[*Whatever By The Books*]

Ehh?! I’m not doing anime today?! Yes, I’m not. I’ve been watching Kami no Shizuku, which is based on the manga of the same name, about wine and a wayward son finally realising the true person his father is. It’s a game where a young man new to the allure of wine, Kanzaki Shizuku, fights with his father’s last-minutely-adopted son, the hateful Tomine Issei, for his inheritance of a wine collected worth over 20 billion yen (or some large number that I didn’t keep track of).

While I can’t really get over the fact that the actor playing Shizuku (Kamenashi Kazuya) is somewhat more girly than I’d expected, it’s been pretty interesting so far — Naka Riisa as Shinohara is pretty and amusingly exaggerated. (Though I don’t know whether I care much for it if she acts like that when she’s actually really unhappy…) Only issue I have is with Tanabe Seiichi as Tomine Issei — he’s so UGLY. I’ve always pictured Issei as a charmer — one of those snakes who looks handsome but has a black, black heart. But this guy is ugh. He’s just gross and creepy.

Of note is Takenaka Naoto, who plays Robert, an eccentric friend of Kanzaki Yutaka’s. (Shizuku’s father.) He looked strangely familiar, and I was convinced he was Stresemann in Nodame, even though he looks a lot less weird (but still strange) here — and it actually is him! He’s listed on DramaWiki as an actor and a singer, and I wonder how he sounds; the few times he sung on Kami no Shizuku were unexpectedly nice.

In any case, I did some screenshots of episode 3 — nothing as amazing as anime generally is, but have a look at the gallery if you’d like, or just read on for a short summary and slideshow of the screenshots. (more…)