Blind Witness Jmovie review

Blind Witness is a thriller starring Yoshioka Riho who is currently in Renai Mangaka. She plays a police officer Natsume who quits when she gets into an accident that resulted in the death of her brother and the lost of her eyesight.

One day Natsume comes across a the sound of a car hitting someone and she could hear the voice of a girl asking from help in the car. Of course the police were reluctant to believe her because she only heard the kidnapping girl and did not see her. Blind Witness is a thriller about a girl can solve a case without the ability to see.

For some reason, Blind Witness felt familiar, as if I had seen it before but I was 100% sure I had not and sure enough I had written a review of the Korean version, Blind way back in 2011! Unfortunately, it looks like I lost of copy of Blind so I might try to download it again to see the changes.

My thought on Blind Witness are the pacing is a bit slow especially since we know who the killer is very early. Natsume is a great character and the subway chase sequence is the highlight of the movie and looking back at my review, it was the same for the Korean original. Some characters do stupid things which is annoying but overall its a flawed but watchable movie.

Also, the guide dog is awesome. Decent thriller.

Rest in Piece Tamura Masakazu

 

It is no fun writing posts like this but I have to write something about Tamura Masakazu who is such a big role in the world of jdoramas. He is most famous for his role as the detective in Furuhata Ninzaburo but for me, it was his role as the father in Oyaji alongside Kuroki Hitomi that I most remember him for.

I still consider Oyaji maybe the best family jdorama ever. Tamura Masakazu has the ability to play this obnoxious and preachy father but still make him likeable because of his humanity. When I think about fathers in jdoramas, the first image that pops into my brain is Tamura Masakazu.

Rest in peace Tamura Masakazu and thank you for all the entertainment you have given the world.

Renai Kekkon no Rule review

Time for some old school jdorama! Renai Kekkon no Rule is a Koizumi Kyoko vehicle which is like a reverse 101 proposals because its told from the perspective of the female character instead of the one doing the proposing played by Yanagiba Toshiro.

The other difference is that the Yanagiba Toshiro character is not an underdog but is a successful person but his qualities such as being from the country are seen as negative in Koizumi Kyoko's eyes. Renai Kekkon no Rule is about this rich country guy declaring his admiration to this OL who has no interest in him at all.

To be honest, Renai Kekkon no Rule feels like a frankenstein script with a lot of jdorama tropes through to be coherent but not having a strong narrative except for Koizumi Kyoko being wishy washy. The producers just scatter random survey results about love to make the show seem trendy to 30 year old women looking for love.

I think what hurts Renai Kekkon no Rule the most is that Koizumi Kyoko does not have strong chemistry with either the male leads nor would I say both relationships were written well at all. 

What kept me watching through to the end besides watching a young KyonKyon was the supporting characters especially the older brother and the weird neighbour. And there is a very nice cameo in the final episode which brought a smile to my face.

In the end, which Renai Kekkon no Rule does not suck, I would not recommend it unless you are a fan of KyonKyon.

Rest in Peace Kentaro Miura

I was going to write about Hoshino Gen and Aragaki Yui but this afternoon I read the shocking news that I do not want to believe; the author of my favourite manga Berserk, Kentaro Miura has passed away. 

I remember a lifetime ago when I went to a friend's place to watch anime on VHS and started this anime called Berserk and could not stop watching. It was adult medievil fantasy with complex characters and mature themes. It was incredible.

Many years later, Kentaro Miura's Berserk is still one of the greatest manga and animes ever. There is an overwhelming online hate for the 2016 anime series which I loved but that's another issue altogether.

The quality of his art, world building and story telling is unparalleled. While I am sad we probably won't see the end of the Gut's journey, I want to celebrate the 40 volumes of incredible manga which he has created. Rest in peace, Kentaro Miura and thank you for your giving life to these incredible characters and drawing everything so beautifully.

Hamura Akira review

 

Hamura Akira is a 7 episode NHK detective jdorama. Its been a while since I've seen a hard boil detective show with the last one being River's Edge I think. For some reason, police shows outnumber private detective jdoramas 10 to 1.

First episode didn't impress me. They really had zero budget for the first episode and the story was so-so but as I continued watching, Hamura Akira got better and better.

Writing got more hard boiled and stories and characters got more interesting. Hamura Akira has all the hallmarks of the hard boiled detective genre; lots of voice overs and a main character who seems to have all the bad luck.

 

The directing and camerawork is really good considering the lack of budget. I think a lot of the cameos were done as favours. Shishido Kavka certainly has the ability to be a lead actor.

Hamura Akira is a surprisingly watchable detective show. I would recommend it if you have seen River's Edge and want more private detective shows. I would definitely like to see a season two of Hamura Akira.

Thanks to Gabrielmpf for subbing this at d-addicts!

Renai Mangaka Episodes 1-4

Once upon a time, when jdorama subbing was young and we were watching hardubs from Singapore and Hawaii, there was an Abe Hiroshi and Takeuchi Yuko jdorama called Egao no Hosoku about a grumpy writer and a jobless OL in an onsen and I think it was good. I can't believe I didn't write a review about it but maybe I will one day.

Renai Mangaka is the unofficial sequel to Egao no Hosoku. Grumpy manga Suzuki Ryohei meets out of job young lady Yoshioka Riho. Instead of an onsen and human stories we get a nephew manga writer sending young lady to partake in fake relationships with other people so he can get inspirations for his manga.

This is the part that I don't really enjoy about Renai Mangaka. Getting Yoshika Riho to try to pick up a new guy every episode. I get that the Mangaka wants inspirations for different types of relationships for his heroine but my care factor is 0 because I don't find it fun. Would have been better if they pretended to have a relationship or something.

The only thing holding Renai Mangaka together is the nephew story because its the only learning to be human part of the story.

There's nothing good about Renai Manga but there's nothing really bad either. It just exists and I keep watching because I like the two main actors. For everyone else nothing to see here and I think you should see Egao no Hosoku if you haven't.

Ichikei no Karasu Episode 1

In police and court doramas there is one 'unreality' that is accepted in order for the story to be told and that is the police case or court matter which seemingly is resolved in a week normally takes multiple months or even years and the people involved are juggling multiple files at the some time.

Solicitors or judges can be have 100 to 200 files open at one time at various different stages. We don't see this in jdoramas because its not good storytelling and at most we got two cases in one episode and it always ends up that the two cases are connected.

Ichikei no Karasu not only does not subscribe to this unreality, the story of the dorama itself is about the Judge Takenouchi Yutaka who is way behind in his workload of cases because he likes to perform investigations himself and Nagi is the judge who was sent to get Takenouchi Yutaka in the black.

Ichikei no Karasu has decided to bring the real world into this show and in the real world a judge has to hear 20 matters a day, unless its a trial hearing. That reading files and reports, doing orders etc and our main character judge has the free time to hear only 1 matter and then run around doing investigations which should have already been done by the police and prosecution and defence lawyers!

Ichikei no Karasu cannot have its cake and eat it. The idea Ichikei no Karasu is trying to sell is that justice has to be done properly making everyone incompetent and making the inefficient judge who acts more like the defence lawyer the hero. I know not everything has to be realistic, especially in jdoramas but Ichikei no Karasu opened pandaro's box and can't shut it close again.

I hope I managed to articulate why I just don't buy this jdorama. I know Japan is a civil law and not a common law country but I can't just buy the story. And how the hell did Nagi who I believe is 30 become Judge? Has she been practicing law since she was 5 years old? She's not even old enough to be partner of a law firm. Unwatchable. I'll try one more episode but I'm pretty sure I am going to hate it as well.