The Central New York Regional Market

Mina and I went to what passes for a famer's market here in Syracuse today and were pretty disappointed, actually. The selection of vegetables and fruits was poor and the selection of meat was even worse. If you are looking for flowers or for items you can find at a $1 store, this is the market for you, but for people looking for interesting, exciting ingredients and produce, it just doesn't stack up.

When we are back in Cleveland we often go to the West Side Market there and this was one trip that really brought home what a great asset that market is to the people who live in Northeast Ohio.

Tomorrow looks like a downer of a day weather-wise, so where I'd hoped we'd get a chance to go to a Syracuse Chiefs baseball game, we'll probably end up staying home and being lazy.

The Browns' Draft

I spent Saturday afternoon parked in front of the TV watching the NFL draft. I think the first draft I ever watched was probably about 1987 or 1988, and I've watched all the drafts since that I have been in the country for. The Cleveland Browns usually have pretty crappy drafts, but this year I think that they may have done just enough to start to turn the franchise around. Trading next year's No. 1 in order to get a 2nd first round pick this year and take Brady Quinn at QB was the sort of bold move that the team has shied away from for most of my life, so it was nice to see them take the chance. Of course, it could be a disaster, but the thing about the draft is that you just never know. Once in a while you have to roll the dice.

We'll see what happens in the fall, but I think 6-10 or 7-9 would be reasonable

Spring...finally!

What a weekend, is all I can say really. It was 70-75 degrees and sunny both Saturday and Sunday, and the Lovely Mina and I tried to take advantage. We grilled some short ribs and corn on the cob yesterday and spent the day out today. It was nice to grab an iced coffee at one of the local coffee shops and sit outside reading this afternoon. Tomorrow it's supposed to be just as nice, but I've got enough work to do that I will probably find a room with no windows to study in.

Not much else going on, really. Hit the hay early tonight to be ready for a full day of writing tomorrow.

Akiko Suwanai

This past weekend the Lovely Mina and I drove back to Cleveland to see my favorite living violinist, Ms. Akiko Suwanai, play a recital. We had seen her twice before, both times in Tokyo and both times from seats very far away from the action, so we were (or at least I was) looking forward to this small venue recital.

Previously we had seen her play Bruch's 1st Violin Concerto at Tokyo Opera City, which is a simply stunning venue, and the Beethoven Violin Concerto at Tokyo's International Forum, which is honestly not the greatest place to see a concert. Both concerts were fantastic, however. The Beethoven was particularly well played, in my opinion, and she had built up so much tension in the crowd by the end of the 1st movement that there was an audible release of breath from the audience when it ended. I had never experienced anything quite like that at a concert before.

In any event, the recital we saw last weekend was at the Pilgrim Congregational Church in Cleveland, a venue that seats only 1,200. We had very nice seats on the balcony and were able to see quite well. The first and last tunes, a Bach and then a Brahms Sonata, were excellent, though the choice of Bartok in the middle was less than inspired from my point of view (worse, from my Dad's, probably).

It was a very nice concert at an interesting venue, though, and I am glad we were fortunate enough to be able to see Akiko Suwanai play again. For those interested, here are a couple of links.

Akiko Suwanai's CD of the Bruch Violin Concerto 1 and Scottish Fantasy at Amazon.com
Akiko Suwanai's Home Page (Japanese)
Akiko Suwanai at Wikipedia (English)

So, you've got all these battleships...*

Those who know me well probably know about my love of battleships. It really has never been a secret and before we get to the technical part of this entry, here are a couple of entertaining photos of me at the U.S.S. North Carolina museum in Wilmington, NC, one from when I was about 20 or 21 and one fro when I was 2 or 3.

Anyway, last night on NOVA the topic was the sinking of the Japanese super-battleship Yamato (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/supership/). Of course, I watched and all in all the program was reasonably well done. It spent too much time on the general history of the war in the Pacific for my tastes, but it was a program for the casual viewer. They couldn't very well have said at the outset, "If you don't know the basics, go watch all 13 hours of "Victory at Sea" and then come back."

So, a couple of things that the program wasn't exactly accurate about, in my opinion. The program oversimplified the Washington Treaty of 1922, implying that the U.S. and Great Britain forced the 5:5:3 ratio on the Japanese when there was actually a relatively strong "Treaty Faction" in the Japanese navy that understood that the 5:5:3 ratio effectively guaranteed the Japanese naval superiority in the Pacific given the American and British two-ocean navy requirements. The program also never mentioned that there was a sister ship to the Yamato (the Musashi) that was sunk by U.S. aircraft at the Battle of Leyte Gulf in the Philippines in 1944 (6 months before the Yamato was sunk), nor that a 3rd ship in the class (the Shinano) was started but converted to an aircraft carrier following the Battle of Midway. Shinano was actually the largest aircraft carrier built until the U.S.S. Forrestal was completed in the 1950's.

Oh, the Lovely Mina and I went to the U.S.S. Massachusetts museum in Fall River last summer, which was nice. One of these days I will drag her to Mobile, AL to see the U.S.S. Alabama. I am sure she is very excited and looking forward to that!

* This is the opening line of my brother David's always humorous impression of me.

April showers bring May flowers, but what do April snow showers bring?

Is it really Spring?

Yesterday, the Lovely Mina and I went shopping, as we usually do on Saturdays. It was cold, cold, cold and snowing here in the 'Cuse.

I suppose we are making up for having a warm December, but I think we are all ready for 65 degrees and sunny. I fear that before we know it, it's going to be 95 and humid and we'll have missed Spring.

Anyway, today we've got lake effect snow in the forecast and it's below freeaing at 10:30 in the morning. "Luckily" I get the spend most of the day looking up corporate governance variables for a paper I am working on with some colleagues on stock options backdating. After that, a little more reading about top management teams and about Japanese women in the workplace for other papers.

Time to turn on some Beethoven and get down to it.

Albums that Changed my Life

Watching BBC America this evening and there's a documentary on about Britpop. I'll never forget the first time I heard Oasis (on NPR, September of 1994) or what that sound meant at the time. Granted, their shit now, but then?

In any event, this got me thinking about albums (CDs, whatever) that I have heard that just changed everything. We all have them in our lives, I think, so here are a few thoughts on important albums in my life.

Paul Simon, Graceland, 1986: My uncle Bob gave me this CD before I ever had a CD player. I think I probably saw the You can Call Me Al video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5oA9kUoVJg) on MTV and the Diamonds on the Sould of Her Shoes performance on Saturday Night Live before I ever got around to hearing the album, but once I heard it there really wasn't any going back. Likely, my journey toward relative liberalism politically started with just the little consciousness of what was going on in South Africa with Apartheid that this record gave me. The drum lines and the vocals were more intricate than anything I'd been conscious of at 15 years old. It was just an incredible moment in my life and I listened to that album more while I was on my foreign exchange in Turkey than anything else.

The Stone Roses, The Stone Roses, 1989: Still, the band I never got a chance to see in concert that I most wish I'd gotten to see (if that makes sense). I can still listen to "This is the One" or "I am the Resurection" and be amazed. There were stories of people rioting in pubs in England if that record came on and wasn't played all the way through. I don't know that there's been a better album since.

Liz Phair, Exile in Guyville, 1993: Liz has gone a little too pop for my tastes, but this CD was an absolute revelation when I was in the lost years of my life. She was just so angry and nasty. I was probably looking for someone a bit like her...and of course I found a couple of them...in those days. Again, an album that just hasn't been surpassed for me in terms of first to last track listening.

Next time: my first Jimmy Buffett, Okuda Tamio, Bedhead, and Bruch's Scottish Fantasy.

Anyone else care to comment on the albums that changed their lives?

I usually allow myself about an hour of TV per night on weekdays as a way of decompressing after 11.5 hours at school. That generally lets me eat, hang out with the Lovely Mina and then spend that hour not really thinking about anything before I study again for a couple of hours before bed. Not the most exciting life, I know, but there you have it.

Today Mina showed me a ranking of the Top 20 Pre-2000 Japanese TV Dramas that people over there would like to see once again. The list, for those interested, is here http://www.rankingjapan.com/ranking.php?page=753

Now, I was interested to see that 3 of the Top 10 were dramas I'd include in my Top 10 (Tokyo Love Story, Beach Boys, and Hitotsu Yane no Shita (All Under One Roof), but I was pretty surprised to see that Long Vacation, Beautiful Life (actually from 2000, so right on the border), and a couple of others didn't make the ranking. Anyway, you knew this was coming, but here's my ranking with links where I can find them:

1. Tokyo Love Story (1990): The original "Post-Trendy" Drama and one that really still holds up over time. I was absolutely shocked to see that it is number one in that poll linked to above. Still, I guess that if you're going to watch only one J-Drama, this has to be it. Oda Yuji pretty much looks the same as he did 27 years ago, which is remarkable; he's like a latter day Dick Clark. You had to root for Suzuki Honami's character, despite the nose, even if you knew she was never going to get the guy. She was the first post-modern Japanese woman and every strong female character in J-Drama leans on her example. Don't take it from me, check out this book http://www.amazon.com/Feeling-Asian-Modernities-Transnational-Consumption/dp/9622096328/ref=sr_1_1/104-4730234-0586329?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1175826958&sr=1-1

2. Long Vacation (1996 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-a6EOJWoMw): The quintessential Takuya Kimura drama and what an incredible cast when you think about it. Takuya, Yamaguchi Tomoko at her absolute peak, Takenouchi Yutaka, Inamori Izumi, Matsu Takako before she was Matsu Takako, and even an episode with Hirosue Ryoko as a 15 year-old no-name. Really one of the ultimate mid-90s Japanese dramas.

3. Hitotsu Yane no Shita (1993): Again, one of the great "Post-Trendy" dramas and another outstanding cast with Eguchi Yosuke, Sakai Noriko (see my Hall of Fame J-Actresses below), Fukuyama Masaharu, Uchida Yuki, etc. The sequel was good as well, but I'd rather watch the original, personally.

4. Kamisama mousukoshi dake (神様もう少しだけ - 1998 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Xd466ek-HA): This drama woke young people in Tokyo up to the HIV/AIDS problem. There was even a spike in the number of people getting tested weekly while the drama was going on. Too bad they ruined it by having the HIV+ heroine sleep with her boyfriend, get pregnant, and give birth all without either the dad or the kid being HIV+. I was so steamed I actually wrote to Fuji TV about how irresponsible that was of them...

5. Doku (1996): I can only imagine what my dear brother will say about this one, but while it was actually a silly drama about a Vietnamese immigrant to Japan, I really enjoyed it. Likely, this had something to do with the relatively simple Japanese that the characters used in communicating with our hero (Katori Shingo) and the fact that I could understand it, but, hey, there it is.

Anyway, those are the five that I would want to watch again if I could. Maybe I'll expand the list to 10 one of these days to bring in "Boku no Ikiru Michi" and a couple of others. Next time, though, I think we'll cover the American shows I always like to watch in reruns.

So, what do you do when you've got writer's block and can't think of where to take your research paper on 3rd Culture Development in International Joint Ventures? Take a break and write something different, I guess... I should be reading some for another paper I am writing about females in the Japanese work place, but that can wait a few minutes while I ramble on here.

Last weekend, the Lovely Mina and I went off to Ashtablula, OH for my 4th incarnation on the staff at the LEIMUN (the artist formerly known as KSUAC MUN) high school Model UN conference. It was nice to see old friends and good to meet some new people as well. It was also nice to have my mind occupied by something other than school for a couple of days, even if I am paying for it now. In any event, to any of my delegates who read this post, congratulations, you all did a very nice job.

OK, back to reality. A couple of hours on "Office Ladies and Salaried Men" by Yuko Ogasawara before heading home for dinner. Hopefully, I'll be able to bang out another page or two of this paper on IJVs after dinner this evening...

I recently went to see Clint Eastwood's new World War II film, Letters from Iwo Jima. As mentioned previously, I was curious to see this film for a number of reasons, not least of which was to see how a "pre-Baby Boomer" would portray the Japanese in a film ostensibly told from their side (the screenplay was written by Iris Yamashita, a Japanese-American). While not a film critic nor a film historian, I have done some research into portrayal of the "other" in Japanese and American war films and so was very much interested not only in the portrayal of the Japanese, as mentioned above, but in how an American director would portray Americans in the film as this would represent an "othering" of his own countrymen.

In any event, I found the film to be quite good, though it did not cause me to rethink the Top 5 ranking of war films presented here previously. Eastwood did coax excellent performances out of Japanese actors that I have seen in other, forgettable performances. Kazunari Ninomiya, who portrays the baker/soldier Saigo, was especially surprising if only because he is a member of the wholly forgettable Japanese boy band Arashi (one of the Johnny's Jimusho groups along with SMAP, V6, TOKIO, NEWS, etc., for those interested) and in this film turns in the first "anti-Johnny's" style performance I have ever seen from someone from that production house. On the other hand, Sidou Nakamura pretty much played his part in exactly the same way he plays every other part I have ever seen him in: brooding, doing his best to channel Sean Penn, but mostly yelling a lot.

Two scenes were particularly striking. First, a scene in which an American soldier is wounded and a Japanese commander orders his men not only to pull the man off the battlefield, but to use the last of their medicines to treat him. A letter from the American boy's mother ends up showing the Japanese solders who hear it read to them that the Americans are "just like us." In a later scene two American soldiers are ordered by their commander to guard a pair of Japanese who have surrendered. Eager to rejoin their unit in the fight, the Americans execute the Japanese soldiers in cold blood. In a sense, this could have been a terribly shocking scene for American audiences that had been brought up hearing only about the virtue and valiant behavior of our men in uniform. My Lai, Abu-Ghraib, and other attrocities committed by American soldiers, though, took some of the sting out of this scene.

The end of the movie also interested me. Eastwood had an opening for a very Hollywood ending along the lines of "Saving Private Ryan," leaving two soldiers, one we had come to like and one we had come to dislike, alive at the end of the story, he resisted the temptation to give us a happy reunion of Saigo the baker/soldier with his wife and child he had never seen. Likely, they died in bombings of the Kanto region and Saigo returned home to nothing. That Hollywood ending might just have been too far fetched for the tone of the film.

So, after all that, I certainly do recommend the film for its study of both the human and the Japanese soul. But, if you really want to see a great war movie, I still say you should go and rent the director's cut of "Das Boot."

Last week the Boston Red Sox signed the Japanese pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka. The first time I saw Matsuzaka pitch was the quarter-finals of the 1998 National High School Baseball Tournament (Koshien) in Japan. That was the start of the three game stretch of games at Koshien that made Matsuzaka a legend at 17 years old. For starters, Matsuzaka pitched all 17 innings of that quarter-final match-up with PL Gakuen of Osaka. The next day he pitched only a couple of innings in a come-back victory against Meitoku Gijuku (where I taught English for several years), but it was Matsuzaka coming in from left field to pitch with Yokohama losing 6-1 that broke the spirit of the Meitoku players and sparked the come-back. On the third day of that stretch all Matsuzaka did was pitch the first no-hitter in the Koshien final in 60 years. Here's a YouTube video of highlights of Matsuzaka at Koshien:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVzZUXUe3kg

And, for my Japanese readers, here is a speech I wrote for a 3rd year Japanese class at Princeton University's intensive summer Japanese program that is about Koshien and Matsuzaka:


“サッカーは美しいゲーム”と聞いたことがあります。でも、私の考えは、世界の一番純粋なゲームは日本の高校野球だと思います。学生の選手達は野球が大好きだから一生懸命頑張るし、学生の応援団は野球の英雄のために一生懸命応援します。毎年、大会が始まる時には全部のチームに同じチャンスがあります。高校野球の中で、この純粋な雰囲気が何よりも好きです。
日本では高校野球は非常に人気があります。春の大会も夏の大会も全部の試合をテレビで生放送します。高校野球についての雑誌、マンガ、アニメ、それに特別なテレビ番組もあります。ＰＬ学園や智弁和歌山や私のいた明徳義塾はアメリカン・フットボールのノートルダムやマイアミ大学のように有名です。
どうして日本で高校野球がそんなに人気がありますかと言う人がよくいます。私の意見ではそれには２つの理由があります。１つ目は高校野球は地方の代表がやるスポーツだということです。日本にとって自分の地元は本当に大切な物だと思います。もし自分の近くにある学校が甲子園へ行けば自分の出身地に対する思いが増えるかも知れません。２つ目は日本人は頑張るのが好きだという理由です。勝つか負けるか関係がありません。日本人はみんなは一生懸命頑張っているのを見たがります。
私は日本に初めて来た時日本語はまったくできませんでした。テレビを見たかったけど、何も分かりませんでした。そのような人にとってスポーツを見るのは一番分かりやすいと聞いたことがありました。でも、高校野球には１つの大きな問題があります。それは、ほとんどのチームはいつも真っ白で漢字が書いてあるユニフォームを着てやっているということです。試合を見る時、どこのチームとどこのチームがやっているのかは、いらいらするぐらい分かりにくいと思います。
この問題のせいで私の最初の好きなチームはローマ字で学校名が書いてあるグレーのユニフォームを着ている仙台育英高校でした。この選び方は中途半端だと思いますけど当時は他の方法はありませんでした。でも、２つの嬉しいことがあります。１つ目は去年の春の大会に私はその仙台育英を甲子園球場まで見に行きました。あの時仙台育英の応援団に入ってとなりのお客さんと今の話をして、すぐ友達になったことです。２つ目はその後にその仙台育英が決勝戦までいったことです。
次に私の一番好きな高校野球選手を紹介したいと思います。この人は1998年の夏の大会で見事な試合を３つやって、高校野球のレジェンドになりました。まず準々決勝で１回から延長１７回まで２５０球を投げました。やはり、次の日にこの人の腕はだめでしたからレフトで先発しました。７回まで投げて６―１で負けました。腕がだめだったけど、８回にこの人はマウンドの上に登りました。球場に入った４０、０００人が“ハッ”って首をかしげました。その８回と９回にこの人が本当に頑張ってこの人のチームが７―６で勝ちました。あの日の最後に負けた高校は私のいた明徳義塾高校でした。今までも私は最後のスコアボードのことが信じられないです。家の高校が負けたけど、最後の決勝戦にこの人はどんなプレーをするかを楽しみにしていました。まだ信じられませんがその人は６９年ぶりのノーヒット・ノーラン決勝戦を達成しました。その横浜高校の松坂大輔は私の高校野球の英雄になりました。
甲子園に入る時はいつも鳥肌が立ちます。もし誰か石川県大会に行きたかったら、いい思い出を作りに私と一緒に行きましょう。

Later on this month the film "Letters from Iwo Jima" will premiere in the U.S. and in my opinion this has the potential to be a very important film on many levels. It is perhaps the first major Hollywood studio release to be in a foreign language and subtitled in 25 years (since The Boat, in 1981, probably) and is part of the rediscovery of World War II that "Saving Private Ryan" and "The Thin Red Line" started 10 years ago. Too few films have approached the war in the Pacific and, obviously, even fewer have approached the war from the point of view of the Japanese. In preparation of this, I'll offer up my own Top 5 War Movies (though, if "Letters" is as good as I think it is going to be, this list may change).

1) Tora, Tora, Tora (1970) - While this film has faults in that it takes a pseudo-revisionist point of view that places a great deal of insinuated blame on the American commanders at Pearl Harbor. Regardless, it contains no fictional story line and does a reasonable job of telling the story of the lead-up to Pearl Harbor in a dramatic way. The cinematography is good, the Japanese is authentic, and the action sequences were good enough that films like Midway (1976) just used the same footage.

2) The Boat (Das Boot, 1981) - Not only did this movie cement Jurgen Prochnow's status as the founding member of the All Purpose Eastern Europeans, it portrayed war from a different perspective than, perhaps, we had ever seen. Wolfgang Petersen directed the film in a way that makes the viewer feel the claustrophobia that must have come from serving in a German U-Boat. Through hours and hours (the movie is long at 149 minutes, longer at 216 minutes if you see the German version, and really LONG at 293 minutes if you see the director's cut) of not much happening to these soldiers, followed by intense moments of violence. Incredible.

3) Saving Private Ryan (1998) - Even putting aside from the rightfully famous opening 25 minutes, this film has an amazing amount going for it. Even if the idea that the U.S. Army would send a single squad of Rangers off on a mission to retrieve one soldier is ridiculous, the more important thing is the questions that this story line forces the characters to deal with. What is the value of one individual during a war? What are the conflicts that a group of soldiers have to deal with within their group? How do they handle groupthink type of situations? How does the chain of command suffer and survive over time? In any event, I think this film is the best of the "rediscovered" war film style.

4) Glory (1989) - A great film and an important one for any American to see in order to understand exactly what the point of the Civil War was. The film is a lot more about the development of the Massachusetts 54th and the battles that they fought with each other than it is about the battles that they fought against the Confederate Arny.

5) All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) - Perhaps the ultimate anti-war statement and far ahead of its time.

Honorable Mention: In Harm's Way (1965), Gallipoli (1981), The Enemy Below (1957), Guadalcanal Diary (1943), A Soldier's Story (1984), etc.

In a couple of hours the BCS Selection show will be on TV and we will find out which college football team will be playing against Ohio State in the national championship game on January 8. The whole bowl system is a mess these days, with a bunch of meaningless games in January and a system that seems to cause more arguments than the old days because it is "supposed" to set up a game between the two best teams in the country. 20 years ago we almost never got to see a No. 1 vs. No. 2 game in a bowl because all of the conference champions were bound to go to specific games contractually. There was something mythic about the Rose Bowl back then, when you knew it would be the Big 10 champ versus the Pac-10 champ. Growing up as an Ohio St. fan, the only two markers for a season were whether we beat Michigan and whether we went to the Rose Bowl.

From my point of view the University of Florida's team deserves the shot at Ohio St. They won their conference (Michigan did not), and they have a better record against Top 25 and bowl-eligible teams than does Michigan. Let's hope the voters and the computers spit out that result. I'd like nothing more than to hear Michigan fans and apologists whine for the next 8 weeks.

I was talking with my wife the other day and she pointed out that my ranking of Japanese actresses is sadly out of date. Yuko Takeuchi has been married long enough to have had a kid, which means she is obviously ineligible to keep her Number 2 spot. So, for the record, he is the Top 5 as of December 2, 2006:

1) Takako Tokiwa (常盤貴子) - Still going strong, though from what I can tell she hasn't appeared in a TV drama in years. Here, she makes canned coffee look delicious <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE5iVNHAyXk>

2) Manami Konishi (小西真奈美) - A potential future Number 1. Here she is selling "beer" made from soybeans (which is just wrong, but don't get me started) <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x55reW_bv_A>

3) Ryoko Kuninaka (国仲涼子) - See my previous post. Here's a song she sings <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A380fr4PqZ0>

4) Eri Fukatsu (深津絵里) - Here's a change in the rankings. To tell you the truth, she reminds me of a friend of mine. Apparently, she sells IP Telephone service as well <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVnc4kzktGg>

5) Mao Kobayashi (小林麻央) - This one will probably drive my wife nuts. Originally, I wasn't such a big Mao fan, but she has grown on me. I suspect she isn't as dumb as she sounds. Here she is (in Blue) talking to Sanma Akashiya
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwUTZ7S3JD8>

So, there you have it.

Well, much has changed since I last posted. In 9 months I've gotten married, been accepted to a PhD program, moved back to the U.S., and started school. I'll not bore you, dear reader, with the details, but I thought now might be as good a time as any to start writing again. At least it will put off writing a review of an article on Leader-Member Exchange Theory for another 15 minutes.

Today I came home from school and my wife had bought a little Christmas tree and set it up in our living room. It is sort of a Charlie Brown tree, no more than 2 feet high, but I could tell that she put a lot of effort into making it look just so. She always liked setting up our tree together in Japan, but I think she wanted to surprise me this time around. It made me pretty happy that she let me put the star on, even if it is more than 2 weeks too early to have a Christmas tree up.

最近、学校のことをちょっと心配してきました。勉強は難しいですけど、それは当たり前。心配してるのはフォーカスがちょっとなくなってきた。毎週面白いものを読んでるから自分が勉強したいことが見えなくなってきた。面白い先生と話すと、その先生の選考の道へ行きたくなるけど、次の日に違う先生と話すと違う道が面白くなってきてる。まぁ、何も面白くないより全部面白いのはいい問題だと思うけど、ちょっとストレスがたまる。12月23日からの冬休み入ったら、よく考えないといけない、と思います。

With the new season of Japanese TV dramas into its 3rd or 4th week, I figured it was time to update my list of the Top 5 J-Actresses. Before doing that, though, I should explain the basic criteria for an actress to be ranked:

1) Be over 20.
2) Be single.*
3) Acting should be individual's primary occupation. (So, Talents - タレント -, Announcers, Singers, etc., are not included).

The Top 5 is in a constant state of flux, though I usually don't do a formal shuffling of rankings except at the beginning of the drama seasons in January, April, July, and October. Anyway, on to the rankings.

1) Takako Tokiwa (常盤貴子): She'd been No. 3 and 2 for a long time and has moved up as a sort of "lifetime" achievement award. She was fantastic in the '90s dramas "Just Tell Me That You Love Me" (愛してると言ってくれ), "Beautiful Life", etc., but never seemed to get over the hump. I recently watched her in the movie "Akai Tsuki" (赤い月), though, and that sealed it. She was stunning.

2) Yuko Takeuchi (竹内祐子): Deceptively beautiful. She seemed to have sort of plain, girl next door looks when I first saw her, but by the last episode of the drama "Pride" I had the feeling that if I actually ever met her, I probably wouldn't know what to do or say. Under normal conditions her ranking would be in jeopardy due to the fact that her current drama is more or less unwatchable. She's lucky, though, that the numbers 3-5 actresses are also involved in relatively forgetttable programs this season.

Having said that Yuko's position would normally be in jeopardy, though, I should point out that I consider Takako and Yuko to be relatively safe in their rankings for the time being. Until someone new comes on the block with serious potential, there just isn't enough power in the lower three to challenge for a top ranking.

3) Ryoko Kuninaka (国仲涼子): Sort of epitomizes cute, I think. She was the title character in the NHK morning serial "Chura-san", following in the footsteps of Hall of Famer Nanako Matsushima in parlaying that turn on NHK into parts in mainstream popular dramas. She has yet to overcome that "NHK-esque" image of absolute purity, though, and until she does that and gains 5 pounds, I don't see her moving up.

4) Miho Shiraishi (白石美帆): She's basically here on the strength of her role as the weather girl in the Nanako Matsushima/Masaharu Fukuyama drama "Beauty and the Beast". She was the revelation of that drama - a "whoa, who is that?" double take kind of woman - but has been pretty stagnant since.

5) Yukie Nakama (仲間由紀恵): She was stunning in "Trick" and "Game", but a real disappointment in "Tokyo Wan-kei". Granted, she was up against the Olympics in that season, but still. A real dud. Like Kuninaka, she could stand to gain 5 pounds, but does have a sort of "sporty" look that few J-actresses can carry off.

*The Hall of Fame: Like any Hall of Fame, the criteria for entrance here are stringent. Basically, if an actress reaches the No. 1 slot and gets married while holding that position, she is eligible. I figured there had to be a way to continue to honor these women, even if I no longer had a "chance". These are presented in reverse chronological order of their elevation.

Miho Nakayama (中山美穂): All you need to see is the Shunji Iwai movie "Love Letter." If that doesn't make you a fan of Nakayama Miho, then I don't know what the problem is. She was absolutely captivating. "Oishii Kankei", "Nemureru Mori", and "Home and Away" rank with some of my favorite dramas of all time. She held the No. 1 slot between 2000 and 2002.

Nanako Matsushima (松嶋奈々子): I first saw Nanako in the GTO TV series that she starred in with future husband Takashi Sorimachi. She's a classic beauty, and as this season's "Emergency Room 24 Hours" drama is proving, has not lost a step since marriage and having a child. Still a magnetic presence. Her Sakurako character in "Yamato na deshiko" has been described as one of the 3 seminal female TV Drama characters of the 1990's. She held the No. 1 position between 1998 and 2000

Noriko Sakai (酒井法子): Still gets my vote for the perfect face. If I could meet one J-Actress (she was still single), it would be Noriko. I first saw her in "All Under One Roof" (一つ屋根の下), but really "got it" when I watched "Hoshi no Kinka", in which she played a deaf and dumb hospital worker. It probably helped that I didn't understand Japanese in those days, and since she didn't speak in the drama I was never distracted by trying to figure out what she was talking about. I could just watch. She was No. 1 from 1995 until getting married in 1998.

Next time: Drama reviews for the January-March 2005 season.

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