Hiyashi Chuka

While being bored of waiting, I accidentally watched Boku dake no Madonna (English title: You’re my only Madonna/and I love her…) and finished it in three days (I took my time :). It is a dorama from Summer 2005, that was very popular at that time because Takizawa Hideaki and Hasegawa Kyoko played as a couple there. Even in Jdorama.com, it is still in the top 50 of the most voted dorama ever. One of my best friends said that Hasegawa Kyoko as Surumi was the most beautiful Japanese girl that he has ever seen in a dorama. Without realizing, she was playing as Kimura Takuya’s younger sister, Sanae, in Karei Naru Ichizoku. She is older than Hideaki but still none can deny that they are very compatible as a couple.

As summer is coming again in the Netherlands (even until now the temperature is still around 15 to 20 degree celcius), I suddenly recall this cuisine that was repeatedly eaten during the airing of the dorama (even most of the times, it was the ready-eat one from supermarket).

What is hiyashi chuka? If you are googling at it, it will give you a definition as Japanese cold noodle or Japanese cold salad, which is consumed during summer time.

Summer in Japan is apparently very hot every year. Not like in Netherlands, even we say now is summer time, the temperature can change dramatically. In one time you can have a sunny warm beautiful day and just in another couple of hours, it becomes a windy cloudy day. Yeah…welcome to Holland!!

Anyway, because it is very hot during summer, that’s why hiyashi chuka is consumed when it is cold for body-chilling purposes. The noodle is served together with various fresh toppings such as long-tiny-sliced scrambled eggs, thin sliced ham, cucumber, carrot, bean sprouts, (Japanese) red ginger, and so on.

Interested? You can try checking the following link from wikia not wikipedia :p Hiyashi Chuka’s recipe
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Kimura Takuya no CHANGE

In the moment when Barrack Obama and Hillary Clinton were fighting to be Democratic party’s candidate for taking the position of president of the United States, this dorama is kind of picturing Japanese version of Barrack Obama, with his Change campaign in Japanese parliamentary system.

From an ordinary basic school teacher….

to….

Asakura Keita (Kimura Takuya) is just an ordinary fifth-grade teacher, whose nickname is Mojakura (given by his students) as he has a thick rounded curly hair. Until one day, he hears a news that his father, Asakura Makoto and older brother, Asakura Masaya, who are both politicians, were killed on an airplane crash in Vietnam. Asakura Makoto (also known as Asakura-sensei) when he was still living is a member of Lower House who is currently on the running to be a parliament member. Therefore in order to continue with the election process, no matter what, Miyama Rika (the secretary of Kanbayashi-sensei, member of Lower House of diet-played by Fukatsu Eri) is assigned to find the successor of Asakura-sensei. If Asakura-sensei had no more successor, Miyama has no choice than having Takae-san, wife of Asakura sensei, take her husband’s position.

Two of Asakura’s election committee members accidentally spit the fact that Asakura-sensei still has another son, who has been practically disowned by Asakura-sensei because some different views between father and son. With all of her mights, she comes to Keita’s workplace and forces him to take his father’s place in the election. Keita strongly refused the idea of entering politic world as that was the reason why he was fighting with his father. In the end, Keita agrees with one condition that Miyama will never bother him anymore if he loses in the election.

So be it, with Miyama’s strong will, a help from super election planner Nirasawa (played by Hiroshi Abe), and unexpectedly Keita’s charisma, Keita beats his opponent and becomes the parliament’s member of Seiyu party.

The story moves on. The current prime minister gives up his seat as he is hit by sexual harassment scandal and leaves the position open for all political parties in Japan.

Kanbayashi-sensei who is seemed having waiting for becoming the prime minister, plots a tricky scenario by using the fact that Keita is a new parliament member and yet still a newbie in politic. He pursues other senior Seiyu party’s members to give their supports on Asakura Keita to join the election by proposing an argument that the society needs a fresh look and change in the government. Keita will suit the fresh image as he is young and attractive, moreover just a while after he won the election he gains a title as “kokukai ouji” or prince of parliament. Those would ease him to get mass’ sympathy if he runs for the election. Soon after Keita becomes the prime minister, senior members of Seiyu party including Kanbaya can use and even overrule Keita to make their ambitions come true. In the end, the plot is finalized by overthrowing him from the position and elect Kanbayashi as the new prime minister. That should not be a difficult thing to do according to Kanbayashi as Keita is a newbie in politician world.

Nevertheless Kanbayashi never predicts that Keita is such a unique simple minded person who is very dedicated in everything that he is doing. As a teacher, he goes all the way to find the answer of his student’s joking-question, why Tanuki-udon is called Tanuki-udon (tanuki=racoon and udon=Japanese thick noodle). As well as when he becomes the prime minister, Keita due to his nature is not easily affected by people’s requests and opinions until he finds the reason by himself. Therefore it becomes harder for Kanbayashi to do his plans. While on the other hand, Keita will face more and more difficult temptations from fellow politicians who want to overthrow him.

Impression

What else can I say? It is really an interesting series so far. I would say that Kimura Takuya now is into more serious doramas such as his roles in Karei naru and Change. Still in every dorama that he plays, it becomes the audiences’ favorite. As usual, when Kimura Takuya has a role, almost hard to find any boring scenes (even when he played as the crow’s voice in Food Fight :p).

He has a difficult role here especially when the story relates to the word “politic”. It is not easy to portray a cool politician. Everyone knows the politicians and their politic world are a highly sophisticated and yet exclusive environment where only super duper very important (old) necktie people can enter AND the world that most of people including me think that it is a difficult world to understand EXCEPT the publicity of their hot scandals and dirty tricks played by the members that are revealed on daily newspapers. It also happens a lot in my country, Indonesia though!!

So I think that is the point of producing this kind of dorama (maybe). It is somewhat criticizing the nowadays’ government and presenting a dream of having an ideal picture of what a country representative should be.

Furthermore, CHANGE is also presenting and supported by Japanese dorama’s familiar faces both as regular roles or just as starring guests such as Hiroshi Abe, Morimoto Leo (he played in Proposal Daisakusen and Boku dake no Madonna), and Nishimura Masahiko (even he never plays the main role, he has been in Yamato Nadeshiko, Nodame’s piano teacher, or lately he appeared in Osen episode 3).

Last one, I was so surprised that Madonna’s song, “Miles Away” from her new album Hard Candy becomes the ED theme of this dorama. I found it strange at the first time but it fits the ending scenes perfectly. Guess what Madonna even watched the first episode of CHANGE…

Hereby the link for the video