Doctor White Episodes 1~3

 

Dr White is yet another Hamabe Minami vehicle ala Alibi Kuzushi. She's too old to play high school anymore but too young to be a doctor so what is Fuji TV to do? 

Make her a mysterious person Byakuya with no memory who can diagnose any disease. All she has to do is look cute and confused and all the veterans can do all the acting for the show. She's like what Ueto Aya was many years ago. The IT girl getting put in all sorts of jdoramas. Please for the love of all jdoramas, do not have her play a police detective!

You need to turn off your brain to watch Dr White because the answer to any question is Hamabe Minami. How come this journalist keeps getting involved and even joins this special diagnostic team with no credentials and a full time job? How can a hospital director even appoint someone without medical qualification to a medical role? The answer is always Hamabe Minami.

This show exists for her because storyline-wise, there is nothing much here. There's the mystery of her true identity and all that but there is nothing exciting to watch. Unless you are a Hamabe Minami fan, its very meh. Hardsubs can be downloaded from Madmansubs. 

Old Rookie Episode 1

Old Rookie is a TBS jdorama about a really stupid but energetic former national football player who one day finds himself without a job and mountains of debt. He has difficulty finding jobs because he has no other qualifications and is invited to become a player agent.

THE GOOD

+ There are a mountain of possible storylines for a player agent jdorama; sports team politics, wives and baby mommas, entourage and leecher issues as well as players not listening to agents. I follow the NBA and there are so many stories to steal. The first episode is about the old player who doesn't realise how much he has fallen and somehow never received any financial advice in his career.

+ Great cast with Ayano Go, Sorimachi Takashi and Yoshine Kyoko.

+ It has a decent budget and the football scenes for episode 1 were ok.

THE BAD

- Its a TBS show and the first episode did not need to be 1 1/2 hours long.

- They really made Ayano Go's character too dumb in a non funny way. I think they did it for the women watching who don't know a single thing about sports but its too much.

THE UGLY

- Ayano Go not telling his daughters he retired. It just feels like trying way too much to milk the sentimentality.

SUMMARY

I am hoping that Old Rookie doesn't not end up like most TBS shows, meh quality oversentimental crap. Hopefully the writing does not suck and the cast can make Old Rookie watchable. Realistically hopefull that it will be decent. Thanks to Madman227 for subbing. I had to use discord for the first time to get the subs for episode 1. For people for like sports and the cast.

Top League jdorama review

Top League is a 2019 jdorama that has been sitting on my HD for a long time and finally I have gotten around to watching. If the Journalist is about the important role that newspapers play in trying to keep politicians honest, Top League is about the symbiosis of the relationship and how the politicians manipulate the media especially in Japan.

There are two journalists in this story: Matsuoka who is transferred to the political section of Yamato newspaper and Sakai, Matsuoka's former colleague who now works for a weekly magazine and is chasing the story of a mysterious buried safe that was found with lots of money. Matsuoka discovers that reporters in Japan don't ask the politicians any hard hitting questions and only people in the 'Top League' are able to have access to politicians.

Matsuoka goes against the grain and asks some questions to Chief Cabinet Secretary Kondo. One thing leads to another and Matsuoka is promoted to the Top League and access to Kondo. Of course when good things happen to someone in a WOWOW show, there is usually a reason for it.

Top League is yet another solid WOWOW thriller about government corruption except this time it is about the give an take between politicians and reporters. Because reporters mostly throw softball questions they need to curry favour with the politicians for access and that means being their mouthpiece or spreading certain news. This is very relevant in today's media climate where certain media outlets exist to support certain political parties instead of reporting the truth.

The only thing I didn't like was how naive Matsuoka was but he had to be for the story to work. Love the cast especially Kobayashi Kaoru as Kondo. Top League has not been English subbed but the raws come with timed Japanese subs so it is easy to watch if you can read. Watchable and great job as usual by WOWOW.

Kyouso no Bannin Episodes 1+2

Kyoso no Bannin means guardians of the market competition. In other worse, this show is about an underdog group from the Fair Trade Commission who's job is to investigate and uncover unfair competition practices but have limited powers and resources.

Watanabe Anne is a detective who is sent to the Fair Trade Commission after she loses a suspect and has to work with Sakaguchi Kentaro who is a Todai graduate but choses to work for the lowly Fair Trade Commission.

Kyoso no Bannin sounds like a WOWOW dorama but I am glad that it is a Fuji TV one so that its kind of different. I am just glad it is not a TBS show.

The first episode is about 3 hotels who collude to keep prices high in an area because they have monopoly power and Yamamoto Koji makes a great villain especially after watching him in so many hero roles especially Kagero no Tsuji. His villain is such a fresh air from the overacting Kagawa Teruyuki style that plague so many jdoramas. 

For me I found the subject matter of anti competition law interesting because its not very black and white and is difficult to prove. Plus you have a group of lovable underdogs as the protagonists for this show.

Big thanks to edwardwong for subbing the first two episodes. I am not sure why the subs are not at d-addicts. Watchable.

The Journalist 2019 jmovie review

Netflix's The Journalist is one of my favourite shows of 2022. The exiting show based on the Moritomo Gakuen scandal showed that the quality of Netflix jdoramas was going up with The Journalist and Alice in Borderland.

I wanted to wait until enough time has passed to dive into the movie because I did not want to watch an edited version of something I had just watched. The good news is that the movie which came first is pretty different from the tv series.

Shim Eun Kyung is doing the Yonekura Ryoko role as Yoshioka Erika a reporter for Toto newspaper. Instead of a brother who is comatose,  Erika's father committed suicide. Matsuzaka Tori works for the naicho otherwise known as Cabinet Intelligence and Research Office. Same as the series, the powers of the CIRO are being used to keep the people in power Matsuzaka Tori's conscious is troubled.

So the movie is missing the newspaper delivery boy story ,the finance officer and evil Santamaria Yusuke. Two important elements of the Netflix show. It is just a story about the reporter and CIRO officer. There's no way to compare a 2 hour movie versus a 6 episode series in terms of content so I'll leave it at that.

Of note is Tetsushi Tanaka who plays the same role in the series as the CIRO. The story is similar to the series since it is more of a cover up but the contents are different. The movie is more like a thriller which plays a bit like a horror movie and the tv show is more about the importance of journalism and keeping the bastards honest.

I know The Journalist won picture of the year in 2019 but the directing is not very good. Seriously the tv series looks so much better. Way too dark and cinematography too pedestrian. The shaky cam brought nothing to the movie at all.  

Acting is good but the Netflix series is just so much better it cannot be ignored. I wish I had seen the movie first to be able to form an objective opinion but I wonder if it got best movie more for the subject matter? Meh from me. Go watch the series on Netflix if you haven't.

Mystery to Iu Nakare jdorama review

I had no interest in watching this when I saw the poster with yet another character with super curly hair. I can't remember but there was a dorama or movie about a similar character that I did not like. I decided to give it a chance on a whim and episode 1 started out with university student Totono Kuno being suspected by police of committing a murder.

Totono is brought to the police station and must use his wits to solve the mystery while he is being interrogated at the police station. I thought that was a great idea for a first act because it was fun watching Totono turn his interrogation around to get information for himself.

Mystery to Iu Nakare is a Sherlock Holmes style mystery with the main character being a uni student who has never worked but has great powers of observation and his Watsons are the two police officers who interrogate him in episode 1. The humour is derived from the fact that Totono is otherwise a normal student who like curry but reluctantly keeps getting involved in murder mysteries.

The mysteries are quite interesting and the gimmick of the series is that Totono keeps having to match wits with colourful characters who are equally as smart. The only negative point of the series was the story sort of got slow for me towards the middle.

I enjoyed the humour of the show and the ending sets the story up for a sequel. If you like your mystery doramas, then Mystery to Iu Nakare is worth a peek especially since its not a Higashino Keigo show. Thanks to Blitz fansub for subbing! Watchable.

Roppongi Class Episodes 1~4

Roppongi Class is a how to run an izakaya dorama dressed up as a revenge story. Kagawa Teruyuki is the super rich bad guy who runs Nagaya Holdings with his super spoiled son who killed Miyabe Arata's father in a hit and run. Arata's dream of becoming a police officer is ruined and he ends up going to jail for a few years and vows revenge on Nagaya.

The hook of this revenge is story Arata's true love played by Araki Yuko works for Nagaya holdings and there is a love triangle with an influencer/sns girl who likes Arata as well. Problem is there is no chemistry between them and the relationship just doesn't work.

The revenge part of Roppongi Class is very boring in the first 4 episodes. Episodes one is what Nagaya did to screw Arata over and the next 3 episodes is him doing a pretty bad job to open an izakaya. Arata proclaims that his plan of revenge against Nagaya Holdings is create an izakaya chain to compete but 4 episodes in he is not doing a convincing job.

How can this be an exciting revenge story when its about this owner stumbling around trying to open an izakaya? Arata is like a shounen hero shouting I will get stronger but doesn't show the audience he has given any thought as to how and there is no anticipation of where his plan is going.

Maybe everything will be revealed in the next few episodes and his plan will be very exciting but everything I have seen in the first 4 episodes is boring. There is no chemistry between the leads and there is nothing fun about Arata's lack of revenge planning.

I just found the whole izakaya thing fake and lacking in detail. They tossed in the influencer girl and there's stuff about recipes and advertising but I feel like there's no nitty gritty detail about running an izakaya. Izakaya Miyabe is too bright and feels like a bunch of students pretending to run an izakaya during a school festival.

Fans of Hanzawa Naoki will probably enjoy Kagawa Teruyuki as another super evil bad guy and he doesn't overact as much but I was too bored to continue. Revenge shows are supposed to be fun and exciting like Fukushuu no Miboujin but Roppongi Class is not. Do not watch. On a side note Kagawa Teruyuki seems to have gotten in trouble for a sekuhara incident at a kyabakura. One thing about the Japanese entertainment business is that as long as you did not do drugs, you just need to lay low for a while and things will go back to normal.