10 Reasons to Watch the Ano Hana jdorama special

1. They got the right actor for Jin-tan.

2. Menma is too kawaii.

3. Menma is too kawaii.

4. Menma is too kawaii.

5. Menma is too kawaii.

6. Menma is too kawaii. (Help! I can't type anything else!)

7. Menma is too kawaii.

8. Menma is too.... wait, is that the Fukada Kyoko stupid look?

9. I could look at Menma all day.

10. Anaru! (No way I could forget her!)

Ano Hana is crying porn but very watchable for me for obvious reasons. I love that they retained the music from the anime. What I didn't like was having separate confession scenes for each character about their Menma guilt which was super repetitive. I can't remember how it went in the anime but the writer should have combined some of the confessions together. Either that or they were padding the time. I think the dorama special lacked more Menma hijinks.

After suffering through the Attack on Titan and Assasination Classroom movies, its nice to see a decent anime translation. Very watchable and bring some tissues.

Assasination Classroom

I've never seen the anime. I only know its quite popular. Its basically GTO with Onizuka being an alien with tentacles and the students are tasked with killing their alien teacher who is threatening to destroy the world. Try not to think to hard about the plot, its basically your unusual teacher teaching life lessons to misunderstood students. On a side note, I think that tentacled aliens should stick to what they do normally do best in anime.

Assassination classroom feels like its trying to cram way too many episodes into one movie and I had problems staying awake as they kept introducing one character after another from a robot girl to Parasyte rip-off hair fighting student. All I kept thinking was, why the hell should I even care about these ever increasing number of characters?

Assassination Classroom is super boring and didn't even make me laugh once. The students are supposed to be underdogs but the movie just lacked pathos for me. Avoid.

Ichiban Densha ga Hashitta

Ichiban Densha ga Hashita is a Abe Hiroshi dorama special about the girls who drove the trams or roman densha during WW2 in Hiroshima and the first roman densha to run after the bombing. While it was a brezzy one hour, I wish they had let the old ladies do the talking with images and photos instead of dramatising the story.

I have a feeling that the anime short works better as a story than the dorama special. Watchable but I would not go out of my way.

The Tale of Iya

Starring Takeda Rina (High Kick Girl), The Tale of Iya is one of the most beautifully shot movies you will ever see.

I thought she would forever be doing B grade martial art flicks but looks like she wants to be a serious actress. No, Takeda Rina does not throw any kicks in this movie.

The Tale of Iya is a movie filled non-stop with stunning images of the Japanese countryside.

While filled with beauty, it is about the harshness of country life.

However, The Tale of Iya is a very, very slow movie with hardly any plot and lasts for at least 3 hours.

How much you can enjoy The Tale of Iya will depend on how much you can get lost in its gorgeous visuals and sparse dialogue.

I feel the director is not on the Koreeda level of capturing human emotion.

I'm kinda disappointed because of all the great reviews. I guess seeing it on the big screen would make a bigger difference.

Only watch if you are in the mood for a slow, artsy but exquisitely shot movie about the Japanese countryside.

Solomon's Perjury : Suspicion & Judgement

Solomon's Perjury is a 2 part movie about a schoolboy who's death was declared a suicide but an anonymous note was sent to multiple parties claiming that the the boy was killed.  First off, this is one very slow movie, especially episode 2 which clocks at 2 and a half hours.

Secondly, the mystery kind of sucks, especially when final witness is revealed and I'm thinking why the fuck didn't this person just tell the cops in the beginning and save us all the trouble? There is actually a reason why but I didn't really care. Solomon's Perjury is less murder mystery and more about how people react to problems in a school from the principal played by Kita Yoshio trying to do what's right while under immense pressure to the media that is too quick in jumping to conclusions.

Ultimately, its not very interesting and would have worked better as a 4 episode WOWOW dorama instead. The one show that kept coming to my mind when watching was Suzuki sensei, especially with how the acting in Suzuki sensei is so much better.

Solomon's Perjury is a boring mystery 2 parter that with an equally boring social commentary side. The court case in the end just put me to sleep with the constant apologising. Its not crap and I admire the effort but its not worth anyone's time. Avoid. Watch Suzuki sensei instead.

Yami no Bansosha is being subbed!

My favourite show of the year so far is being subbed. So far subs for episode 1 to 3 are out. Absolutely must watch stuff from WOWOW. I'm going to rewatch it to see what I missed. Do not miss it!

Metal Gear Solid V : The Phantom Pain

Finally finished Kojima's masterpiece so I can finally get back to jdoramas and movies. The Quiet ending was good but the final twist bloody sucked. Gameplay-wise, TPP is awesome. Kojima has made an open world game with classic MGS gameplay of multiple ways to infiltrate and capture bases. Though you have to replay maps multiple times, it works because there are so many ways to infiltrate and the game actually gets harder, though I think the difficulty should have spiked earlier. I don't feel like playing any more since I can't use Quiet after the ending.

Edit: after watching the video of the unreleased Mission 51 , fucking Konami robbed us out of the mother of all boss battles with their cut to funding.

SCEJA Press Conference: Take my money now!!!!!!

RYU GA GOTOKU KIWAMI

Remake of RGG1? Take my money now! I can't wait for the extra stuff like Kiryu slapping poor Haruka. Nishikiyama deserves more screen time than he was awarded in the original game. Not looking forward to Majima in drag though.

PROJECT DIVA FUTURE TONE

My PS3 arcade controller better work with this game. Don't screw your hardcore fans Sega!

IKINIE TO YUKI NO SETSUNA

Old school RPG!!!! As long as it doesn't turn into a Bravely Default.

13 SENTINALS

Beautiful 2Dish graphics from Vanillaware, the makers of Dragon's Crown. I'm definitely getting this so they can do Dragon's Crown 2.

NIOH

Its actually alive, and coming next year!!!! This game has been in development forever and actually looks pretty good. Reminds me of Onimusha. Now where's my Last Guardian news?

BLOODBORNE THE OLD HUNTERS

The best asskicking I've had in a long time. Expansion to the game I never knew I needed. Take my money naw!


YOU'RE NOT GETTING MY MONEY

KOF XIV

Reminds me of the crappy 3D KOF for PS2.

Tamiou Ep 1-6

Tamiou or king of the people is a body swap dorama about the Prime Minister of Japan swapping bodies with his useless son.

I was basically watching this for Endo Kenichi, Motokariya Yuika and Takahashi Issei. (Gonzo reunion!)

Tamiou is surprisingly watchable due to the fact that Endo Kenichi gets a lot of screen time with his useless son. (or is it the other way around)

Body swap doramas usually have both characters operating in their separate stories so more Endo Kenichi the better and its got the mystery of who is responsible for the body swap. Not to mention the reveal in episode 3.

While Tamiou's got a lot of funny moments, its got a lot of scenes where I just skip like the foreign minister and the bloody kids. I don't have many complaints about Tamiou but I just don't feel compel to watch any further episodes. (Or maybe I'm just thinking too much about Metal Gear Solid everyday and it would take a really good show to get my attention.)

Stand by Me Doraemon

While I did grow up on a bit of Doraemon, it was something that I didn't get. All I knew was the theme song, that it had wacky gadgets and Shizuka's pantsu were white. While Doraemon was a property that I had a bit of familiarity to, I had to attachment to it and went in without any expectations.

Doraemon is very similar to Dokonjo Gaeru; lazy protagonist with weird sidekick teaching kids and adults that there aren't any shortcuts in life. The lesson is repeated multiple times throughout the short stories that make up Stand by Me.and the stories have a tendency to try to pull on emotional heart strings very hard.

My main problem is with the ending where everything resets to status quo where Nobita and Doraemon will once again go through the same pattern of story. Just when you think that Nobita has finally outgrown Doraemon and matured, he's back to his old self. Just like Dokonjo Gaeru, Nobita will always continue to learn that there are no shortcuts but will never improve because that would mean that it has to end.

Stand by My is a fun introduction to Doraemon but I don't want to see any more and it should have ended with Doraemon leaving.

Ishi no Mayu Episode 3

Ok, I give up. I can't watch this series anymore. I sort of get what the writer is aiming for here but its executed in such a way that's so clumsy that I do care about the characters. The best part of the episode is when Kisaragi's partner scolds her for feeling sorry for herself and not doing any actual work. Like trying to outwit Toremi on the phone or something. The build up of the series has been whether Kisaragi has any pride as a police officer. When the answer finally came, I was indifferent to the soaring music. Meh.

Dokonjo Gaeru Episode 1

Mitsushima Hikari is back. Unfortunately, she just plays the voice of a frog that is stuck on a lazy dude's shirt. Dokonjo Gaeru is basically Doraemon set where Nobita has grown up to be a useless adult and instead of a robot cat with all sorts of contraptions, its a talking frog that likes to talk about konjou (guts).

The think that sticks out in my mind is that Dokonjo Gaeru is a very noisy show that really evokes that old anime feel. They've got a really huge budget with the CG talking frog on a shirt though a lot of times it looks like Matsuyama Kenichi is talking to his boobs.

As much as I like the cast, except for Acchan, I've got no nostalgia connected to the anime and just find the constant arguing between the NEET main character and his frog tiring. If they did a Doraeman with Bonita as a useless adult, I would be thinking the idiot has not learnt anything and why should I care? Dokonjo Gaeru hasn't really given me a reason to care. Maybe it gets better but I have no compulsion to continue watching. Meh.