I'm trying to get more organized with my study, especially in terms of reading/listening, since I've been doing a lot of flashcards lately. So, I've made a rotation. I study about 1.5-2 hours of kanji, vocabulary, and grammar in the morning, and then sometime later in the day I'll add 1-1.5 hours of a listening/reading activity, or extra study. I'll rotate through the activities during the week. Reading includes stories and lyrics (lyrics I'll translate, stories I may not have time to); listening includes drama and podcasts, as well as shadowing (a summary/review of the drama, and a transcript of the podcast if it's short enough). This is my accountability feature. Let's see how long it goes! Since I only have one hour or so to watch, note, and review, I am splitting the dramas up into 20 minute segments.
The first drama I'm looking at is: マルモのおきて . The ending theme song and dance are super cute and seem to be super popular to boot, judging from the youtube videos of people dancing to it in their living rooms.
I'm guessing there's a dog in this at some point. The title for this first episode gives it away: 独身男と双子が家族!? 犬がつなげた絆 (A single man and twins, a family!? A bond tied by a dog). Watching any commercial for the show also ruins what I guess would be a surprise (turns out the dog talks) but in this first half of episode 1, the dog hasn't shown up. So far at this point the main characters are:
Mamoru 護 - the 担当 of a branch in a stationary (文具) company
Sasakura 笹倉- an old high school baseball buddy of Mamoru's, who suddenly returns for a reunion
Kaoru 薫 - Sasakura's young daughter, a twin
Tomoki 友樹 - Sasakura's young son, the other twin
I've seen the actor, Abe Sadao, who plays Mamoru before in the drama "OLNippon." I think he's good at switching between the comic and the serious, so I was excited to see him in this. I've also seen the actress for Kaoru before. Her name is Mana Ashida and she's referred to as a genius. Her acting skills are undeniably refined for someone her age. She's very believable and natural.
