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Entry tags:
- drama,
- je,
- kame,
- kami no shizuku,
- review
[REVIEW] Kami no Shizuku - 05
See disclaimer in review of Episode 01.
Some sort of personal post to follow over the weekend, probably, but for now, here's an overdue review. The short version: the Taiyo Beer crowd give me warm fuzzies, Tomine really needs to wear a bib, Robert makes a lousy agony uncle and Shizuku looks gorgeous when he goes ballistic.
Kami no Shizuku - le cinquième verre (the fifth glass)
Plot: It's been so long since I last watched an episode, I'm actually thrilled about the lengthy recap Miyabi gives us at the start. Shizuku and Tomine have another three days to find the Mona Lisa wine, and this time, the idiots had better taste it.
Where does Shizuku go when he wants to drink wine and indulge in some heavy-duty angsting? Why, Monopole, of course! But he's got good reason to be angsty, I feel, because having your deceased father tell you about his affair through the somewhat unusual method of a wine contest is not something anyone should have to go through. Shizuku feels that his father is making a fool of him.
The person he should really be worried about is Maki, who's still trying to get Kiryu to put a stop to things - ostensibly to protect Shizuku's fragile heart. Shizuku's determined not to run away from his dad, though.
Unlike Honma, who is now running away from work. Well, being a mature adult (sort of) he does it with a letter of resignation, which his boss tries to tear away from him in his eagerness to refuse it. Things are not well at Taiyo Beer. Honma, who should probably meet up with Jin sometime and discuss longing to be Italian, is making good on his vow to quit if Shizuku's French wine was chosen over his Italian wine on Valentine's Day. Of course, Shizuku doesn't want this to happen, and neither does Miyabi, though she's clearly not thrilled that Shizuku's attempts to convince Honma to stay involve telling him that it's far too early to hand his desk over to her. Honma's problem, however, is not so much with Shizuku as with his late father, who has clearly cheated Honma out of his desk by giving his son special training in wine.
Back at Tomine's lair, Maki's sporting what I at first took to be a pair of washing up gloves and Tomine's all set to try other Palmer wines to track down the Mona Lisa one, balancing gentleness and strength. Maki selects one for him, and by the look on his face and the way he drops the glass, you'd swear she just slipped him some poison. Unable to see the Mona Lisa, Tomine wonders if it is because he doesn't understand love. I'm not convinced he understands any human emotion whatsoever, never mind love.
Over at Chateau Robert, Kiryu discusses her concerns with the man himself, insisting that Kanzaki Yutaka entrusted her with seeing the contest through whether the competitors get hurt or not and it's none of her concern. Shizuku also pays Robert a visit to have a chat about dear old dad, asking the very pertinent question: why the heck didn't Kanzaki-sensei tell his son when he knew he was dying? I appreciate that pancreatic cancer is not exactly something that drags out for years, but if the old man had time to set this whole contest up he certainly had time for a little heart-to-heart with his son. Of course, that's far too straightforward for a series that expects you to pick up all your clues from a wine bottle.
What appears to be upsetting Shizuku most is that his father loved another woman, and even Kiryu, hidden away inside, winces a little at this. Robert, sensitive as always, plays around, laughs and ignores him. Not the agony uncle type, evidently. Even when he does pay attention, he only gives cryptic answers.
Shizuku returns to the office, drive restored, to be greeted by Miyabi - no food this time, but she's got a bottle of wine swiped from their boss's stash (it's an emergency, okay?) and a book to talk them through the parts she doesn't know yet. While Tomine despairs into his wine glass at ever being able to understand love, Shizuku sits through Miyabi's slightly overdone lecture on cépage, illustrated with a couple of stacks of coloured Post-It notes. I wish we had that many in my office. By dint of shuffling paper, they reach the conclusion that what they have to do is keep drinking. Sort of the motto for the series, really.
Honma, moping in his favourite Italian restaurant, isn't drinking right now. He's keeping a special bottle by his side as he gazes at a photo taken with his ex-girlfriend. She's actually kind of cute, and they look very happy together. (Dorky, but happy.) Honma understands real love, right? Shizuku doesn't.
I don't think he understands Miyabi either, frankly, but her reaction upon seeing Sara at Monopole is priceless. Sara's had the last of the Palmer, so our dynamic duo go elsewhere, back to the office to search for wines on the Internet. (Is it wise to let Kame near a computer? Sure, he chats to Maru on Skype now, but his having to buy a new computer because he forgot the password and locked himself out of his old one doesn't give me much confidence.) Miyabi practises the fine art of delegation, napping over the table while Shizuku reaches the conclusion that he'll go bankrupt buying wine on the Internet. Looking at the prices, I can see why.
Since Shizuku's not having any luck with wine, he tries to offer romantic advice to Honma, who has returned to the office late at night to pick up his stuff. Basically, Shizuku's issues over lack of communication with his father = Honma's inability to tell his ex-girlfriend how he feels about her. Honma isn't impressed with the advice and leaves.
What follows proves that the key to every mystery in the Kami no Shizuku universe could be solved if someone simply hypnotised Shizuku and had him remember everything from his screwed up past, being taken around famous works of art, landmarks etc. by his father to experience all sorts of things, in order that he might have the words to describe wine later on in life. Hence the pictures in his head. Miyabi obviously has all her best revelations while she's asleep, and is so caught up in explaining her theory that she doesn't even notice she's got Shizuku bent backwards over a desk. How she could possibly ignore something like this, I don't know, but she figures his father must've loved him a lot to give him all that training.
Tomine, who has presumably been through some unusual training of his own, finds inspiration when Sara turns up in his lair - he knows what love is, because he remembers feeling it when she was born. The less said about his messy drinking habits and excruciating moans, the better, but he does get a glimpse of the Mona Lisa...right before it fades away and gives him a childhood flashback on a carousel, waving to his mother and an "unknown" man.
Next morning, no one in the wine department at Taiyo Beer appears to be doing much work, other than the chap whose name I can't recall. Shizuku's aversion to work is catching, I see. Of course, there are things far more important than work, and the news that Honma's ex is leaving for France is one of them. Will Honma chase after his beloved and tell her his true feelings before it's too late? Yes, because the entire team rushes off to find Honma at his favourite Italian restaurant and all but bully him into going to the airport. Shizuku even apologises, somehow managing to work his own issues and a flashback in and letting us see how much Kame's hair has improved since the start of the series.
And so it's off to Terminal 1 at Narita, where Honma, watched by his poorly-hidden ex-colleagues, discovers that the woman he loves is having the baby of her French husband. Wine is probably not the best parting gift to give a pregnant woman, but he puts a brave face on it, does the decent thing and congratulates her, because his love for her prevents him from screwing things up for her. It's tough, but he wants her to be happy, even if it's with another man. The team do their best to be supportive.
Shizuku learns that words are not the only way to express feelings - you can use wine too. At least, you can in this series. He races home first, but somehow Miyabi and Honma make it to Monopole mere seconds after him, having been by Honma's wine cellar at home to pick up various vintages of Palmer. There is macho talk which allows everyone to save face. Honma's back on the job - and calling Shizuku by his first name.
Seeing Honma's pregnant ex at the airport gives Shizuku the clue he needs - the Mona Lisa wine represents a pregnant woman, possessing both strength and gentleness, loved by Kanzaki-sensei and bearing a child he loved too. Shizuku's so moved by this revelation that his father actually did love him that he takes flowers to his dad's grave and talks to it for a bit. Careful, boy, or you'll end up like Robert.
Back at the lair, Tomine keeps drinking, determined to see the face of the man in his flashback. How he's seeing himself as a small boy, when he should be seeing through the boy's eyes, is a question I'm not even going to try to answer. Surprise, surprise: Tomine Issei's real father is Kanzaki Yutaka. I don't know which is spookier - the melodramatic music accompanying this revelation or the fact that you can see twin Mona Lisas reflected in his glasses.
At last, the time has come! Clutching their bottles and trailed by their seconds/partners in crime/colleagues/girlfriends/whatever, Tomine and Shizuku arrive for the contest. Shizuku drinks first and ends up viewing the Mona Lisa with his father before rhapsodising about types of love and the love his father had for his mother. Love he expressed through wine. I'd prefer chocolate, myself. With confidence, Shizuku asserts that it was his mother whom his father loved the most.
Tomine's turn affords him a brief glimpse of the Mona Lisa before he gets a flashback of fun at the fair with his father, prompting him to describe the love between Kanzaki-sensei and Tomine Issei's mother, Honoka. The general consensus is that the wine represents the love for a pregnant woman - but in this case, for two different pregnant women. Robert looks furious, Kiryu looks alarmed, Maki looks like the cat who got the cream. The wines are the same, which means both men are right.
Poor Shizuku goes a little nuts, though his speech remains as polite as ever. He's seconds away from tears, which is quite understandable as anyone would cry to discover they were related to Tomine Issei, particularly if they'd seen his behaviour in the lair lately. My heart breaks as Shizuku demands to know if this is why Tomine was adopted, and why their father is making them battle each other. What makes things worse is that he believes everyone else (aside from Miyabi, obviously) knew about it, and that's what really pushes him over into hysteria.
Tomine puts a stop to it by slapping him - Shizuku wasn't the only one kept in the dark. His brother didn't know either.
Obligatory Kame commentary: Oh dear. Shizuku gets a bit more of a personality this episode, and Kame does his best with it. He can't quite match Miyabi for the crazy facial expressions but he does pull some wonderful "huh???" faces sometimes, especially when Miyabi's hostile towards Sara or says/does something that seems completely random to him. Kame has such a gorgeous smile, and we see it to full effect here - he looks so thrilled when Honma doesn't quit after all.
The more serious moments play well too. Shizuku is by no means the right person to offer anyone advice on effective communication with one's loved ones, but he does care, and he doesn't want anyone else to lose their chance. Kame plays it earnest and sincere, yet polite, without making Shizuku seem like some meddling busybody sticking his nose where it's not wanted.
And of course at the end, when the heavy drama kicks in, is where Kame shines. You want someone to play an angsty young man who works through his issues by yelling (politely) about them while tears are just waiting to fall? Cast Kamenashi Kazuya. Especially when his hair is growing out so beautifully and starting to fall in his eyes. The blinking, the gasping, the hair-grabbing, the catch in the voice and the biting of the lips...it's all there, along with the sudden violent gestures and desperate outbursts following quiet despair. It's a pleasure to watch, after seeing Shizuku's issues bubble under time and time again, to have them finally explode like this.
Best Scene: Scenes, really. I love the goings on in the Taiyo Beer wine department, so the moment they all dashed off to find Honma and make him go to the airport was wonderful for me. That, the scene at the restaurant and the wonderful confession (of sorts) at the airport made for some warm, fuzzy viewing. I don't like Honma much but I admired him in this episode, and I loved the way everyone rallied round him.
Conclusion: Aww, Shizuku. Poor kid. Having definite proof of his father's infidelity - not only that his father had a child with another woman, but that he felt the same way about her as he did his wife - obviously hurt him a great deal. I'm curious to see how this affects his competition with Tomine. It must be more personal now, I would think, that both have a blood claim to be Kanzaki Yutaka's heir. Could they even get to know each other normally? I feel so bad for Shizuku.
Some sort of personal post to follow over the weekend, probably, but for now, here's an overdue review. The short version: the Taiyo Beer crowd give me warm fuzzies, Tomine really needs to wear a bib, Robert makes a lousy agony uncle and Shizuku looks gorgeous when he goes ballistic.
Kami no Shizuku - le cinquième verre (the fifth glass)
Plot: It's been so long since I last watched an episode, I'm actually thrilled about the lengthy recap Miyabi gives us at the start. Shizuku and Tomine have another three days to find the Mona Lisa wine, and this time, the idiots had better taste it.
Where does Shizuku go when he wants to drink wine and indulge in some heavy-duty angsting? Why, Monopole, of course! But he's got good reason to be angsty, I feel, because having your deceased father tell you about his affair through the somewhat unusual method of a wine contest is not something anyone should have to go through. Shizuku feels that his father is making a fool of him.
The person he should really be worried about is Maki, who's still trying to get Kiryu to put a stop to things - ostensibly to protect Shizuku's fragile heart. Shizuku's determined not to run away from his dad, though.
Unlike Honma, who is now running away from work. Well, being a mature adult (sort of) he does it with a letter of resignation, which his boss tries to tear away from him in his eagerness to refuse it. Things are not well at Taiyo Beer. Honma, who should probably meet up with Jin sometime and discuss longing to be Italian, is making good on his vow to quit if Shizuku's French wine was chosen over his Italian wine on Valentine's Day. Of course, Shizuku doesn't want this to happen, and neither does Miyabi, though she's clearly not thrilled that Shizuku's attempts to convince Honma to stay involve telling him that it's far too early to hand his desk over to her. Honma's problem, however, is not so much with Shizuku as with his late father, who has clearly cheated Honma out of his desk by giving his son special training in wine.
Back at Tomine's lair, Maki's sporting what I at first took to be a pair of washing up gloves and Tomine's all set to try other Palmer wines to track down the Mona Lisa one, balancing gentleness and strength. Maki selects one for him, and by the look on his face and the way he drops the glass, you'd swear she just slipped him some poison. Unable to see the Mona Lisa, Tomine wonders if it is because he doesn't understand love. I'm not convinced he understands any human emotion whatsoever, never mind love.
Over at Chateau Robert, Kiryu discusses her concerns with the man himself, insisting that Kanzaki Yutaka entrusted her with seeing the contest through whether the competitors get hurt or not and it's none of her concern. Shizuku also pays Robert a visit to have a chat about dear old dad, asking the very pertinent question: why the heck didn't Kanzaki-sensei tell his son when he knew he was dying? I appreciate that pancreatic cancer is not exactly something that drags out for years, but if the old man had time to set this whole contest up he certainly had time for a little heart-to-heart with his son. Of course, that's far too straightforward for a series that expects you to pick up all your clues from a wine bottle.
What appears to be upsetting Shizuku most is that his father loved another woman, and even Kiryu, hidden away inside, winces a little at this. Robert, sensitive as always, plays around, laughs and ignores him. Not the agony uncle type, evidently. Even when he does pay attention, he only gives cryptic answers.
Shizuku returns to the office, drive restored, to be greeted by Miyabi - no food this time, but she's got a bottle of wine swiped from their boss's stash (it's an emergency, okay?) and a book to talk them through the parts she doesn't know yet. While Tomine despairs into his wine glass at ever being able to understand love, Shizuku sits through Miyabi's slightly overdone lecture on cépage, illustrated with a couple of stacks of coloured Post-It notes. I wish we had that many in my office. By dint of shuffling paper, they reach the conclusion that what they have to do is keep drinking. Sort of the motto for the series, really.
Honma, moping in his favourite Italian restaurant, isn't drinking right now. He's keeping a special bottle by his side as he gazes at a photo taken with his ex-girlfriend. She's actually kind of cute, and they look very happy together. (Dorky, but happy.) Honma understands real love, right? Shizuku doesn't.
I don't think he understands Miyabi either, frankly, but her reaction upon seeing Sara at Monopole is priceless. Sara's had the last of the Palmer, so our dynamic duo go elsewhere, back to the office to search for wines on the Internet. (Is it wise to let Kame near a computer? Sure, he chats to Maru on Skype now, but his having to buy a new computer because he forgot the password and locked himself out of his old one doesn't give me much confidence.) Miyabi practises the fine art of delegation, napping over the table while Shizuku reaches the conclusion that he'll go bankrupt buying wine on the Internet. Looking at the prices, I can see why.
Since Shizuku's not having any luck with wine, he tries to offer romantic advice to Honma, who has returned to the office late at night to pick up his stuff. Basically, Shizuku's issues over lack of communication with his father = Honma's inability to tell his ex-girlfriend how he feels about her. Honma isn't impressed with the advice and leaves.
What follows proves that the key to every mystery in the Kami no Shizuku universe could be solved if someone simply hypnotised Shizuku and had him remember everything from his screwed up past, being taken around famous works of art, landmarks etc. by his father to experience all sorts of things, in order that he might have the words to describe wine later on in life. Hence the pictures in his head. Miyabi obviously has all her best revelations while she's asleep, and is so caught up in explaining her theory that she doesn't even notice she's got Shizuku bent backwards over a desk. How she could possibly ignore something like this, I don't know, but she figures his father must've loved him a lot to give him all that training.
Tomine, who has presumably been through some unusual training of his own, finds inspiration when Sara turns up in his lair - he knows what love is, because he remembers feeling it when she was born. The less said about his messy drinking habits and excruciating moans, the better, but he does get a glimpse of the Mona Lisa...right before it fades away and gives him a childhood flashback on a carousel, waving to his mother and an "unknown" man.
Next morning, no one in the wine department at Taiyo Beer appears to be doing much work, other than the chap whose name I can't recall. Shizuku's aversion to work is catching, I see. Of course, there are things far more important than work, and the news that Honma's ex is leaving for France is one of them. Will Honma chase after his beloved and tell her his true feelings before it's too late? Yes, because the entire team rushes off to find Honma at his favourite Italian restaurant and all but bully him into going to the airport. Shizuku even apologises, somehow managing to work his own issues and a flashback in and letting us see how much Kame's hair has improved since the start of the series.
And so it's off to Terminal 1 at Narita, where Honma, watched by his poorly-hidden ex-colleagues, discovers that the woman he loves is having the baby of her French husband. Wine is probably not the best parting gift to give a pregnant woman, but he puts a brave face on it, does the decent thing and congratulates her, because his love for her prevents him from screwing things up for her. It's tough, but he wants her to be happy, even if it's with another man. The team do their best to be supportive.
Shizuku learns that words are not the only way to express feelings - you can use wine too. At least, you can in this series. He races home first, but somehow Miyabi and Honma make it to Monopole mere seconds after him, having been by Honma's wine cellar at home to pick up various vintages of Palmer. There is macho talk which allows everyone to save face. Honma's back on the job - and calling Shizuku by his first name.
Seeing Honma's pregnant ex at the airport gives Shizuku the clue he needs - the Mona Lisa wine represents a pregnant woman, possessing both strength and gentleness, loved by Kanzaki-sensei and bearing a child he loved too. Shizuku's so moved by this revelation that his father actually did love him that he takes flowers to his dad's grave and talks to it for a bit. Careful, boy, or you'll end up like Robert.
Back at the lair, Tomine keeps drinking, determined to see the face of the man in his flashback. How he's seeing himself as a small boy, when he should be seeing through the boy's eyes, is a question I'm not even going to try to answer. Surprise, surprise: Tomine Issei's real father is Kanzaki Yutaka. I don't know which is spookier - the melodramatic music accompanying this revelation or the fact that you can see twin Mona Lisas reflected in his glasses.
At last, the time has come! Clutching their bottles and trailed by their seconds/partners in crime/colleagues/girlfriends/whatever, Tomine and Shizuku arrive for the contest. Shizuku drinks first and ends up viewing the Mona Lisa with his father before rhapsodising about types of love and the love his father had for his mother. Love he expressed through wine. I'd prefer chocolate, myself. With confidence, Shizuku asserts that it was his mother whom his father loved the most.
Tomine's turn affords him a brief glimpse of the Mona Lisa before he gets a flashback of fun at the fair with his father, prompting him to describe the love between Kanzaki-sensei and Tomine Issei's mother, Honoka. The general consensus is that the wine represents the love for a pregnant woman - but in this case, for two different pregnant women. Robert looks furious, Kiryu looks alarmed, Maki looks like the cat who got the cream. The wines are the same, which means both men are right.
Poor Shizuku goes a little nuts, though his speech remains as polite as ever. He's seconds away from tears, which is quite understandable as anyone would cry to discover they were related to Tomine Issei, particularly if they'd seen his behaviour in the lair lately. My heart breaks as Shizuku demands to know if this is why Tomine was adopted, and why their father is making them battle each other. What makes things worse is that he believes everyone else (aside from Miyabi, obviously) knew about it, and that's what really pushes him over into hysteria.
Tomine puts a stop to it by slapping him - Shizuku wasn't the only one kept in the dark. His brother didn't know either.
Obligatory Kame commentary: Oh dear. Shizuku gets a bit more of a personality this episode, and Kame does his best with it. He can't quite match Miyabi for the crazy facial expressions but he does pull some wonderful "huh???" faces sometimes, especially when Miyabi's hostile towards Sara or says/does something that seems completely random to him. Kame has such a gorgeous smile, and we see it to full effect here - he looks so thrilled when Honma doesn't quit after all.
The more serious moments play well too. Shizuku is by no means the right person to offer anyone advice on effective communication with one's loved ones, but he does care, and he doesn't want anyone else to lose their chance. Kame plays it earnest and sincere, yet polite, without making Shizuku seem like some meddling busybody sticking his nose where it's not wanted.
And of course at the end, when the heavy drama kicks in, is where Kame shines. You want someone to play an angsty young man who works through his issues by yelling (politely) about them while tears are just waiting to fall? Cast Kamenashi Kazuya. Especially when his hair is growing out so beautifully and starting to fall in his eyes. The blinking, the gasping, the hair-grabbing, the catch in the voice and the biting of the lips...it's all there, along with the sudden violent gestures and desperate outbursts following quiet despair. It's a pleasure to watch, after seeing Shizuku's issues bubble under time and time again, to have them finally explode like this.
Best Scene: Scenes, really. I love the goings on in the Taiyo Beer wine department, so the moment they all dashed off to find Honma and make him go to the airport was wonderful for me. That, the scene at the restaurant and the wonderful confession (of sorts) at the airport made for some warm, fuzzy viewing. I don't like Honma much but I admired him in this episode, and I loved the way everyone rallied round him.
Conclusion: Aww, Shizuku. Poor kid. Having definite proof of his father's infidelity - not only that his father had a child with another woman, but that he felt the same way about her as he did his wife - obviously hurt him a great deal. I'm curious to see how this affects his competition with Tomine. It must be more personal now, I would think, that both have a blood claim to be Kanzaki Yutaka's heir. Could they even get to know each other normally? I feel so bad for Shizuku.