. The characters:

 

IRIE MANATO (hideaki takizawa)

 

 

MIZAWA YUI (kyoko fukada)

 

 

SAWAMURA HARUKA (uchiyama rina)

 

 

SAEKI TETSUYA (kubozuke yousuke)

 

 

--> tackey is the only person I know in this series when I was watching it. then after, I researched and I found out that yui is played by kyoko fukada! Ya I know, she’s popular but I’m really not into Japanese idols so I don’t know. I’m sure I have heard her name before because she’s in friends with won bin. I only know her by name and I haven’t seen her picture before. She’s pretty young she just turned 22 last nov 2. She’s really cute, she’s like an anime character that came to life. So now, I’m wondering because I’m pretty sure that I heard she and won bin were an item before. Hmm… rina uchiyama. I know she has a thread in tvsf because I’m always in the actress R forum because of Rainie Yang. I checked out her thread as well and I found out she also just turned 23 last Nov 7. While watching SOS, I’ve always said that she resembles Megan Lai Ya Yan (mimi of mg2), I even theorized that it must be her. Hehe. Only younger looking (since the series was done in 2001 naman) and with shorter hair. kubozuke yousuke. I know he has a thread in tsinoy and I read the entire thread basically because it said that he was in GTO. But it’s so stupid of me not to recognize him while watching SOS! But ate ryza jie he looks awfully young in GTo s compared to how he looked in SOS. Well, GTO was done 3 years before SOS. I wanted to bang my head on the wall for not recognizing him. I didn’t even think he looked familiar…at all. I actually didn’t find him cute in the beginning but as the series went on, I started to like him. He’s pretty cute especially in the last scene where they showed a pic of him and haruka. He’s so cute there. Parang jerry yan, ikaw ba yan?  Wehehe. What I found about him is that he has wife and a son already. He’s 25. he smoked a lot in this series. Again, because of the cold climate. I think tackey too, I didn’t see him smoke in the series but prolly in real life because his lips are not very red. Or maybe it’s just really cold. I dunno. Why am I making a big fuss about this? Anyways, I really flipped when I found out that all 4 of them are really popular Japanese idols! I bet this is the start of my fascination with Japanese actors because for sure I’m gonna start researching about other people or just anything connected to them. Trust me, I pretty much started with f4 and now I’m addicted to HK, Taiwanese and Korean everything! Haiz.

 

Ok, back to the series. LOVED THIS SCENES!! All yui-manato. Hehe.

 

 

-> episode 3 (I think) … yui finds out that senpai (saeki) is in love with someone else but she doesn’t want to give up. Yui tells manato about this when they were brushing their teeth in the bathroom. Yui asks him to cheer her on and not to give up.

 

 

-> dunno what episode…the sunset scene…manato, yui, haruka and senpai goes on a trip to the beach. They were having a marathon, haruka (duh, she’s an athlete!) and saeki were the frontrunners while yui and manato were being left behind. At some point, yui falls and manato helps her to get up. Then they see the sun setting. They stop and just take in the beauty of the sunset, holding hands.

 

 

-> it’s valentines day…yui goes to senpai’s house to give him the homemade chocolate she did. But mariko sensei is actually inside the apartment with him (they have a relationship) so they couldn’t open up. Yui just waits outside even when rain starts pouring. After a while, an umbrella appears above her head, it was manato. The first words he said were, “let’s go home.” (aahh…) it doesn’t matter if he’s getting wet just as long as yui is dry.

 

 

-> manato needs to take pictures to include in his letter to hirase ai, the last is for his pic with yui. Manato is somewhat uncomfortable when she sits on his lap since he’s secretly in love with his stepsister.

 

 

-> yui attacks mariko sensei unconsciously, manato piggybacks her and takes her home.

 

 

-> yui couldn’t sleep and wants to sleep beside manato. It was really cute, purely innocent besides the fact that, yeah, manato is in love with yui!

 

 

It happens again on episode 10, this time the bed is smaller so yui says to just hold her from the back. Funny when she says, “but you can’t touch my chest.” Haha.

 

 

-> really loved manato here. Yui is sick but she gets out of the house to go this building near their school where she could senpai playing the piano. Manato follows her once and finds out about it. but instead of stopping her from doing this, he even starts to take her there just so she’s not alone. Gawd, what a guy!

 

 

-> manato looks for yui in the snowy mountain.

 

 

-> he finally finds her and they stay in some roof. Manato was keeping her warm because obviously it’s snowing! They were hugging each other and their bodies are so close to keep the warmth. There, he tells yui about his feelings for her.

 

 

-> the ending: they become a couple! Yey. What’s funny is that they live in the same house but yui actually asked him that they just meet somewhere instead of leaving the house together. Hehe.

 

I also like the scene where yui is teaching manato how to kiss and when their lips are almost gonna touch, yui says something like, “and the rest will just happen.” Haha. sabay enter her room. Then later, manato is thinking of having sex and asks yui about it, she was like, “oh you can’t practice that with me!” hehe.

 

NOTES:

+ Gawd, I got so addicted with chiquitita and SOS by ABBA for days! I don’t even know the lyrics but I’m singing it like a broken record!

+ The guy who played haruka’s tutor (is sex ed included in that service huh? Hehe) is cute too! Too bad, he only has a small role.

+ I actually learned many Japanese words because every time there’s a new Japanese word, a translation would flash at the top of the screen. This series is actually helpful in learning jap. Hehe. It’s just that most are too long that I couldn’t remember and I wasn’t able to take notes. Sayang. I could remember some though:

Omiai – marriage meeting

Onii-chan – older sister

One-chan – older brother

Senpai – senior

Ohayo – good morning

Man, I didn’t remember a lot! And then there are words when you’re starting and finished eating, entering the door, etc. as I said, too long, can’t remember.

+ because of researching about SOS, I found a site where to find synopses of different  jap series, nice! Even love generation, the one that ate ryza wants me to borrow because she seems to be stuck with episode 1 and a lot others. Thank god to that site, I was able to read the summary of episode 8 of SOS, since disc 8 didn’t play in my player.