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My point is that after a tragedy, things change. For Kusanagi, this is a tragedy. In his world its huge so for better or worse, he will be different from now.

Ok, you got me with the raid on his house. That was appalling and totally unjustified. Arrest? Sure. But that’s a night in jail and a small fine level offense. Unless he had drugs stuck up his ass there’s no conceivable reason to raid his home. And you know if drugs were involved it would be ALL OVER the news.

“Its like watching a post or pre 9/11 Hollywood movie – there is a difference.”
OK, that I don’t agree with at all. What good stuff has actually come out of Hollywood as a reaction to 9/11? The only thing I can think of is Battlestar Galactica. The rest is mostly typical Hollywood dreck, or stuff that could’ve been made anyway.

One of the morning wide/news shows had an angry host wondering why Hatoyama hadn’t said anything similarly harsh about Nakagawa’s performance at the G7 meeting, which was another high point of this whole SMAP affair for me.

I agree that Kusanagi nailed it in his press conference. Always hard to believe an actor’s sincerity since they nail scripts for a living. It doesn’t matter as long as they sell it.

I’m not a SMAP fan and I despise Johnny’s but Kusanagi is awesome.

I’m only interested in watching post drunk/naked Kusanagi. Its like watching a post or pre 9/11 Hollywood movie – there is a difference.

Under current circumstance and especially cops conducting a raid on his apartment,I’d say he’s qualified enough to be in such status.

“Aibou” isn’t good.Or maybe I have different image of Mizutani Yutaka from the late 70’s.He was married to an American woman who co-stared in “熱中時代・刑事編”.(Now divorced)

I’ve actually heard very passionate warnings to NOT touch Seed Destiny and followed said warnings. On the other hand 00 gets really good, I hear.

“I would say that the actual concept could easily have sustained a 20 episode/year show indefinitely”

Just because it can doesn’t mean that it should…. That is one of the problems that I see with the 20+ episode over multiple season philosophy prevalent in the US - many things are drawn on for far too long and most importantly, careful plotting goes out the window. One thing to be said for Japanese TV dramas – at least they go away quickly. I belive Simon and company when they say that they had a clear plan for The Wire (two deaths, for example, are foreshadowed seasons earlier) but some series are just a concept and the will to drag it on as long as it is making money (Lost – a title and an accurate description of narrative focus). I also think that Mythbusters has gone on far too long – they used to be destroying the most cherished Hollywood cliches but in the newer episodes they seem to have run out of myths that anyone has heard of.

In contrast Curb Your… is brilliant in the way that it follows both a sitcom and a mini-series form (the seasons are organized around single plot strands like “the restaurant” and “The Producers”).

BTW, has anyone seen a lot of Aibou? It looked like it had a bit of promise but I never did see more than parts of a few episodes?

Maybe 26 would’ve been a bit short for Seed, but the total length was easily too long. I never tried the sequel, Seed: Destiny. Is it recommended?

Re: Kusanagi- Sure, if this is real acting I’m all for him coming back as an actor. Just don’t try and pretend he’s a martyr or something.

“But the miniseries has been a pretty rare format on American TV, except in the form of really bad made for TV movies.”

They should do it more often – Lost or Heroes, for example, might have been great 6 episode series.

Seed needed more than 26, I think, but far less than the 52 (or whatever) it ended up being.

“We could be talking about a modern day Mifune.”

He should go slightly scruffy and turn into an eccentric actor – a modern day (prime) Mikuni Rentaro.