Dorama on the Docket: Attention Please, starring Ueto Aya.
This dorama is charged with showcasing Ueto Aya’s non-existant singing skills, as well as showcasing her non-existant English skills. This dorama is further charged with propping the untrue rumor that if you wear a cute uniform, guys will automatically like you. Also, the beginning is a blatant rip-off of Nana the Movie, and they probably would have gotten away with it better, is Ueto-san didn’t sing-act, and actually TRIED to sing…in Japanese.
I hear about this Ueto Aya-person (a popular actress in Japan…I think. It seems like she’s in every drama every time I turn around) in a few blogs around here, so I thought I’d watch a drama to see what the fuss is about. I chose the drama “Attention Please” because it looks really funny.
At the start of the drama, Misaki Youko (and her band) are playing their last show, and you are regaled with the sound of Ueto-san singing a rock song in broken English (my fiance was like “is she singing English?” while the subtitles joke “Can you believe she has an album out?”). I thought I was watching Nana, come on now, it’s an ode to Nana, people! She ever LOOKS like Nakashima Mika a little bit, and SINGS in English…makes you want to go hmm…
Anyway, after they finish playing, Youko and the band finds out that their mate Tsukasa, received a job in a bank in Tokyo, and is moving there immediately. In a touching scene, Youko tries to tell Tsukasa how she really feels about him, but her other bandmates ruin the moment by complaining about how they need to “pee” (nothing ruins a romantic moment than talk about bodily functions). When then switch to the group taking Tsukasa to the airport. When Youko and the two other band members end up beside a group of cabin attendants, the boys don’t hesitate to show how cute they think the well-dressed ladies are. Youko wonders why the boys are oogling, and they tell her how sophisticated the ladies look, and how beautiful their smiles are. (There’s a cute scene where Youko calls them “succhii” (stewardess) and they kindly remind her that they aren’t called “succhii” anymore, but “cabin attendants”). A couple of other cabin attendants pass by, and the guys talk about how nice they look and how they’d date someone with a uniform like that. Youko complains about how silly they are, and they quickly tell her that she’d never get it. Tsukasa says he’d like to see her in a cabin attendant uniform, but she tells him it’s too late to defend her (I bet she was happy inside). Tsukasa has to leave, but not before giving Youko his old ring (”It doesn’t go with the Uniform.”)
Youko regales us with her life story. Her mother died a while ago, so she grew up with her four brothers. She always hung out with the boys, and had no connection to other girls (the scene where Youko as a little kid walks up to the guys and punches one with a smile cracked me up). In her bedroom, Youko looks at career magazines, and realizes that being a cabin attendant isn’t the best job for her…but she’s going to try anyway.
So, to an instrumental of “Pretty Woman”, she works hard to prepare for the interview to become a cabin attendant. She receives mail from Tsukasa who visit him should she ever get to Tokyo. The day of the interview, she walks in confident, but loses it when she sees all the other applicants in their professional dress. She makes due, though, my luring another applicant into the bathroom and switch clothes. Still wearing the wrong shoes, though, she goes in for her interview. She tries her hardest to sound polite, but when they ask her about music, she can’t help but rock out in front of the panel (I was laughing when I saw this scene. The third judge tried to see shocked, but he looked like he was smiling a bit, like he was secretly enjoying it!). Switch to Youko receiving a letter from the airline company - SHE PASSED! She happily proclaims that she’s going to be a cabin attendant, and the titles “fly across the screen”.
If you wanna be a succhii, you better know how to rock!
Her interests are dolls and being in positions based on felines.
Youko gets ready for her first day of training, but ends up bumping into a guy (who seems unimpressed by her behavior) and drops her subway ticket, and has to hurry to make it so that she won’t be late. She manages to arrive, and as she sits, all of the other professionally dressed trainees begin to whisper about her. As the induction ceremony goes on, Youko becomes visibly bored. She ever crosses her legs, a big no-no apparently. The gentleman on stage (Dazai) alerts her of this in his own way (he stares at her, oogling), and she widens her eyes, embarrassed, and sits the right way. (He tells everyone “to spead their wings and fly” as they start here, and it makes you wonder what he was thinking in his head.
Youko runs out of the room, happy to get out of there. By a twist of fate, the lady who she switched clothes with, Wakamura Yayoi, stops her and is happy to see that she passed. Youko isn’t pleased with the girly mannerisms Yayoi displays, though. Yayoi warns our heroine of how strict the training is here, and hopes that she can meet the standards. They head to the training room, where Youko (loudly) complains about how the class is filled with nothing but girls. Just then, three other students, our customary elitists, talk about how ill-dressed Youko is. Youko isn’t pleased with their comments, but Yayoi guides her to the back of the class before she can say anything. Youko wonders if the teacher is also a woman, and Yayoi tells her that she is a woman with real-world experience.
After seeing more of Youko’s antics (she doesn’t think training will be hard…yeah right), the teacher walks in, Mikami-san. You can tell that this teacher is well-versed in what she does, and that she isn’t going to stand for people who don’t take this seriously. She even tells Youko that she’s not ready to become a cabin attendant. As this scene goes on, you can see why. She can’t even bow and say the greeting right (but she has a lot of heart!).
I may be gorgeous, but I’m strict, too.
After class, Youko and Yayoi go exploring, and end up going to the hangar of the airport. It’s there that Youko sees the guy who she bumped into earlier. He can’t even believe that she’s training to be a cabin attendant (please, she’s a heck of a lot more interesting that those other posh trainees). They are shooed out of the hanger, and Youko comments that she’s hungry, so they head over Yayoi’s family’s soba shop (and she can eat a lot of soba). Even Yayoi’s dad can’t believe that Youko’s a cabin attendant trainee, but soon warms up to her, and promises to introduce her to a guy. On her way home, she ends up helping a no good cheater guy escape from his angry significant other. To thank her, he offers to treat her to a meal, and writes his number on her palm (”gross”). She heads home, and finds that Chiiemi isn’t there, but she manages to find her subway ticket on her sock. She smiles at her luck, but the smile fades, and she lounges on the sofa. Maybe, she doesn’t like being alone?
That’s the end of part one. I’ll have part two up later on today (how long is this dorama, two hours or something? Geez…)
