I caught the flu sometime this week, so I'm out with a 103.5^oF fever. I had watched the rest of Pride (episodes 9 to 11) on the couch while wrapped up in a blanket and long-sleeves.  read more »

The Green Monsters

The drama heats up as some more information is revealed about Aki's returned boyfriend while it's apparently that Halu is lying to himself and others again. As Aki puts it, "He swings between toughness and fragileness". Though it looks as if the hockey is finally returning at the end, something happens that really brought Halu over the edge, and it wasn't the inevitable facedown between Halu and Aki's boyfriend.

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Speechless

Words can't really describe what I'm feeling right now; the closest is angry. This drama did its job properly and has seriously got me pissed off at the characters. What a damn good series!

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Mama's Boy

I finally get around to watching the sixth episode of this J-Drama series called Pride. Unfortunately for you hockey fans, this episode has even less hockey than any previous episode so far. Fortunately for you soap-opera drama fans, this episode heats up with new elements that pop up. Romance fans, stay tuned for the end of this one!

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This episode is filled mainly with the past of the current coach, Hyodo, with the ex-coach, Anzai, and his wife, Youko, and with what in the past bothered Yamato. With the coach, we find that it almost mirrors Halu's situation, Except Hyodo was the boyfriend that went away and Anzai was his best friend. We also get a bit more progress on Halu's and Aki's situation, as it's Halu that's becoming unsure of their relationship.

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It's pretty nice that every episode has ended on a high note. No cliffhangers to make you want to watch the next episode to see what happens; instead, good writing, good acting, and plenty of action is used to make you want more. Indeed, thats what we get here in the fourth episode of Pride, complete with a bar fight, some very insightful words from Halu, some emphasis on Tomonori, and finishing it off with a song by Queen.

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Well, at least there's no more of this back and forth thing going on between Aki and Halu. Though both seem to claim that their relationship is a "game", it seems to have stabilized and started letting other elements of the drama shine through in this episode. We are also treated to some nice hockey action this time, too.

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Part two of this drama series proves to provide even more hockey than even the pilot episode. Complete with a few rather painful checks and hard to get goals and good amount of rather strained romance, Pride is proving to be quite fun to watch.

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I've never watched a live-action Japanese drama series before. In fact, I had never planned to until I heard of a J-Drama that was based on ice hockey. Yes, a Japanese live-action drama based on the brutal North American sport. As a ice hockey fan and player (Well, I used to. I want to get back into it soon), this immediately got my attention. Though I had to get used to Japanese in a live-action format (Hey! The girls do look different from one another! Amazing! That's not at all like anime!), the first episode provided a nice introduction of what to come in this 11 episode series...

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