BLCD: Subete wa Kono Yoru ni (Toriumi Kousuke x Kamiya Hiroshi, Takase Akimitsu x Yusa Kouji)

Title: Subete wa Kono Yoru ni すべてはこの夜に (25/05/2008)

Pairings:
Toriumi Kousuke x Kamiya Hiroshi 鳥海浩輔 x 神谷浩史
Takase Akimitsu x Yusa Kouji 高瀬右光 x 遊佐浩二
with Suganuma Hisayoshi 菅沼久義

Rating: Recommended

Summary: [There are some spoilers but no ending-spoilers ^^]
This drama is based on a novel by Aida Saki 英田サキ and made up of two related but separate stories.

1) First story (Toriumi Kousuke x Kamiya Hiroshi):
Desperate for money to repay his debt to loansharks, Kaji Satoru (Kamiya Hiroshi) is forced to take up a job to shoot at an unknown target. When he meets his designated victim, he is shocked to see Minato Akihiko (Toriumi Kousuke), his sex-friend during their university days. Kaji is easily overpowered by Minato, who is now the member of a Yakuza gang and held captive instead. Although Kaji expects the worst for being caught, he is handed over to Minato’s men, Takei Yasuyuki (Takase Akimitsu) and Satomura Shiro (Suganuma Hisayoshi) for questioning. He is lucky that Minato decides to spare his life and not dealt with in the usual manner by the Yakuza for attempting to shoot him.

During his captivity, Minato wants to know if Kaji still hated him for causing his girlfriend, Yuri’s death ten years ago. Taken aback by the unexpected question, Kaji admits that he has not forgiven him but he has long moved on with his life and does not have the strength to continue holding a grudge against Minato. In fact, he has not thought about Minato or the incident for quite some time. Angered by the answer, Minato humiliates Kaji and rapes him.

Thereafter, Kaji is locked inside the apartment and watched over daily by Takei and Shiro. As their investigations slowly come to light, Kaji is also forced to face his troubled past with Minato and his insecurities about his own sexuality. He tries to apologise for leaving such a deep scar on Minato’s cheek when he cut him with a knife in anger over Yuri’s death at that time. Minato refuses to accept his apology and rapes him again. Why does Minato want Kaji to hate him so much?

However, Minato promises to release Kaji once they locate the instigator but will Kaji be able to leave when the day finally arrives?

2) Second story (Takase Akimitsu x Yusa Kouji):
The second story rewinds and goes back sixteen years in time. It is about Takei Yasuyuki and his relationship with Suzuhara Ryouichi (Yusa Kouji), his brother-in-law he met one year after his sister’s death…

Suzuhara Ryouichi is a school teacher. Although he is gay, he fell in mutual platonic love with Yasuyuki’s sister, Asako who was afraid of having physical relationships with men. They were married and led a happy and contented life of a couple, enjoying the companionship they gave each other, without having sex.

Asako did not talk much about her past but she kept in touch with her brother, Yasuyuki through letters. Ryouichi knows that she cared a lot about Yasuyuki who was serving time in prison. Ten months into their marriage, Asako met with a car accident and passed away. In her last words. she wanted Ryouichi to look after her brother.

One year after her death, Yasuyuki turns up at Ryouichi’s doorstep after being released from prison. Yasuyuki wants to visit Asako’s grave and also meet the man who has given his sister happiness as she has described in her letters to him. He is very grateful to Ryouichi as Asako has only experienced a life of misfortune before she met Ryouichi who has treated her so gently.

While returning from the cemetery with Yasuyuki, Ryouichi injures his wrist and has to wear a cast for at least a month. Although it is the summer holiday, he is required to return to school daily for work related matters. Living alone with an injury has thus become an inconvenience. Yasuyuki requests to stay with him while he ponders his future before returning to Tokyo. He ends up helping Ryouichi with all the household chores and cooking while Ryouichi recovers from his injury. As the two men spend more time with each other, Ryouichi finds comfort in Yasuyuki as he too share a common love and grief for Asako. Before he knows it, he finds himself increasingly attracted to the quiet and tough-looking younger man who has a very gentle demeanor when he smiles.

After visiting a natsu-matsuri (Summer fair) together one fateful night, Yasuyuki confesses his love for Ryouichi and the couple consummates their love. The two lonely men bask in their passionate love but their happiness is short-lived. Yasuyuki has to leave for Tokyo. What does fate have in store for this couple?

Comments [some more spoilers]:
1) First story
Now… to be honest, I found the first story to be quite typical BL fare… Kaji and Minato’s relationship is fraught with non-communication. Kaji is fearful and tries to hide his sexual preference for men but he cannot help but fall for Minato after meeting him at the university. When Minato notices his longing gaze and confronts him, Kaji does not refuse him when he asks for sex. He falls deeper but feels more and more insecure. So he jumps into a relationship with Yuri when she confesses to him. As for Minato, he is a BL-universe seme who does not know how to express himself and thinks that if he can’t have his uke’s love, then he wants to be hated and continue living in his uke’s life in that way. Ah~ emo-kid alert.

And so we have Kaji saying: “You never said you loved me all that time when you slept with me!” and Minato goes: “You seem to be afraid of me and want to hide our relationship from others. But you’re always more than willing when I want to have sex, that’s why I thought you only wanted a physical relationship.” Oh the bickering couple… ^^;;; But at the end of the day, these guys are still so much in love with each other after so many years! Can they survive the Yakuza feud that they have got themselves into? Listen to the drama to find out.

One of the highlights of this drama is *sweat drop* Kamiyan’s reluctant gun fellatio. It was an interesting H-scene to hear (I’m a perv!) And then we also get to hear Kamiyan’s character raped by ToriKou’s character at gunpoint and at other parts in the story. I know some of you pervs like that too ^^;;; There are a number of H-scenes with realistic sound effects to make most of us happy. Well, it’s not like I don’t like the story cos it is still quite entertaining if you understand what is going on. The H-scenes helped a lot. Lol~ It is also important because it establishes a better overview of the setting in the second story…

Before I get to the next story, I have to draw your attention to Kamiyan’s sneeze here. He sounds so cute! Kinda weird to like this kind of thing but… gaaah it’s so cute! Like a baby sneezing XD I also fell in love with his cute little sneeze in Seikanji-ke series 04:Tsumi no Shitone mo Nureru Yoru 清澗寺家シリーズ 4 罪の褥も濡れる夜 (25/07/2008) which is also a highly recommended drama on the top of my all-time favourite list.

2) Second story
As for the second story? It is a simple, straightforward and believable love story that is just plain awesome.

I listened to this drama a couple of years back. When I started my blog, I made a mental note to review it some day because… *drum roll*

*************** It was the first BL drama that made me cry! ***************

I have to say, it is one of Yusa Kouji’s best performances ever. It woke me up (from falling asleep to the first story because I didn’t understand much Japanese then) to –CRY– my eyes out. Yes, even when I didn’t understand much of what they were saying at that time! Seriously. Yusa Kouji’s acting is that good.

Yusa Kouji’s character Ryouichi is your average nice man and guy-next-door type. He sounds like he is speaking with his usual voice and his monologue is fantastic. As the story progresses, you can hear the growing affection in Yusa Kouji’s voice towards Takase Akimitsu’s character. Takase Akimitsu also complemented him very well with his no-nonsense but sincere and gentle-sounding seme. You WILL definitely believe that these two people are in love with each other and wish they get a happily-ever-after ending. You have to listen to it to feel it. ^^ I love the rabu-rabu scene where Takei piggybacks Ryouichi while they walk home from the matsuri. It has an awesome link to the ending and I’m very sure it will break your heart when you finally get there. And the amazing thing is, the story never fails to make tears flow even though this is the nth time I’ve re-listened to it.

Definitely recommended for any quiet or peaceful night when you’re in the mood for something emotional.

Oh yes, the H scenes deliver as well. ;)

One major gripe with the drama is the music. I hated the background music at many parts of the first story. It was distracting and mismatched. The humiliating rape scene was accompanied with a soothing, “elevator-music-like” (uplifting even) BGM. I’m like… huh? *shakes head* Fortunately the sound effects and seiyuus more than made up for it. Some BGM of the action parts like dangerous or shooting scenes also reminded me of 70’s/80’s police soap drama music which sounded very out of place. Thankfully, the second story is well-executed enough (BGM was also better than the first story) that I’m willing and happy to pay the full price to have this 2-Disc drama in my collection.

In fact, that ending scene alone is well-worth the price, so don’t miss it!

Catalog: INCD-2506 (Get it from Comi-comi for the freetalk tokuten! Also available without tokuten at CDJapan)