Fan

I am not a hardcore fan of anything or anyone, but there are still a few elements I spend more time searching for or similar. Here are some of them ... or actually only one to begin with.

Ueno Juri

She is a japanese actress, with the same birthday as my self - except two years later. Her name in japanese is 上野樹里 and she is known by her fans as Juri-chan or Jurippe.

I first saw her in the live action version of Nodame Cantabile where she plays the main protagonist Nodame. It is a kind of silly romantic comedy and her character is cheerful and funny with the accasional angry outbursts. Just as with her character, Nodame, Juri-chan plays the piano which really helped in the realism of the piano playing (which is often terrible in films and series).

In a quest for more japanese TV series to watch I searched for others with her and found Last Friends. I knew it was labeled as a drama but holy crap it was intense. Here she plays Ruka, one of the five main protagonists, who is kind of a boyish girl, with short hair, does motocross for sports, in love with a girl, and considering a sex-change operation. A completely different character than Nodama, and she pulls it off quite nicely.

Ueno Juri's great acting skills made me search extensivily for other series and films which featured her - of course it did not hurt that she is quite cute too.

Here is a list of the series featuring Ueno Juri I have seen so far (in the order I saw them):

  • Nodame Cantabile [2006]
  • Nodame Cantabile in Europe [2008]
  • Last Friends [2008]
  • Hard to Say I Love You "Sunao ni Narenakute" [2010]
  • Ueno Juri and the Five Bags "Ueno Juri to Itsutsu no Kaban" [2009]
  • Engine [2005]

And here is a list of the films (in the order I saw them). Many of them are done by independent directors and tend to be weird, but in all cases the performance by Juri-chan lifts it up:

  • Nodame Cantabile: The Movie I [2009]
  • Nodame Cantabile: The Movie II [2010]
  • Swing Girls [2004]
  • Summer Time Machine Blues [2005]
  • Turtles Are Surprisingly Fast Swimmers "Kame wa igai to hayaku oyogu" [2005]
  • Gu Gu the Cat "Guu-Guu Datte Neko de Aru" [2008]
  • Naoko [2008]
  • Killer Virgin Road [2009]

I would recommend watching Killer Virgin Road, Summer Time Machine Blues, Last Friends and all of Nodame Cantabile if you are slightly interested.

See also