---- in Tokyo Love Story
 

        I got to know Honami Suzuki from her role (Rika Akana) in the TV drama, Tokyo Love Story. I still remembered it was on Feb 10, 1998, a raining Tuesday in Los Angeles, that I got the series from a Chinese movie rental shop. The visual effect was not good and I believe these videos are illegal copies pirated from Hong Kong Star TV. However, believe it or not, within three days, I saw the whole series (8 hours long) twice. Especially on the first time, I finished it just around 7pm, Wedensday, after which I just slept for one and a half hour and then went to a 9 o'clock class. Although lacking enough rest,to my amazement, I was rather energetic and attended all the classes that morning. But I kept on asking myself a question: "why Fumi Saimon wrote the end like this?" Thus, I skipped the classes in the afternoon and started watching it again. After I finished it Friday morning, I not only began to understand the intention of the writer but also started pondering through what Saimon expressed for Love underneath its story. 

            Here is a brief introduction:

            "Tokyo Love Story was written by Fumi Saimon. Saimon's simply drawn stories, based on actual experiences of Japanese young people in the big city, were published in 1990 in four volumes of graphic novels. Avoiding both suspended relationship comedy and sex, Tokyo Love Story shows the relationships between two men and three women, who must realistically balance their love with their jobs, private lives and personal problems. Many of the tales center on Rika, who grew up abroad, and whose spontaneity and genuineness make her stand out among fellows more concerned with social manners. The twentysomething urban professionals of the series face a tightrope of coping that young people in many Asian cities have faced, but rarely more sympathetically.

            .....
 
            In 1991 Tokyo Love Story was made into a prime-time TV drama (a genre much less melodramatic, and much more respected, in Japan). To make it more acceptable to family audience, character of Rika was "softened" in the TV. Yet the basic philosophy of simplicity in story was generally preserved. After its incredible success--it was the biggest hit that Spring--an onslaught of live-action TV shows based on comics were made, including several more based on other work by Fumi Saimon. Even Saimon's essays have become bestsellers. "

        This might be my prejudice but in this drama I only liked Rika. She's so perfect that I can't think of anyone else who could possibly match her, with respect to both depth and sophistication of love besides her outstanding intelligence. However heart-breaking she is feeling, she could always have the courage to face the future with lovely smile; whatever unfairness and sarcastism she is facing, she could cope them with ease and be herself; whenever love is at crisis, she would try her best to save it even she knows how sad the result will be --- her bag is always full of "Love and Hope". Because she knows what true love is. "Love must end. When love is at an end, what's left could be love, it could also be hate. That much depends on the person." What it remains will be proportional to what you put into. I just couldn't help going crazy about her!

        That's the reason why I decided to set up a web page dedicated to her.

            "I'll Always Love You, Kanchi."                                                 -----  Rika Akana