JFF 2013: Blindly in Love review

35 year old public servant Kentaro, has no friends, lives with his parents and his only hobbies are playing Rumble Fish 2, saving his money and his pet frog. His parents join this matchmaking thing between parents and somehow Kentaro ends up meeting with the blind Naoko (Kaho).

THE GOOD

- Seeing Kaho on the big screen. :)

- Very good supporting cast with Osugi Ren and Kuroki Hitomi playing Kaho's parents.

- Pretty funny, especially Kentaro's parents.

- The first half plays like this slow burning character based movie.

THE BAD

- Instead of going the character study route, its goes the more generic romantic comedic/soap opera route. Kaho's character is so underdeveloped and there's a lot that Blindly in Love can talk about in terms of the similarities between the two characters. Can't blame them for going the safe route but meh.

- The Yoshinoya scene should have been the ending but they wanted the pay off for the frog thing which I thought was unnecessary. More character stuff, especially looking at whether both parent's enabled their children's reliance with the Yoshinoya scene would have been better. Even the yariman could have used more screen time.

- Kaho's parents' subplot being unresolved.

THE UGLY

- Having a strong desire to eat some real gyudon and wishing I were back in Japan. I want Tokyo Chikara Meshi gyuyakinikudon right now. :(

SUMMARY

- Crowd pleasing movie with good acting and an uneven third act. I just feel it could have been much more and I'd rather they tried and fail than play safe. Watchable.

Edit: Forgot to mention these two ladies who would not stop talking even when the movie started. Dude next to them told them to be quiet and the women instead of keeping quiet answered him and told him to shut up. Dude overeacted  and got physical, had to be moved to different seat but people who talk in cinemas annoy me.

Japan 2013 trip 2 loot

Finally got a 3DS LL. Was very tempted last trip but I didn't really need the upgrade for Bravely Default. The Project Mirai 2 demo gave me reason to upsize. 3DS is too uncomfortable for music games. Should receive PD2 on Monday. : )

3DS streetpass makes travelling Japan fun. There's only one region left in Japan on my streetpass map to go. Finally got over 1000 miis in my plaza!

Not a One Piece fan but graphics look good. Plays like Sengoku Musou.

Ended up getting the 3DS slide pad for One Piece. Its uncomfortable cause the second stick is to the right of the buttons instead of above of below it. Tried it with the Bio Hazard demo and it works better with the shoulder buttons. 3DS should have two sticks like the Vita.

Cheap 2nd hand one missing the club Nintendo points. Need to redeem my points before they expire.

I spent over a 100 hours on Zero no Kiseki Evolution. Can't wait for Ao no Kiseki Evolution next year.

Could not stand the pathetic battle system from the first game but I cannot resist being able to walk around a virtual Akiba.

Another generic gimmicky Tony Taka game? cough Shining Ark. After Zero no Kiseki, a need an old school JRPG with simpler dialogue. Unfortunately not fully voiced and its got this stupid kissing element in order to unleash special moves.

Yes, Tony Taka games have gone from pulling swords from breasts to kissing in the midde of battle. The bad news is that there are male party members for female gamers.

At least you can turn off the kissing minigame for dudes. Not sure if it means automatic max damage. As long as I can finish the game without any dude on dude action, who cares.

My first Scandal poster.

Cannot resist polystone figures...

Rakuten Eagles championship shirt.

Shingeki no Kyoujin shirt. Took me a whole day to find the LL brown version in Akiba.

30000円 worth right there. Sony should just release a 128GB card. Considered going digital for my Vita games but I need the space for PS1 and PSP games though now I've got a 32 and 64 Gb card. Having all my games digitally on two cards would be easier than swapping around and be enough in terms of space.

Vita card holder.

And of course my two calenders, Sambomaster, Scandal and Gundam Front shirts which I covered previously.

Mano Erina 2014 Calender

Went to Hello Project Shop building at 11, went up to the 6th floor and found out it opens at 12. WTF.

Had half a mind to go to Shosen Book Tower but I had to buy it straight from the HP! shop. Emded up at Tokyo Chikara Meshi for the lovely gyuyakinikudon which is super cheap and delicious.

Was very surprised at the A3ish size. I was thinking budget cut since she has graduated.

The calender folds out so its not that small.

Best of all, two pages per month instead of the usual one big sheet for every two months.

Mano Erina calenders have always neen consistantly good.

And I will keep buying as long as she keeps making them.

She looks better with long hair but its all for the Patlabor movie.

HP! shop pics to posts behind.

Hope Mano Erina finds success in her acting but I'd rather she be singing.

As bonus I got two photos! Michishige Sayumi! Thank the jpop gods I waited and hour to buy fom the HP! shop.

No idea. Don't care.

Uehara Ai Calender 2014

Scandal at Omiya Sonic City

What would a Japan holiday be without a Scandal concert? This was on my 2nd last day and the last day was the Ultra SF4 location test. Wish I had time to go 

to the Tokyo Motor Show to check out the girls I mean cars.

Bframe had already gone to the Yokkaichi one two weeks ago so I knew to expect 20 minutes of talking in the middle which I was not looking forward to. I asked him to get me a shirt first so I would not need to queue up and forgot to bring one of my Scandal towels. One can't enjoy a Scandal concert without towel swinging during Doll.

Regardless, I went early to check out asaitama. Venue was close to Omiya Station in Saitama and I went past Saitama Super Arena on the way to the station. Similar to Sendai, it had overhead walkways outside the station connected the buildings nearby.

No more huge venues for me except for maybe Hatsune Miku. After Sambomaster, the smaller the venue the better.

The latest album is ok. My favourite song is Standard but nothing really jumps out. My favourite Scandal song atm is One Piece and was sad to learn from bframe it won't be on the set list.

While the venue is more hall than live house and I was at the 30th row, I could actually finally see them after going to the Budokan and Osaka-jo lives. Not as close as the first time I saw them with bframe at Zepp Nagoya.

Should have looked up the best ramen place on tabelog but ended up at a Coco Ichi next to Omiya Sonic City. Had half a mind to take away the Coco Ichi chicken and nuggets to eat on the way back. According to bframe Scandal only to live house for fan club events but even then there's a lot of talking. They even talk more than Mano Erina and she's the idol.

Crowd ate up 20 minutes of them talking about what's the standard way of cooking eggs and getting the crowd to vote by cheering. Yes, I did time it. Apparently the Yokkaichi segment was about the standard school trip.

I liked that they bookended the new songs with Standard and ended with the good old songs like Shoujo S and Doll. Highlights for me were Mami singing Koe and and I started liking Weather Report. I can watch Mami play her guitar all night.

Used the shinkansen to Omiya instead of the usual train cause of the JR pass. It was funny being on the platform by myself after the concert while everyone used the normal train.

Huge thanks to bframe for the tickets to Scandal and Sambomaster.