In the autumn Japanese dramas, there are two dramas in my heart that are not victorious or lost. One of them is the "Big Love: With You Who Will Forget Me" that we pushed some time ago, which is really warm and touching, and a little bit of fear of abuse in the heart.
The other is "I Am Big Brother", which is loved by everyone for committing two funny things, and it is interesting that both dramas have Muro Yi starring, and the painting style of the two can be completely different, which is also quite powerful.
Speaking of "I Am Big Brother", it is also a bit too strong, the drama has been broadcast so far, the number of scorers is more than 10,000, but it can still maintain a high score of 9.1 points.
From this point alone, it is also a good drama that you must not miss this season.
"I Am Big Brother" is based on the manga of the same name by Japanese manga artist Hiroyuki Nishimori, which has been serialized since 1988, and the protagonists of the story are two bad high school teenagers named Takashi Mitsuhashi and Shinji Ito.
The original Japanese name of "I Am Big Brother" is "Today から俺は!!", which literally translates to Chinese is: I want to start today!! However, when the manga was first released in Taiwan, the translation was "I Am Big Brother" (the Hong Kong version is translated as "Today I Am to Lat!!" 》）。
As a result, subsequent theatrical versions of the anime and live-action dramas filmed by Japanese television stations also continued the name in Chinese-speaking areas.
Cover of the comic book version of "I Am Big Brother". The manga began serialization in 1988 and ended in 1997. With the release of the series, "I Am Big Brother" special
Like "Slam Dunk Master", which came out two years later, "I Am Big Brother" is also a juvenile comic. But the protagonist's choice is the opposite.
Sakuragi Hanamichi, the protagonist of "Slam Dunk Master", appears as a rebellious teenager with a red airplane head, and eventually grows into a basketball genius whose hair has become shorter and stronger.
Another character, Mitsui Shouyin, mistakenly became a bad teenager, but still couldn't resist the charm of basketball, kneeling in front of Coach Ansai and crying, "Coach, I want to play basketball..."
The growth line of the character of Mitsui Shou in "Slam Dunk Master" is very complete
In "I Am Big Brother", the protagonists Takashi Mitsuhashi and Shinji Ito are ordinary high school students when they debut. Because of the opportunity to change schools, the two invariably made up their minds to turn into bad teenagers in the new school. Wanting to "start from scratch", they first met at the door of the barbershop, and then found that they were still classmates.
As a result, the blond Mitsuhashi and the sea urchin-headed Ito Tatsu became a secret agreement between the other party. The two of them join hands to become the bad boy big brother of the school. Like most bad boys, Mitsuhashi and Ito's daily routine is basically skipping class, fighting, and playing with girls.
In 1992, the theatrical version of "I Am Big Brother" began to air
The characters in the drama version of "I Am Big Brother" have achieved god restoration, and Kenjin Helai (left) and Kentaro Ito (right) play Mitsuhashi and Ito respectively
The difference is that Mitsuhashi and Ito neither bully the weak nor provoke a senseless fight. When Mitsuhashi's scheming is combined with Ito's super fighting power, they quickly become legendary figures among high school students in the Chiba area.
The "I Am Big Brother" comic not only has the temperament of a middle school teenager, but also has a sense of justice in a juvenile spirit. But the ubiquitous cold humor, self-spitting, and the unserious fighting attitude of the two protagonists make the manga look very alienated from the bloody violence, but more like a fight game between the second middle school teenager.
Here, I want to talk a little about the background of the era in which "I Am Big Brother" was born.
When "I Am Big Brother" first began to be serialized, the Japanese era name was still Showa. In 1988, the year-end closing price of the Nikkei Average was 30,159 points, and on December 29, 1989, the Nikkei Average reached its peak and even rose to 38,957 points at one point.
In the episode "I Am Big Brother", the male protagonist Mitsuhashi dreams of a photo of Matsuda Seiko (pictured above), and his crush is Rishiko (Kiyono Naina), who has a gentle personality but amazing fighting ability.
"I Am Big Brother", which began serialization during the "Heisei Boom", was naturally closely related to the prosperous and noisy environment in Japan at that time. It does not require any introduction, and the audience can naturally appreciate the polyphony of the work: behind all kinds of superficial violence, there are hormones that teenagers have nowhere to put, and even the fearless confidence of Japanese society as a whole. It is a product of the times at that time.
Thirty years later, on November 23, 2018, the Nikkei average closed at 21,507. Behind these changing numbers, they also represent great changes in the entire social environment in Japan.
When director Yuichi Fukuda (Gintama and Gintama 2) adapted the story of "I Am Big Brother" into a live-action series thirty years later, he needed to introduce the time background of the story at the beginning of the film:
"Young people rebel against adults and dress in strange costumes to release the energy they have accumulated over time and have nowhere to go. The bad students who rioted across Japan at that time (referring to the 1980s) were called hard-core youth and became a social phenomenon. ”
In the eyes of the "loose generation", the teenagers in "I Am Big Brother" who love to talk with their fists are probably like alien creatures: how can someone fight because they don't look at each other well.
And such a story takes place in "I Am Big Brother" and the era when it was born.
People who are familiar with Yuichi Fukuda's painting style, even if they have not seen "I Am Big Brother", it is not difficult to guess that he will not shoot any bloody campus dramas in a serious way. After several japanese dramas such as the "33 Minute Detective" series, the "Brave Yoshihiko and the Demon King City" series, and "Cyan Flame", Yuichi Fukuda went farther and farther down the road of sand sculpture.
Especially after the adaptation of the hit "Gintama", Yuichi Fukuda's nonsense and spoof style are also known to more people.
Stills from Gintama
As a die-hard fan of Yuichi Fukuda, I basically chased after his various dramas and movies, although some of them were so cold that even I was frozen (such as "The Legend of The Holy Brother" a while ago, I also went to the theater to feel it), but I still couldn't change my focus on each new drama of Mr. Fukuda.
When "I Am Big Brother" was adapted into a live-action version of the series, Yuichi Fukuda still continued his previous creative habits, basically maintaining the appearance of the original work, and the setting of the protagonist did not change much.
In the series, Takashi Mitsuhashi and Shinji Ito are played by Ken Kawara ("For N", "Fish Man in the Deep Sea") and Kentaro Ito ("Day Face: Lovers at 3 o'clock in the afternoon on weekdays", "Before the Coffee Is Cold").
Kentaro Ito, born in 1997, starred as a high school student, and he was relatively close in age. And Hirohito Herai, who starred in Mitsuhashi, is 29 years old this year — his wife, Nana Eikura, is playing an extraordinarily capable dentist in another autumn Japanese drama, "We Are Made of Miracles."
Kentato Herai (right), who plays Mitsuhashi, is eight years older than Kentaro Ito (left), who plays Ito
However, with the blessing of hairstyles and styling, Kentaro Ito, who has a baby's face, and Ken Kawara, who has long passed the second stage of secondary school, successfully crossed the transformation into a bad teenager in the 80s.
Mitsuhashi is still the intellectual responsibility of the bad boy duo. When encountering opponents, his idea is that as long as you can win, any "obscene means" can be used; if you really can't fight, then run quickly.
But in fact, the "obscene means" he understood were nothing more than the unexpected use of weapons such as sticks in hand-to-hand combat. Otherwise, whether the fight is one-on-one or not, as long as you see that your partner Ito can't hold on, you will shoot when it's time to shoot.
At the same time, the more attractive part of He Laixian is the incarnation of Yan Yida, presenting various strange expressions in the play, and when reviewing these expressions, it will bring a new round of laughter.
What a cute and funny guy, the biggest credit of this show is that I completely forgot about his normal appearance before.
Forget "For N."
Remember the new sages.
In contrast, Ito's combat guidelines are frontal hard bars, more traditional hot-blooded teenager settings. He fights until the last moment, and the small universe of a sense of justice may erupt at any time, and thus quickly gets the heart of the bad girl Kyoko (Kana Hashimoto).
Hashimoto Kana once again played the talent of Yan Yi in "I Am Big Brother"
Kana Hashimoto worked with Yuichi Fukuda in the Gintama series, and after Kagura, Kana Hashimoto once again starred as a strange girl in "I Am Big Brother".
Kyoko, who is the eldest sister of the high schoolgirl, has two completely different faces in the play. In front of her boyfriend Ito, she is a delicate soft sister, and in front of others, she shows a variety of vicious expressions and contributes a lot of memes. And Kyoko's interaction with Ito is even more full of the sour smell of love.
In the other supporting casts, there are also many people who have worked with Yuichi Fukuda before.
Muro swore an oath to Toda Keiri Kayama in "Big Love: And You Who Will Forget Me", while lewdly and humorously in "I Am Big Brother". The most powerful thing is that he even has a temperament and demeanor that changes with the shape, which is acting.
It's just that I, who is chasing these two dramas at the same time, is almost going to be schizophrenic by him.
On one side is the gentle and warm "Big Love"
On the other side, it looks like this:
The high school teacher played by Muro Yi also ghosted in "I Am Big Brother"
Compared with the original comic book, the episodic version of "I Am Big Brother" adds a lot of elderly characters such as teachers and parents, which makes the background of the whole story more complete: whether it is the middle two teenagers or these elders, everyone is without exception an optimist with no heart and no lungs.
For example, there must be no less than one in Yuichi Fukuda's work, Mr. Buddha:
Still talking nonsense, still want to make other actors can't help but laugh.
The only villain in "I Am Big Brother" is probably the gangster community at that time. In the play, the gang leader (Kazuki Hagaoka) even plans to control kyoko by injecting her with drugs in order to pursue kyoko. In the end, of course, he was beaten by Mitsuhashi and Ito.
Of course, the gangsters who also pay attention to revenge will not let go of Mitsuhashi and Ito. The confrontation between bad boys vs evil gangsters is an important clue in "I Am Big Brother".
In "I Am Big Brother", Yu Shiroda plays a gangster member who resembles the male protagonist Kiryu Kazuma in the game "Like a Dragon"
The powerful Kaijiu duo, the relationship with the male protagonist is becoming more and more delicate, and it is estimated that they will become friends later.
Although the gangsters in "I Am Big Brother" look bad and fierce, they almost cover the sky with one hand. But thirty years later, Japan's gangster community is getting worse and worse every day.
According to the Japan National Police Agency, the number of gang members in Japan fell again in 2017 to about 34,500, the lowest record since the 1958 statistics were counted.
Not only are there fewer and fewer people, but Japanese gang communities are also facing aging like Japanese society. As of 2015, the proportion of members of Japanese gang associations over the age of 50 has exceeded 40%.
In addition to the problem of people, the Japanese gangster community also has the trouble of money. Especially after the implementation of the "Regulations on the Exclusion of Violent Groups", the way for gangsters to make money has become narrower and narrower. In order to maintain the operation of the gang, many members of the community had to "find another way".
The leader of the Chiayo Yamaguchi group, who split off from the Kobe Yamaguchi group, said that the community was considering developing a private security business. At the same time, there is also news that members of gangster communities make a living by stealing and selling agricultural and sideline products such as melons.
Compared with the news that Hong Kong gangsters were arrested for monopolizing the territory and selling box lunches a few years ago, it can be said that a leaf has fallen and the world has fallen.
Yumi Yanagi (pictured above, right, can't help but cross over to "Cyan Flame") and Takayuki Yamada made cameo appearances as a manga shop owner and waiter at the sound and color venue
Violence is the theme that "I Am Big Brother" cannot escape. In the first episode, Oguri, a cameo barber, said to the male protagonist Mitsuhashi, "You can't go to the bad boy leader like the King of the Hundred Beasts in order to become the boss of the school, and then deliberately provoke him." Because doing so will really cause trouble for a lot of people. ”
Such words came out of the mouth of Oguri Shun, who starred in "Hot Blood College", which is both a bit ironic and lamentable. What does the future hold for bad boys? Will he also become an ordinary middle-aged uncle like a barber who teaches young people not to fight with others?
But of course, Mitsuhashi will not listen to him, and the world has become what it is now little by little in the trial and error of young people not listening to the old man.
Although closely related to violence, "I Am Big Brother" is really not a drama with a violent aesthetic. Mitsuhashi's surprising winning moves are not clever, often handsome for no more than three seconds. And Ito, who is always beaten up with a blue nose and swollen face, does not have any protagonist aura, saying that he was KO cut off by KO.
The beauty of so-called violence and the justice of their violence are often dissipated in their exaggerated movements and performances. Mitsuhashi and Ito, who pretend to be high school girls and beat up other bad teenagers, although they are also the way for heroes to save the United States, but in the face of the huge contrast, the audience's first reaction is to laugh.
In "I Am Big Brother", Mitsuhashi and Ito transform into women's clothing bosses
In the theme song of "I Am Big Brother", Mitsuhashi and Ito sing "Being a bad boy is the only medal for men." Combined with this lyric, everything seems to be solved.
Violence or bad boys are all ways for Mitsuhashi and Ito to gain world recognition. They want to fit into the world, but they can't find their place, and being a bad teenager is some way for them to confirm their identity.
Like the hippies of the '60s, the Buddhist youth of today, the youth of each age construct a certain relationship with the world in their own way. And this relationship will eventually make a difference in the world, whether you understand and approve of it or not.