Tiger & Dragon ~ タイガー＆ドラゴン

Another old drama marathon to fill in the gap for the ones with the subs. This is what happen when I'm in need to have the sub to watch the drama. To be able to appreciate this drama, I'd think you need to familiar yourself with the world of Japanese entertainment, well, mostly on the classic entertainment portion, not the J-pop, idol culture. For this drama, the focus is on Rakugo. Along the drama, we also get to know manzai, ippatsu gag (one shot gag), etc. For me, with very limited Japanese, it's not that easy to appreciate the gags because mostly those gags derive from word plays. And worse, Rakugo is story telling with one person just sits on the stage and narrating the story. There's very minimal body gag so you need to concentrate on the story to get what's so funny about it. Without any knowledge of this, you'll just find the first episode to be... loud, loud and loud, and like what I did before, drop this drama without a second look, and it doesn't matter whether it's Okada plus Nagase drama or not. But, after watching too many variety shows, I get to know manzai and start to be able to appreciate some of them and thus I try this drama again, and now I can appreciate this drama. It's still loud but it's full of colorful stories and the connection between the rakugo performances and the drama itself are neatly packaged. So, yeah, I'm glad I pick up this drama again.

So Tiger and Dragon is the story of a tiger and a dragon, literally. Toraji (tora means tiger in Japanese) is a yakuza whose job is to collect debt in coarse way if necessary. He's no way near a funny guy as his face is already rather scary to begin with and he didn't know how to tell funny stories and people usually don't know how to react to his so called jokes. One fine day he had to collect 4M yen from a person named Yanaka Shokichi. Shokichi borrowed the money for his son to start a clothing shop in Harajukku. Toraji, didn't know Shokichi's occupation, followed Shokichi around and ended up watching Shokichi's rakugo performance and was touched by it. In short, Toraji made an arrangement with Shokichi to take him as an apprentice and he'll pay Shokichi a monthly tuition fee that Shokichi will use to pay the debt. From then on, Toraji is renamed as Kotora. Now, we move on to the dragon, Ryuji (ryu means dragon in Japanese). Ryuji is the shop owner of a clothing shop Dragon Soda in Harajukku (see the connection already?). Alas, his business didn't go that well because... well, because his fashion sense is rather... unconventional aka lame, dasai. But he insistently think that he'll hit it big in the future. He's currently living in a poor condition sharing a small living quarter with another 2 guys, but it's in Aoyama and it's cheap, doesn't matter that he only have a tiny space (seriously tiny), but it's in Aoyama! LOL! Unlike Toraji, Ryuji is your so called genius in story telling and off course is very well versed in rakugo, after all it's his family business. But a certain incident fractured his relationship with daddy and ended up distance himself from rakugo. So, what happen next after this tiger and dragon collided?

What I like about this drama is how the story is packaged on every episode. It'll always start with the opening rakugo act which acts as a summary of what will happen next but without revealing too much. Then in the middle you'll see Donbei (Shokichi's stage name) narrating the classic version of rakugo story. In here, you'll see the characters from the Edo era starts popping up as if you're experiencing the story itself. And at the end of the episode, you'll see Kotora narrate the modern version of the same story, but using his surrounding chain of events to relate to his narration. One of my faves is the Neko no sara (cat's plate). The classic story is really about the cat owner purposely feed the cat on the expensive plate which attracts people to buy the cat in hope that he'll also get the plate, but off course that's not the arrangement, you only buy the cat, not the cat's plate. And eventually the cat's owner will earn some gold coin every now and then. The modern version is the rakugo association used the vintage jeans to scout some talented amateurs (which none other than Ryuji in this case). The end of the story Ryuji won the first prize but he just wanted the 3rd price, the jeans, and he's been scouted by his daddy dearest LOL.

Next is the colorful characters in this drama itself. Yes, the drama is very loud most of the time because almost all main characters are loud. We have the loud yakuzas, that's a given. From Kotora himself, to his yakuza bocchan, boss etc, all loud. But don't underestimate Dragon Soda's shop owner, Ryuji, he's also temperamental and equally as loud as the yakuza LOL. Then we have the daddy whose most of the time loud as well because he always up in a banter with his sons. The next loud one is the big brother, Donta, with his loud one shot gag. But aside from the loudness, each character has the soft side and we'll go awww or symphatize. Take example, Donta, the big brother. Donta is depicting the comedians that you normally see in the varieties. Beneath that loud exterior, he's quite sensitive with his position in the industry hence he keeps on working hard on his gags no matter his dad never approve of them. He's also experiencing the inferiority complex especially with daddy as famous rakugo story teller, brother the prodigy rakugo story teller (though currently not in the industry), and his own wife is a rather popular enka singer herself. That adds up the complexity of Donta's character. Then we have the loud Ryuji. Despite being stubborn and keep on telling people about his passion for fashion, he's a natural story teller hence he keeps on gets drawn to the rakugo world and it takes Kotora to makes him realized what he loves the most.

And off course having so many veteran actors in this drama, we're in for good acting, and to me, Nagase and Okada in here don't disappoint me at all. Most of Nagase's characters in his dramas are loud characters so to me, his acting is expected and I'd think he's sort of being type cast in here. But Okada is totally different. With exception of Bussan in Kisarazu Cat's Eye, I don't think I ever seen him in that loud passionate character, so it's quite a different experience for me.

Lastly, it's the OST off course. V6's Utao Utao. Yeah, after all those loud chain of events in the episode, you'll be greeted with the soothing ending song of Utao Utao and you'll see the drama characters' dressed in both version the Edo style and the modern era costumes.

A great drama to experience the traditional side of Japanese entertainment industry, to me it's sort of to appreciate the classical entertainment performances. And more important, you'll never run out things to laugh at throughout the whole series.