WHAT I LIKED
- The smarmy politician doing the sneaky photo with Yoshio's daughter Miho. More sneaky underhanded mass media manipulation please.
- Pairing up Nakamura Toru with Mimura
- Lack of close of shots Jinnai Takanori so his unblinking beady eyes are not obvious
- Yoshio when going after finding out his daughter has been outed.
- The judge saying that he made the right decision with the information available to him at that time. (see last point on what I hate) Does the concept of beyond reasonable doubt apply in Japanese criminal law? Was the DNA test the only proof? Is the presence of a DNA trace enough to warrant a conviction?
WHAT I'M ON THE FENCE ABOUT
- The whole Miho (Motokariya Yuika) breaking off her engagement bit. Shouldn't other people be a lot more sympathetic? She had to change her name because her father was convicted of murder and now he has been exonerated. There better be some good reason for her not wanting to see her father.
WHAT I HATE
- The whole oh everyone gets hurt sentimental bullshit. They tried to pull off the victim's family blaming themselves bit from Soredemo Ikite Yuku but it comes off half-assed. I think Suitei Yuzai is suffering an identity crisis, does it want to be a Soredemo wannabe or a story about media, information manipulation and public perception?
- The judge making a damn good point and then Seiji showing the mental capacity of a 12 year old asking the judge again what he felt about the decision as a person. Hello? Are you deaf? As noted in my point before, Suitei Yuzai is trying to manipulate the audience's emotions but problem is the facts of the murder trial have not been presented to us. Get the facts of the case straight before you want us to care.
SUMMARY
Hopefully no more woe is me crap. Suitei Yuzai needs to be more of a thriller and we need more facts about the case.
Great points. I completely agree.
ReplyDeleteEpisode 1 was 97. Episode 2 was 75. It took a big dive in my opinion.
As I was watching episode 2, I was like "oh yeah, here we go again. Run of the mill Japanese style pity party" :rolleyes:
Everybody is a victim. Judge, writer, sister, parents, even the daughter of the writer, etc... It's been 12 freaking years... Time to get some help!
Actually the repertoire I hate the most is when writers try to use Japanese police incompetence as a central plot device. And that always leads to some bullshit line about "we did it to protect our organization" or "we must not let mass media get hold of this info"
OMG!!!
Middling fare here, a worrying trend for WOWOW as of late. So far in 2012 only Kodoko no Gurume (if Shinya Shokudo is softcore food porn, this is hardcore) and Unmei no Hito have been satisfying.
ReplyDeleteKodoku no Gurume hahaha... that show is all food, and no plot!!! It's a borderline variety show. Everything looked so good though... I loved the korean solo bbq episode... omg
ReplyDeleteThe food is the plot! Like, dramatic percussion... tracking shot of some insanely tasty-looking dish, our protagonist goes all over it, and then we get variations on the "this is great" tune. Never missed an episode.
ReplyDeleteSuitei Yuuzai is making a come back! I had the same feeling of this series becoming too cliched. Ep 4 was really exciting though. What saves the series is a great direction, a wonderful soundtrack and really good acting by almost everyone except for Nakamura Toru I'm afraid. He's alright though. His slight overacting doesn't disturb the atmosfere. I'm hoping for a dramatic ending : )
ReplyDeleteWell, the end of Suitei Yuuzai was completely different from what I expected. No big climax here. Kinda glad it wasn't. Seeing everyone come to terms with the situation was interesting. Still it didn'nt feel realistic. The catharsis was too perfect. There's no way everyone can heal in this short time, or at all. Again the acting pulled me through. I really admire Kunimura Jun. Really loved him in Ando natsu. Kuroki Hitomi was a surprise for me. I only ever saw her in Dosokai, which I really didn't like at all. She didn't convince me then, but did really well here. This is also the first time I liked Jinnai Takanori (aka bug eyes LOL) in a series. He almost ruined Arifureta Kiseki for me. That's a series that I really liked, but found difficult to watch at times because of his terrible overacting. The director must hav done something right here. I would call this series watchable because of this.
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