Smile

Oh my gosh, Smile is a crazy, crazy show. Just when you think things couldn't get any more depressing, they do, to a level that is just barely within reason. Yeah, it's got it's problems for a Japanese t.v. show about a Filipino-Japanese main character, but what media commentary on race is perfect? I've seen a lot of things in the show so far that actually stand out to me as pretty cool. And it says a lot about contemporary Japanese society, I think. I've been pretty much just analyzing it the whole time, in between bouts of yelling, "What the f*ck!?" and feeling like crying. (That Media Studies type in me coming out again...and then the part of me that made me quit Media Studies back in college - the thought, 'wait, if i want to study this, that means i have to watch allll the t.v. shows going on right now...' Although this show actually made me feel like I could get past that.). All in all, though, I think it's a good show. I mean, I just watched 6 hour-long episodes in a row. During my "refreshing session," the shower I was going to use to get ready for bed and rally myself to finish the last five episodes, I decided to save the rest for tomorrow or another day, partially because it would almost be disappointing to finish it now, haha. Ah. I haven't done this in a while. And to think, when I started off, all I wanted was some aural Japanese practice.