Manga/Anime: Kuroko no Basket

If you do read manga, and if you havent pick this up, you should!
 Kuroko no Basket (Basket =Basketball in Japanese written in Katagana) is addictive!!

I honestly love this man. Okie, granted it's a shounen manga and it's all about basketball but it's damn addictive. Spent last 2 days reading the manga non stop because it was really hard to put down a good storyline.

If you like SlamDunk, I think you will like this though it's direction reminds me more of Prince of Tennis. Even a couple characters drawn reminded me somewhat of Prince of Tennis. Unless u are a die hard romance Shoujo manga reader only and doesnt care a hood about good storytelling, then this should interest you. It's also rather comical in some chapters that had been laughing quite a bit!

The story starts with a brand new high school Seirin with a brand new basketball team which is only 1 year old, and the seniors doing their recruitment drive. In comes the main character Kagami kun who is determined to be the No1 Basketball player in Japan. Then comes in the other lead character, a mysterious veteran player that no one seemed to "notice".

Apparently, in the middle school, there is one school that dominates the whole game throughout because it has 6 super talented and amazing prodigies players labelled as "Generation of Miracles". They have never lost, have super skills and amazing precision. However, people only rem the 5 players and the 6th was the phantom player and no one knows what he does or who he is.

So the story starts there where the phantom player is Kuroko Tetsuya, someone with so little presence that people always do not notice his existence and that was his skill in basketball. he acknowledges Kagami's burning passion and love for the game and made a pact with him to be his "shadow" and enable him to achieve his wish as No.1.

The chapters developed, about friendship, determination, and challenges they faced with each competition. One by one, Kagami and Kuroko starts to face his past teammates in competitions and that's the exciting part. There's no filler chapters, each week is filled with excitement one after another!

I'm reading up to chapter 140 and still suckered in. Reading pace gotten slower because for the last 4 chapters are no "subbed" and in Japanese so that took a bit longer to digest. However, it's so good that I really cannot just start at the cliff hanger!!

Personally, I like this even better than Prince of Tennis! I want to see how Kuroko developed his skills and grow! Luckily there isnt any major love scene in this series yet and please please stay that way so as not to detract from the focus, The Game!!!

Currently, they have adapted the manga into anime and it's into Ep 3. Those interested can watch the English subbed anime here.

http://anilinkz.com/kuroko-no-basket-episode-1

T-drama: Absolute Darling

Nothing much to watch or rather, I havent been actively watching dramas hence the silence.
If you dont already know it, the Taiwanese version of "Absolute Boyfriend" aka Zettai Kareshi is currently airing under the name of "Absolute Darling" in Mandarin.

Of course we knew about the shooting of the drama since early last year, when Wuzun was still cast as the leading man...which he opted out after he did not renew his contract. At the same time, I too lost sight of this project.

While I wasnt surprised by the replacement with Jiro, however...I was completely blown away by how buff Jiro was in this drama..omg the 6 packs....!!!!!! It was a OoLala and Mamamiya moment!!

I have since watched 2 episodes and its...well..ok. It's not bad. I kinda like Jiro's version of Night. At least he isnt as robotic as the Japanese version which suit me better because he is suppose to be an advance prototype just as like the manga.

However the fatal and typical weak point is the overly lengthy, draggy and unnecessary monologue of the salesguy Lei Wu Wu. I dont deny we need the character but the jokes they try to make fell flat, insipid and unoriginal. How many times can an idiot laugh over "names mixup" or act stupid expressions? I know his role is essential but please, stop making him talk and appear so unnecessarily to the point of boring me to death. Out of the whole full length ep2, I prob fast forward at least 50% and all almost all the scene involved him. After all these years, after having produced quite a good few flicks, yet the drama industry seem to be growing at snail's pace with many Taiwanese directors and script writers still resorting to lame banter and primary school jokes, which in itself is kinda sad reflection of the industry.

Anycase, back to drama.

Nothing much to say about the plot since everyone should know the main storyline by now. However they changed it mildly from the Japanese version with Zong Shi (the other guy who likes the lead actress) being a colleague. Also, they changed the lead actress character to be a little bit of under achiever meaning she is not an OL, but office errand girl. Jiro will be joining the company as an employee. All these of course is opposite of the manga but let's see how this goes.

I havent decided if I will like or dislike this but so far, it's less annoying that Skip Beat which is rather tasteless because of bad acting primarily the lead actress. Jiro is proving to be rather interesting and I like to see how he grows as an actor.