http://www.j-fan.com/drama/drama.cgi?action=viewrev&season=Fall_2004&show=HOTMAN_2

Cast and characters:

Sorimachi Takashi <<Furiya Enzo

Itou Misaki <<Furiya Shima

Shiraishi Miho <<Ootsuki Ayame

Ichikawa Yui <<Furiya Hinata

Saitou Shouta <<Furiya Haiji

Saitou Keita <<Furiya Ryuunosuke

Yamauchi Nana <<Furiya Nanami

Miyama Karen <<Mizusawa Ichigo

The HOTMAN is Back!

Have you seen the original "HOTMAN" drama? Probably most of you haven't, so I'll give you the gist of it now. Sorimachi Takashi plays a 'hot man' named Enzo. Unfortunately, the usual English slang meaning of "hot" as attractive/hoty is obviously not the intended meaning here. If you translate it to the Japanese equivalent of "atsui otoko", you get the real intended meaning of the drama, the nuance of which is a man who is extremely passionate about what he believes and is fast to act very vocally and physically to uphold it. This is exactly what Enzo is. (As usual, the Japanese writers chose to ignore potential nuances when making the English title.)

In the original series, Enzo lives with his siblings: Shima, Haiji, Ryuunosuke, Hinata and his young daughter Nanami. They all live together in the house that belonged to their deceased mother. Enzo, as the eldest, has taken it upon himself to raise his younger siblings in leu of their parents. He is very (and overly) protective of his family, and strictly enforces rules for them. Enzo used to be a recluse who associated with Yakuza and such, but now takes extreme measures to make up for his previous mistakes and vows to raise his family right. His daughter has an atrophy of the skin which he blames himself for, and in order to make up for this he now feeds the whole family health food which most of them hate. Enzo works at the school that the twins: Haiji and Ryuunosuke and Hinata go to, but the family has a lot of financial difficulties which become a large focus of the series. They are very passionately attached to their mother's house, which they vow to keep at all cost.

To make a long story short, everything works out okay for them in the end, and in a subsequent special, all the family members went their separate ways, leaving Shima alone in their mother's house. That was the original HOTMAN. Now let's talk about HOTMAN 2.

When the series begins, Enzo and Nanami are happily living in the countryside near the ocean. (Actually, their house is right on the beach! I wonder if that's safe.) They love all the other people who live in their town. Nanami has a little boyfriend she plays with every day and, overall, they seem much happier here than they did in Tokyo. Shima comes to visit them, and she looks like she has something very important to tell Enzo, but she ends up going back to Tokyo without telling him. When she suddenly leaves without notice and Enzo can't get a hold of her, Enzo becomes worried and makes a trip back to Tokyo.

There, he finds his mother's house condemned and Shima's new business establishment closed. He also goes to see Haiji and Ryuunosuke, but they haven't been in contact with Shima either. (Hinata is away at medical school.) When he goes back to his favorite bar (a recurring set in the first drama and apparently in this one too), he happens to meet his old girlfriend who is also Nanami's biological mother (if I remember the first series correctly). She knows where Shima is and tells Enzo. Enzo finds Shima working at a hostess bar and he learns how she lost her business and their mother's house. Enzo is furious of course, and he forbids Shima to work as a hostess any more. (Even though Shima is an adult, Enzo still regards himself as her guardian.) Shima agrees to quit her job, but she is unable to support herself financially.

Enzo goes back home and consults with Nanami, who says she loves living in their little town, but would be most happy living with the whole family together. Despite how happy the two of them seemed living in the country, they make the decision to move back to Tokyo and live with Shima.

They rent a little house which seems much worse than their mother's house, which is now gone. They go about finding a new job for Shima, and Enzo gets a job at the elementary school that Nanami goes to. There, Enzo is romantically paired with Nanami's teacher played by Shiraishi Miho. (It was a different teacher played by Yada Akiko in the first one, but nothing ever happened between those two anyway.) Enzo gets in arguments with her over Nanami's education. Nanami isn't doing as well as the other kids in her class. She makes 'friends' with a girl played by that girl who played Rin in "boku to kanojo to kanojo no ikiru michi". She was a perfect girl in "boku to kanojo...", but in this drama she seems to have vile intentions toward Nanami.

Nanami wants everyone to live happily together again, but Haiji, Ryuunosuke, and Hinata refuse to leave their current dwellings. Their various problems create a heated argument which reminded me very much of the first series. It looks like the problems for this family are far from over, and HOTMAN 2 is going to be very true to the original.

I was a bit disappointed. I liked the beginning when Enzo and Nanami were living in a different town and all the other characters were absent. I was thinking that the second was going to be very different from the original, but apparently not. This wouldn't be a problem, except for the fact that the original was annoying! I thought that I liked the original when I watched the first few episodes, but I very soon tired of the repeatedly overdone heated arguments by the characters. It's not just Sorimachi Takashi that I don't like, as I have enjoyed him somewhat in other dramas and the other star in HOTMAN are almost equally irritating, but I think it may be the writing/direction that I really don't like. It's just too overdone. Anyone who got this loud and passionate about something in real life would probably be told to shut up immediately and that would be the end of it. Near the end of the first series, I was hardly paying attention any more, and I'm pretty sure I didn't even bother to watch the last episode or two. I wonder how long I will continue watching the second.

http://animeworld.com/readerreviews/naruto.html

Rating: 5 / 5
Reviewer: Liam Knight
Review Date: 2003-06-29

Continuing from the top...

Naruto is a very colorful and fun anime, but don't let than trick you, it can quickly turn into a powerful drama in which more characters are introduced, and then killed.

Since its about three o clock I'm going to do this in lists.

Characters: 10/10

Wow... At first we meet Naruto, but after just a few more episodes we have about a dozen important characters, and by the thirties there are dozens upon dozens upon dozens of characters that play a key role in the series and each one is very unique, distinct, and has their own very memorable personality. There is no trouble remembering faces like in some animes, each character is unforgettable in their own special way. But to start off with you must know the Main main characters.

 

 

Naruto: THE main character, its the name of the anime, so of course... As I said above, he is a hyperactive, loudmouthed, ninja that one day wishes to become the most powerful Hokage of all time and have everyone acknowledge his strength.

He is always messing up and getting into sticky situations and usually has to be rescued by one of his teammates, usually Sasuke. But don't let that fool you, Naruto has more potential than anyone in the series, and from time to time you get to see this potential realized little by little. Its good stuff.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sasuke: Naruto's teammate and rival. Saskue has a badass loner attitude, he doesn't need anyone to help him because he is the top of his class. Sasuke proves that he is a badass, he kicks ALOT of ass and is usually getting Naruto out of tight squeezes, which irritates both of them immensely.

 Sasuke is clearly the stronger fighter in the group, but his coldness and preoccupation with revenging his clan makes him unsociable. Because of this Sasuke has become the favorite character for many fans of the series.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sakura: The girl in the group. Sakura is beautiful and brainy, she knows a lot about chakra, ninja history, and so on but isn't skilled with fighting.

She has a huge crush on Sasuke, he just blows it off and is annoyed, and is plagued constantly by Naruto, who has a huge crush on Sakura, she just beats the crap out of him. At first Sakura just there for eye candy, comic relief, and comment or two during battle, she doesn't really fight much and because of that most fans of the series hate her.

However, later in the series Sakura blooms ('scuse the pun). And she herself is kicking much ass, although not as much as Naruto or Sasuke. Sakura is a very unique character and the series wouldn't the same without her.

So, as far as Characters go this one gets a ten. Its incredible how many personalities appear in the series and even more amazing how real they are.

Animation: 10/10

Oh wow. another great thing about Naruto for sure is the animation. it's fresh, its clean, colorful, and detailed. not horribly detailed like Cowboy Bebop or Gundam 0083, but it ain't crappy art like in "SOME" animes. The most amazing thing about the animation is the fight scenes. Holy Cow! Fight scenes are smooth, fluid, and make you think. You actually feel like your in the fight, don't blink though, you might miss something. Unlike crappy, second rate fight scenes you see a lot of in animes like Dragonball Z where its just the same eight frames played over and over for a minute or two, Naruto makes battles fun to watch. The amount of effort, detail, and continuity that goes into fight scene animation makes Naruto as good as it is. This gets a big ten.

Continuity: 8/10

I usually didn't pay attention to this much until after watching more detailed anime like Cowboy Bebop (and sloppy ones like Slayers). Its how believable the story is and the little things that make an anime better or worse. Making a mistake like including a character in a flashback that wasn't there originally *cough*slayers*cough* makes an anime seem lazy. Putting effort into making an anime credible and not contradictory is important. Naruto is one of those special animes, for example: a person throws a shuriken at another person, that person easily dodges it and lands, BUT you can still hear the shuriken crashing through the foliage in the background. Little things like that add to an anime.

Music: 10/10

[Screaming like a japanese schoolgirl] EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEKK! I love them. Especially the second opening, which became a personal favorite of mine and despite being in japanese became popular with my friends and others at my school who are not anime watchin' folk. The first closing was also a favorite of mine. Not to mention that the music within the anime was good as well. I actually have a few of the songs on my playlist, and I'm very picky about what gets on my playlist. This gets a high score.

Overall

This anime gets very high praise from me, as well as many of my anime friends. For me it ranks way up there in my top ten, just below Cowboy Bebop and Evangelion. If there's one complaint I have (here it comes) and that's that the series draws stuff out, well actually thats unfair to say, I think its more correct to say that there's filler in there. the end of a fight scene may be followed up by a story/flashback about how that person came to be in the position that they are in now, like the death of their family, or killing their clan. its a good strategy that gives each episode an very suspenseful cliffhanger that leaves you hungry for more. A lot of animes do it, and it bugs me, I guess I shouldn't just single out Naruto, its really a pet peeve of mine. But. Its not really bad, we don't spend 8 episodes being shocked as Bobs power level raises from 1024 to 1038 and then pan to get the shocked expression of every character in the vicinity.

Warning: Do not be fooled by the child friendly look of this anime. because after a few episodes you'll find out, this anime is not afraid to show a little blood. In fact, they aren't afraid to show a lot of blood... in fact, there's quite a bit of blood. But don't be scared, there's no gratuitous injuries like exposed organs or muscles, just some harmless blood. However, if there is a moment where someone gets turned into ground beef the anime uses friendly "indicators" and sounds to "suggest" that the person we just saw became impaled, split, and then mutilated into pieces no larger than a peanut.

Another thing which I almost forgot: combat in this anime isn't restricted to fists and knives. There is the use of Chakra to breathe fire, make clones, switch bodies or a number of other things. Every character has their own unique "magic" attack (its chakra) such as shadow prisons, mind switching, manipulating sand or many other things. Sakura seems to have this kind of thing mastered. There is a lot of "spell using", and thats another aspect of the anime that I like.

Thats about it, not much else to say other than this is an awesome anime, its on 38 episodes now and more to come, its easily outdone Dragonball Z in the same genre and is worthy of your time, hard drive space, and bandwidth.

_________________________________________________________________________

argee with these reviews

its better than Dragon ball z too.

its really funny and has intense storyline

after few episodes u cant stop watching

i have to give this 10/10 too ^___^

211 episode long and still on going, is worth the time

i enjoyed this anime very much

its one of my favorite animes now,  new season will start soon yay!!

Ja-ne,

(^_^)//~~

Honda robot serves tea

Tokyo
December 14, 2005 - 11:37AM

Asimo walks with a Honda employee at the company's headquarters in Tokyo. Photo: AFP

AdvertisementAdvertisement

A walking, childlike robot from Honda Motor can now serve tea, push a mail cart and gallop along at twice its previous pace - the latest in the Japanese automaker's quest to replicate human movement.

The 51-inch-tall (129.54cm), bubble-headed robot named Asimo has already shown it can jog, walk up stairs, wave, avoid obstacles and carry on simple conversations.

But in a demonstration on Tuesday at Honda's Tokyo head office, a new version of the robot showed off new skills its maker hopes will make it more handy around the office.

Honda illustrated how Asimo might serve as a receptionist of the future. Equipped with a sensor that can read microchips in identification cards, the robot recognised a woman approaching from behind, and turned to greet her by name.

It then demonstrated further potential as a host by taking a tray of coffee cups from the woman with its own hands and carrying it to a nearby table where it set the tray down for imaginary guests. It also pushed a four-wheeled cart around on stage.

Later, Asimo - whose name is a play on the Japanese word for "leg" or "ashi" - sprinted back and forth for reporters at 4 miles per hour (6.43 kmph), double its previous gait of 2 mph. The new technique demonstrated improved balancing technology because both the robot's feet were airborne at the same time in mid-stride, Honda said.