Kisarazu Cat's Eye

[Wm. Penn, Daily Yomiuri, January 25, 2002): This dramatization of a comic book about a group of guys on a Kisarazu, Chiba Prefecture, baseball team called the Cats does succeed in one respect--it looks just like a comic book brought to life. The clowning is silly, the characters mere caricatures. Even though we are faced with a tragic hero, the team catcher who is about to die of cancer in six

months, it is hard to feel any sympathy for this silly plot. I confess to lasting just five minutes. Only for the truly brave. No stars, no nothing.

The brightest spot in the Tuesday night lineup is Hatsutaiken, set in Yokohama and starring Miki Mizuno. She is proving to be a competent although not overly exciting new star. Her character in this series, Machi, does have a bit more depth to her than the average heroine. Machi is a 27-year-old veterinarian with a satisfying career but no love life. She turns to old Bruce Lee movies for stress relief. Always the sensible, smart kid at school, Machi is also just a tad jealous of her more experienced but less successful girlfriends. And while she longs for some male companionship in her life, there is really no one she is interested in except perhaps that old primary school classmate who moved away in sixth grade. She and two friends even travel all the way to Sapporo for their primary school reunion in hopes of being reunited with him, but he doesn't show up, and all her happily married classmates just increase her frustration at not being able to find someone special. She decides to try living on her own and moves into an old Western-style apartment in Yokohama. This also allows her to escape from her inane younger brother, played by Kotaro Koizumi, a budding TV star with the right connections. (With no previous experience on his resume, the prime minister's son has also managed to snag a role as a young doc in the new NTV series Nurseman, Saturdays at 9 p.m., in addition to a second commercial contract.)

But back to our story. As you have probably guessed by now, Machi's old grade school love interest just happens to live in the apartment directly below hers, but she barely recognizes him at first. The sensitive little kid who loved watching the Sapporo snowflakes has turned into a first-rate cad. He is a lonely soul who has obviously picked up a lot of excess emotional baggage in the years since they last met. It looks like the typical "love ya, hate ya" scenario will set in from here, but Mizuno and costar Naohito Fujiki just might be able to maintain momentum and moderate ratings, at least through Valentine's Day. Rating: one heart and a few grams of hope.

[TBS Synopis]: Twenty-one year old former high school baseball player, Kohei, learns that he is dying from cancer. He is told that he only has six months to live, and decides that he wants to do something daring and risky. He proposes to five trusted members from his former baseball club that they form a ring of cat burglars that would steal from those who commit crimes. His friends think it odd, but feel they cannot turn down a dying man's request. With only six months, how much could they do anyway?

STARRING: Okada Junichi, Sakai Wakana, Okada Yoshinori, Abe Sadayo, Sakurai Shou, Narimiya Hiroki
THEME SONG:
NETWORK: TBS
DURATION: January 2002 through March 2002
REVIEWS:

I found it just about the worst series to air in the last decade.