Saturday, April 11, 2009
Tokumei Kakarichou Tadano Hitoshi season 4
Takahashi Katsunori returns for another season of Tadano Hitoshi, the seemingly mild mannered salaryman in the general department of an ad company who is actually one cool dude who does special missions for the CEO. I have no idea why he dropped out/was removed from Salaryman Kintaro. Season 4 of Kintaro was getting stale but to me, he owns the roles of Kintaro and Tadano Hitoshi. Its funny how his sidekick in Tadano Hitoshi has taken over his role as Kintaro. I highly recommend the Kintaro series. Its just as fun salaryman fantasy stuff with lots of chicks.
She's supposed to have been in HItotsu Yane no Shita but I can't remember her in that show..
Unfortunately for Tadano Hitoshi, season 4 moves from the 11.15pm Friday timeslot to 9pm Thursday slot. Yes, they want more people to watch it but unfortunately a lot of what made the series fun has been toned down. Tadano Hitoshi is a dorama for guys. A lot of the cases he has to solve involve seedy parts of working life. There's always tons of fan service and hot looking chicks etc.
The fan service in season 4 is minimal. For season three, there's always a gravure idol guest starring in every episode for the audience to perv at. For season 4, there's no nudity and very little ecchi shots. Whereas Tadano Hitoshi would usually screw one guest starring idol every episode to get information, he hardly does it anymore. All the sex metaphores and jokes about his dick size are used sparingly and aren't as funny.
Unfortunately, that's probably as much cleavage as you'll see in season 4. :(
Even the stories are lacking a bit. In season 3, Tadano is given his mission and its always seemingly solved in the middle of the episode and there's always some twist about the real culprit. In season four, its only used two times I think, in episode 5 and 7. The storylines aren't as sleazy anymore. At times it just feels like a generic problem solving dorama. The earlier timeslot has really stripped the show of its identity.
Tadano playing it cool. He's probably just happy finally having a guest star worth drooling over.
The best episode is ep 5 and that's because its got a real hot guest star in Adachi Yumi and it has an interesting story with a nice twist to it. Unlike Kintaro, there is no overarching story so every episode stands on its own. Since they hardly did any fanservice shots, there wasn't any point having lots of gravure idols in season 4. Or rather the quality of fanservice is severely lacking in season 3.
Ebihara Yuri's character will never get her story advanced/addressed. She's only there for her looks and to go 'Tadano baka!'.
I bought season 4 as part of a set with the other three seasons for aud$55 despite already owning the 3rd season as the back of the case said English subs. Unfortunately, only seasons 3+4 have English subs. There's no sub for season 1 and season 2 has chinese subs. I'm going to watch the first two seasons when I have time. Season 1 opens with Sora Aoi showering. Everyone's seen her naked and all that but watching her naked as part of a jdorama is a different matter altogether.
If you can find the 4 seasons set for a decent price, I'd recommend it or else just get season 3. That is if you've into fanservice and more mature/sleazy storylines. If you have seen the previous 3 seasons, there's not much point watching this emasculated season, expect for ep 5. In the name of all that is holy, if they make a season 5, it needs to be on 11. There's no point getting more people to watch when they're not going to enjoy that much.
http://www.tokyograph.com/articles/Spring_2009_Drama_Preview
ReplyDeleteinteresting, if you haven't checked out the new shows yet