Jin 2's ending song, by dear Hirai Ken

Finally, I get to start binging on my Jin 2 episodes. For season 2, the ending theme is by dear dearest Hirai Ken. It's of a different feel from season 1's Aitakute Ima, but the sense of wanting to meet a dear one again remains.

And because I love love Hirai Ken's voice (and his various performance of this song) so much, here are some videos.

Original PV
I love the B&W concept, with Hirai standing in the middle of waves of people walking past him. It's like him standing in the midst off continual changes, whereby everyone is moving on while he remains fixated on his memories from the past. And then, towards the end, wash-out colours appear as he discovers that time has changed, but he still wishes to see his dear ones just once more.

Music Lovers 1 May 2011
I felt that he wasn't in his best condition for the high notes...if you compare this with the Music Station performance below. That one really captured me and was in fact the reason for this post.

Music Station 6 May 2011
His trademark high notes! <3 Strange that I love the part where his voice broke, and then returning stronger than ever in the subsequent line. I felt that the emotion of the song was best conveyed at that part.

( Lyric under the cut )

Maou

I'm going to watch Mawang. In case you don't know, that's the kdrama version of Maou. I just came across a writeup about how great Mawang is, but that's not what baited me to watch. It was a short paragraph that refuted every single view I had regarding Maou that provoked me.

My favourite Arashi song for 2008 - "when you take away the elegant soundtrack and replace it with (*gag*) Arashi numbers"

Ohno's convincing, outstanding portrayal of the character, and his death stare - "when you take away the awesome mature actors and replace them with a couple of Johnny’s boys"

Good directing, especially the opening part with Ohno reaching for Toma - "when you lose the superb directing and editing"

My favourite suspense drama in ages - "what was one of the best and most absorbing tv shows I’d ever watched was reduced to an affair of mind-numbing mediocrity"

So, I will watch for myself how magnificent Mawang is such that my beloved Maou pales so much in comparison to warrant being called "incredibly, stupendously, outstandingly boring". Perhaps it's because s/he has watched Mawang before watching Maou that made Maou such a predictable ride. Perhaps.

Perhaps at the end of the 20 episodes, I'll follow suit and comment that "It was so boring I never made it past the first few episodes, even with fast-forwarding".

Or perhaps I'll love to death, so much so that I'd want to delete this post.

But Maou will forever be Ohno's first drama, the one that made it feel like his training in butais all these while had done him good, that it was worthwhile to have to wait so so so long till her appears on tv. For that, it is special.