Season 2 of Gannibal is here! The first season ended at a very exciting cliffhanger when I thought the show was close to finishing. Our main character Agawa had discovered the secret and was close to pulling off a rescue. Surely there wasn't much story left to tell right?
Turns out there is much to tell and we find out this Gotou family has another secret that is equally as bad if not worse than cannibalism. It explains why everyone in this family is weird and scary.
64 is an 2015 NHK show about an unsolved case where a little girl was kidnapped for ransom and was found dead after the money was delivered. The 64 in the title refers to the year when the crime happened, 1989 or Showa 64, the last year of Showa era before Heisei began.
Pierre Taki who has has cancelled in Jdoramas, only appearing in Netflix shows plays the main character Mikami, a former detective who was involved with the 64 case and now works as the head of public relations in D prefecture. So nice to see Pierre Taki in a leading role because he is usually a supporting actor. So sad he got cancelled in Judge Eyes. I have a digital copy of the PS4 original and I have a feeling if I start it up, it will update and remove him from the game so if I want to play it again, I have to do it offline.
Mikami is haunted by the case, which happened 14 years ago but he has bigger worries as his daughter has run away from home and his wife sits at home waiting for silent cause from his daughter. Furthermore, as head of PR for the police he is constantly butting heads with the media over issues such as not releasing names of suspects.
Apollo no Uta is about a guy called Shogo who becomes becomes a gigolo because of his childhood trauma seeing his mother sleep with many different men.
He goes through life without care except for his childhood friend Hiromi who has a thing for him but he brushes it away.
At the end of episode one, something horrible happens and Shogo has done something he cannot take back. However he wakes up in a world where there is a different Hiromi who is a singer and is no longer Shogo's childhood friend. Shogo's mom is different and I was thinking is this a fix your mistake in another timeline story.
Once upon a time, a genius by the name of Miyazaki Hidetaka made the Souls series of games starting from Demons Souls to Dark Souls 1~3. They started out not being mainstream popular but had a hardcore fanbase. Watching videos, I did not understand why they were popular but the fact that they were difficult games peaked my curiosity. When I watched videos of gameplay, it just seemed like a slow action game with lots of rolling.
I bought Bloodborne and my life changed forever. I finally understood the appeal of Miyazaki and From Software's genius. The best thing about the games were that they had 1 difficulty and the game was designed around that difficulty.
You had a fixed amount of healing items from one save point to the next and it was up to you to learn how to get there. It was about learning from your mistakes and not caring about losing your experience points when you die because learning how to overcome obstacles is more important than experience points. Soulsborne game are about telling the story through weapon descriptions and notes instead of spelling everything out for the audience. Actually without youtube, I would not be able to tell you the story of the Souls games except for Sekiro.
Bloodborne led me to Dark Souls which led to me the greatest action game of all time Sekiro to Demon's Souls and of course Elden Ring. Sidenote, I can play Sekiro every year because the game is just that good and not many games make you want to fight a boss again after dying 50 times because the boss fights are so fun. Soulsborne games became a genre in itself as everyone tried to copy From Software's formula of bonfires and collecting souls. I really wanted to like Nioh and gave it 2 chances but the randomly generated loot system was too annoying.
Soulsborne games are the opposite of randomly generated loot. They are about items being placed at certain areas for certain reasons; usually as bait for traps but you are not overwhelmed with randomly generated loot. Rise of the Ronin aka Ancient Kyoto Simulator was ok but did not tempt me to try any more Koei Tecmo games.
Then I heard about this Pinocchio Soulsborne game made by an unknown Korean developer. I downloaded the demo, forgot about it until it went on sale recently and OMFG Lies of P is the perfect marriage of Bloodborne and Sekiro.
I would buy a system for Bloodborne 2 and Sekiro 2 just like I got a Wii U for Bayonetta 2. I also got a Switch for Bayonetta 3 and that turned out to be such a bad game. While Miyazaki is making some multiplayer Elden Ring game, some unknown company have made the spiritual sequel to his two masterpieces that everyone wants sequels to.
It is amazing how much Lies of P is a homage to all of Miyazaki's games. From the traps to weapons to bosses, this game is new but so familiar. It is a From Software greatest hits wrapped up in one beautiful package. I have not played much imitators but feel of the game from the weight of the weapons to the hitboxes just work.
Lies of P is an amazing must play game. I am going through New Game + to solo all the bosses. Don't use the summons because they make the game too easy. Can't wait for the DLC to and the inevitable sequel. As a gamer, it is amazing when you get what you want, I just did not expect to get it from an imitation.
I was looking through the jdrama fansub map thinking what other 2023 shows I should watch when I noticed this WOWOW show Jiken. I had downloaded the first 2 episodes from dramahd before it closed and decided to give the first two episodes a go.
At the start of Jiken, we see that Kita Kana has died, stabbed in her stomach with a knife and removing my motivation to continue watching. A university student Hiroshi has been caught for the murder and is Kita Kana's childhood friend. I didn't care about his character because he plays the role in a detached way because the audience does not know whether is lying. Hiroshi initially plead guilty and then changes his mind.
Shiina Kippei (The Forest of Love) plays a judge turned lawyer haunted by a case where the person he found guilty commited suicide. He always plays dodgy characters so it is a change to see him play a straightforward good guy.
The first two episodes were meh for me. If this is a show about an innocent man being set up, I would rather watch Shoutai. There are some revelations about Kita Kana's character who moved to Tokyo and ran her own bar but she is dead. I did not care about the suspect who continued to show no emotion throughout the trial and the killer was either him or the dodgy boyfriend who was was behaving in court as if he wanted to be a suspect. I thought I should just drop the show because there was no character to root for.
I was trying to download episodes 3 and 4 from nyaa but no one was seeding for a week when suddenly some kind hearted soul seeded episode 3 for me. I was watching episode 3 and getting more interested as the story get deeper into Kita Kana's past and then this freaking scene at the episode 3 happened. Before I knew it, I was shouting at my screen. I could not believe it.
I had to watch episode 4. I had to know the ending of this WOWOW show. Unfortunately, episode 4 was stuck at 64.9% and avistaz did not have a copy. I searched and found it on jptv.club. It was in 4K and was 10.9GB and I had to see the ending!
On a side note jtv.club is closing in 5 days which makes me sad. Another private tracker bits the dust and there are so many shows on jtv.club that are not on avistaz! I am furiously leeching what I can before the files are gone!
The ending of Jiken is dark and depressing. It is kind of convoluted in a sense why didn't the main character do something else but it does make no sense in a way. I think the story would have worked better as a movie which it was but Kita Kana's acting will haunt you after it has finished. Watchable, especially for Kita Kana's fans.
When I saw the name Private Banker I thought it was going to be a show about money lenders for the rich, a sort of Yamikin Ushijima-kun for rich people.
However, while this private banker played Karasawa Toshiaki is supposed to be protecting the assets of rich people, Private Banker is more of a uncovering scams that only rich people can do and helping people solve their personal problems.
The gimmick of the story is that near the climax, Karasawa, his associate and Suzuki Honami will explain the scam/trick to the person they are helping and then turn the tables around at the end. This is the part I like the most.
Private Banker was a more comedic tone and not to mention some outrageous hair. It feels like Karasawa is playing a variation of his character in Fixer and the show feels so generic. It tries to be funny but I haven't laughed once and the bevy of guest stars every episodes is great but doesn't help the story.
I've said I'll watch any scam but Private Banker is testing that. The main story is about Karasawa working for this Tenguji super rich Tenguji family to protect their assets while they fight over succession money. I could not care less about the Tenguji family. Nice to see Tsuchiya Anna in this though. Have not seen her since Sakuran, I think.
While I was watching the 3 episodes of Private Banker, I kept thinking how much I would rather rewatch Fixer, Scams or first season of Ushijima. Going to drop this and delete. Meh.
Faiz Ikari recommended me the first season of Gannibal some time ago. I had it sitting on my HD for a long time because I wasn't in a mood for a cannibal jdorama. I was pessimistic that someone else can do a violent movie to Sono Sion levels. I knew nothing of this show nor what to expect but I was pleasantly surprised and I am glad I waited this long to watch Gannibal.
Gannibal starts off with a police officer accusing a bunch of people in a village for being cannibals before he is killed with a sickle. No point hiding the theme of the story, right. The name of the jdorama already rhymes with cannibal.
Gannibal plays the behaviour off from stereotypical countryside behaviour of neighbours poking their noses into everyone's business and expecting everyone to behave a certain way or else they would be excluded but the most alarming is the threats of violence does not faze the husband Agawa Daigo.
In episode 1, I was thinking I need to watch Hayabusa Shobodan again. I was also thinking any sane person would have at least gotten his wife and kid out of Kuge. It kind of bugged me that because they were clearly in danger and the behaviour of the people was not normal. I guess the daughter loved it there and Yoshioka Riho was trying to fit in but Daigo knew something was rotten.
