Bokura ni Ai wo jdorama review

WHAT IS IT ABOUT?

Bokura ni Ai wo is a love comedy about a bunch of dudes living in a lodging house who suddenly find that the building next to them has become a dorm for air stewardesses. You can see from their screencap above that they are very welcoming of their new neighbours.

WHAT IS GOOD ABOUT IT

+ Its a jdorama about air stewardesses. What other reason do you need?

+ old school jdorama feel with Eguchi Yosuke and Suzuki Anju. They have pretty good chemistry.

+ Toyohara Kosuke aka Mr Lan Evo as the Eguchi's Yosuke's rival for Suzuki Anju's affections. Poor fellow always losing the girl. I need to watch something where he is the main character.

+ Old school tame sexual comedy bits and of course everyone is a loser with a good heart

WHAT IS NOT GOOD

- The dorama goes for a bit too long and its too contrived how bloody long it takes for the two main characters to confess their feelings.

SUMMARY

Pretty watchable show if you are after some old school jdorama vibes. The raws are available are dramahd but I am not sure about subs.

Jigoku no Hanazono / Office Royale jmovie review

Anything with Bakarhythm as the writer is usually worth watching and Jigoku no Hanazono is no exception. Jigoku no Hanazono is basically Crows set in the world of OLs instead of high school aka a bunch of office ladies fighting in Odaiba to see who is the toughest.

It is in this world that the mysterious and strong Hirose Alice shows up and starts getting into fights slowly going up the food chain. 

Nagano Mei is the normal OL who becomes friends with Hirose Alice and does not get involved in the fighting. They hang out together doing girly things but Hirose Alice always gets into fights.

This movie is very funny because it plays off all the cliches yankee fighting manga and has fun with it. I think the director did an admirable job with the action considering the limitation of the actors involved.

I had great fun with this movie and wish I could have watched this in a cinema in Japan. I think everyone did a pretty good job on this movie. Very watchable and available hardsubbed from dramahd. Guarantee you will have fun.

Dream Team jdorama review

Dream Teams is about 3 underdog women who happen to be former members of a school's basketball club who happen to meet each other at the funeral of their departed coach.

Yamaguchi Sayaka is a housewife who's famous husband is cheating on her. Sakuraba Nanami is a slightly famous influencer and Zaizen Naomi is a successful career woman who was transferred to look after an amusement park.

I normally like the bunch of people down on their luck becoming friends and supporting each other genre and Dream Team does a decent job in the first half but the second half is just very boring and the story doesn't go anywhere interesting or exciting.

I only finished the show because of Sakuraba Nanami. Why isn't she in more shows, or at least shows that I watch? Could have been a decent watchable show but boring second hand give makes it a meh. 

Konto ga Hajimaru Episodes 4-10

I decided I could not wait for English subs for Konto ga Hajimaru anymore as the longer it gets between episodes, the more I forget and retimed the Japanese subs.

I want to say two things. Firstly the karaoke box konto from episode 5 is my favourite sketch. I love how all the sketches have something to do with the story of the episode. Reminds me of Tiger and Dragon which I will have to rewatch some day.

The second thing I want to say is Konto ga Hajimaru is a brilliant story about life. People struggling with decisions and finding their place in society and all that stuff without spelling things out for the audience.

Konto ga Hajimaru will make you laugh and it will make you cry and it will make you ask why can't more jdoramas be like this? The answer is it is really hard to write such great characters and dialogue. I am looking at the writer Kaneko Shigeki's resume and I am not sure I want to watch any of the shows and I am pretty sure I dropped Oreno Hanashi wa Nagai.

The dialogue is soooo good. Its basically Sakamoto Yuji level where there are multiple levels to the dialogue like an onion. This is an easily rewatchable show because there is so much to absorb.

This is anti Wakamonotachi 2014 which tried to be this great jdorama about 20+ people but ended up being fake and contrived whereas Konto Ga Hajimaru feels natural and real and we are just a fly on a wall watching these interesting characters deal with life.

Can't recommend this enough. I am glad Konto strong potential to challenge for jdorama of the year has been realised. Must watch. You can get the English subs here until episode 4 or Japanese subs here.

Daifugou Doushin season 2

The filthy rich and cowardly detective Unokichi is back for another season in Daifugou Doushin season! Unokichi's whole schtick with him fainting and every idiot thinking that he must be a great swordsman because his stance is full of holes get tiring in the first season so the writer have figures a new twist.

The new twist is that Unokichi looks exactly like the Shogun's stepbrother Yukichiyo, a person who is the opposite of Unokichi; good with fighting and is very serious. Unokichi becomes Yukichiyo's body double because of a palace conspiracy and they switch places. Daifugou Doushin is basically the prince and the pauper or in this case the prince and the rich detective.

The writer tried hard to keep things fresh. Unokichi confessed to Shinkawa Yua at the end of season 1 and in season 2 he acts like nothing happened. Their relationship has gone backwards probably because the writer doesn't know how to move it forward or is unable to do so.

The Unokichi actor has to pull double duty since he is playing two characters but I am sure he is happy he finally gets to do action scenes as Yukichiyo and the scenes where Unokichi and Yukichiyo talk to each other.

Daifugou Doushin season 2 is fine. Just not as funny as or smart as it could be. I enjoyed season 2 less than I liked season one and don't want to see a third season. Only watch if you like jidaigeki. Thanks to evasive for subbing!

Konya Kokoro Dake Daite jdorama review

Body switching stories are very common in Japanese entertainment. From Hirosue Ryoko's Himitsu to Kimi no na wa, They are as common as time slip stories because its hard to screw it up with both characters playing their fish out of water roles.

Konya Kokoro Dake Daite is a Tsuchiya Tao mother and daughter body swapping jdorama except in this case they are an estranged pair as the translator mother walked out on her daughter and had not seen her for a long time.

My impression of Tsuchiya Tao is that she always plays nice girls so she never gets to show her range. This 2014 jdorama allows her to play the bratty daughter and of course the older mom in her daughter's body.

There are a couple of boyband guys and their stories are very meh. The fun is watching the mom act like the daughter and vice versa and seeing how their juggle each other's lives. One thing that really bothered me about this show is that the bar that Tsuchiya Tao goes to all the time never has any customers and its sad that they could not afford the budget for stand ins.

Konya Kokoro Dake Daite is a pretty standard body swap jdorama. Only watch if you are a Tsuchiya Tao fan or you want something light to watch. Thanks to Edward Wong for subbing! One day I will rewatch Himitsu and do a review.

Koi no Chikara Episodes 4~11

I finished Koi no Chikara and would like to talk about it so spoilers ahead! Suffice to say I enjoyed watching the second time but the series is not a must watch.

 

Nishimura Masahiko is really good in his role as the sales guy who betrays the stupid Nukui (Tsutsumi Shinichi) but becomes Nukui & Co's greatest ally. He is there to teach the other 3 dreamers the ways of the world and he is the character that keeps everyone connected. 

Fukatsu Eri and Tsutsumi Shinichi play the stupid couple who cannot admit that they like it other because of stupid reasons like Fukatsu Eri being too conscious of Yada Akiko's feelings etc. I must admit it did start to get a bit annoying towards the end but they are just so entertaining and have good chemistry. Not Kimutaku Matsu Takako god level chemistry but pretty good.

Yada Akiko is the supporting character who won the audience's support when she told Nukui  that it was Fukatsu Eri who get him the job. Of course, she keeps dragging on her one sided relationship with Nukui until the very end and does not want to hear the truth.

Everyone in Koi no Chikara is too nice. That's why the audience supports them and I am surprised I didn't get sick of it. So what didn't work for me in Koi no Chikara? The devil is in the details and the answer is their advertising work.

Nukui and Asada Ryutaro argue all they and all they come up is some ugly photoshop ad. Episode 6 is about some putting some seeds with some balloons. The writer tried to make it seem like such a desperate situation but it was just laughably bad. There are so many ways to make their lives much easier but episode 6 made a mountain out of a molehill.

Basically the details of the advertising work were not as important to the writer in the context of the story but because the details of the work were inadequate it prevented Koi no Chikara from being a must watch show. 

I have said this before but Jdoramas like to do shows about stuff like advertising jobs so they can show some person giving a presentation and just say they got the job without showing the day to day blood sweat and tears.

In summary, Koi no Chikara is a fun golden age love story jdorama that doesn't do a good job as a work dorama. The casting and chemistry makes most of it work though. Watchable.