The Banana Guide to Asian Entertainment: It’s All About Japan: Part I

In my introductory post, I discussed my background and my reluctance to become part of the Asian community, let alone the Chinese one. Outside what was available to watch on our local TV stations, I had dabbled with Weiß Kreuz (ヴァイスクロイツ) at the recommendation of a friend, but to little avail.

When I finally graduated Chinese-Peruvian school, with little to no knowledge about Chinese culture, I made my way to Vancouver, British Columbia, where my life would take a sudden turn. Suddenly, I wanted to be more Peruvian than ever before!

Perhaps it was the result of being homesick, but I spent my nights chatting a lot with my other Peruvian homesick pals. It was one of those evenings when I got my first Jay Chou song [1] — Simple Love (簡單愛).

Jay Chou wasn’t going to be enough for me to dive completely into Asian culture. No, I leave that up to that one Jdrama, that one movie and that one actress.

The Jdrama that Opened the Gates

It was early 2008, and the web was buzzing because there was some Japanese TV show that was going to star some popular idols and have a same-sex couple — WHAT? My eyes couldn’t believe what they were reading, so I had to look for the show and watch it.

Note: the following video is a bit spoilerific of the show.

The show? Last Friends (ラスト・フレンズ). The stars? Masami Nagasawa and Juri Ueno possibly playing an item. The rest of the cast was rounded out by Ryo Nishikido, Eita and Asami Mizukawa. I watched the first two episodes — without realizing that it was an on-going show — and was hooked for the next few weeks.

Of course, I had to do something in between all the waiting for the episodes to pop-up, as well as waiting for subtitles to show up, which at the time were timely at roughly one week of waiting.