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Now in Japan
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Thursday, 16 June 2005 12:33 |
 Time to squeeze in another few episodes of Beck,
which continues to be one of my favourite recent shows. Plenty of
trouble for Koyuki again, with girl trouble in the form of Maho and
Izumi, and continuing trouble at school - until Hyoudou finally gets
taught a lesson. Plenty of good, too, when Dying Breed come to town...
11 - Summer Holiday
Chiba has big news - Dying Breed are coming to tour Japan, and he's so
excited he's spreading the word at the top of his
voice. For Koyuki, it's time to make his choices for
high school - but his grades aren't good enough to guarantee him a
place in the schools he wants. According to his teacher, his only
chance is to quit the band and concentrate on studying. As if
that's not enough pressure on his summer time, there's the autumn
culturefest (with band contest, courtesy of Momoko-sensei) to prepare
for, dates with Maho to go on, lives to play in, and swimming
practice. So many things, so little time - but the big surprise
is who Maho brings with her to Beck's next live...
12 - Secret Live
While Eiji and his band have been working through DyBre's manager to
get a slot in their next concert, Ryuusuke's working the more direct
route, and has got Beck invited along to see Dying Breed up close -
although seeing Eiji and his band appear on stage is a shock, until
DyBre's Matt expresses his.. displeasure.. at how well they played during
rehearsal. Stuck with a gap in their schedule, Matt invites
Koyuki up on stage to sing with them - but a bad case of nerves leaves
Koyuki singing badly out-of-tune until he can settle himself.
Later, Koyuki finds himself with girl trouble when Maho catches him
spending time with Izumi...
13 - Ciel Blue
An apparent suicide in America, has caught
Ryuusuke's attention, along with the need to raise enough money to get
a proper demo CD put together - after Koyuki's performance with DyBre,
there's hype to be taken advantage of, but money is short - so short that
Chiba's away to be a medical guineapig for a week. Meanwhile,
Koyuki's gone from having two women chasing him to having none - has
hasn't seen either Maho or Izumi since the day Maho caught them
together - while the band he's put together for the school culturefest
is attracting Hyoudou's attention...
I think Koyuki's just learnt that women spell nothing but trouble -
even though he never did anything wrong here, he's landed himself
thoroughly in the doghouse, with no sign yet of being able to drag
himself out of it. And just when it look like Koyuki and Maho
were finally set to become an item.
The ups and downs of Koyuki's lovelife are mirrored by his music career - from his appearance with DyBre
to his problems with the culturefest performance - and his problems
with Hyoujou - who goes from being a huge problem to no problem at
all. I was so gald to see him finally get knocked down a few pegs
- literally - that I was almost cheering at the screen as he got his
well-deserved kicking.
And that's where Beck has really been shining - it's one of the few shows where you can genuinely feel the ups and downs of the
characters. It's very unusual for a show to draw me in anything like as
much as Beck does, and more than anything else it's the reason I keep watching. Very highly recommended.
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