Taiari deshita : Ojousama wa Kakuto game nante shinai Episode 2~8

 

THE GOOD

+ The girls appearing in the fight stages and the fights being shown from a different perspective during the 3rd rounds.

+ The girls showing up to a tournament versus wannabe gangsters and salarymen was fun.

+ Aru doing the commentary for the big tournament finale.

+ Geeking out over all the various arcade sticks and Street Fighter memorabilia in the backgrounds.

+ The last boss of the show being a little girl.

THE BAD

- Taiari deshita is basically a tournament (sports) dorama without the pathos. The girls succeed instantly at their first tournament and frankly, I'd rather watch SF Pro League JP. 

- I was expecting our girls to challenge the Kuroyurihime and lose in the beginning before taking them out one by one. Unfortunately it became a bland group of friends going to a tourney storey. It should have been a school politics are decided by Street Fighter story instead.

- Street Fighter V is a crouching HK activate V trigger to start guessing game and is never presented as such lol.

THE UGLY

= The salaryman group declaring that they practice 10 hours of Street Fighter a day. Japanese salarymen can't even get 10 hours of sleep a day.

SUMMARY

As a fan of Street Fighter I got bored of Taiari Deshita  because of lack of story. I would rather watch an actual tournament than a fake one. Maybe I am too familiar with the subject matter of fighting games. It is similar to me reading High Score Girl. It is all my fighting game knowledge brought to life in a manga. I wonder how non fighting game players view the show. I love that a jdorama was built around something I enjoy very much but the story was not there to hook me in. Meh.

Warau Matryoshka Episode 5 spoiler review

SPOILER WARNING if you have not watched episode 5.

Warau Matryoshka has been about whether Suzuki was actually Seike's Hanussen. Whether he was really the brains and was Seiki just a puppet?

The story introduced us to Seike's girlfriend Arisa and I thought so this is a mystery about who the real Hanussen is.

Then we meet the mother played very well by Takaoka Saki and realised that this is not a story about who the real Hanussen is.

This is a story about 3 Hanussens fighting for control over the Matryoshka doll.

We finally get confirmation that the mom would do anything for Seike and Suzuki let himself be manipulated.

I think Arisa is still alive and the twist is she is the real Hanussen. On second thought, Seike has been going on about protecting the weak and minorities since he was a child. I wonder if that is his own thing or his mom's and does not seem like something from Arisa. 

As mentioned before, the way Warau Matryoshka builds suspense reminds me of Yami no Bansosha. How good this show will be depends on what happens when everything is revealed. Very watchable.

Kanzo wo Ubareta Tsuma jdorama review

 

Kanzo wo Ubareta Tsuma is yet another revenge jdorama and and like the title says it is about a wife who's liver was taken. Yuka (Ihara Rikka) is the wife who married Kosei (Kiriyama Ren) but he only did it to trick her into donating her liver for his mother. After the surgery, the evil mother and sister in law forced Yuka to divorce Kosei and Yuka discovers that she had been tricked.

I wanted to drop this show pretty early because of how stupid Yuka seemed. However Kanzo wo Ubareta Tsuma was different in that Kosei was actually aware of Yuka's plan of revenge against his mother and sister. 

I thought that was interesting because most of the time in revenge stories, the person seeking revenge executes some complicated or interesting plan without the bad guys knowing. Not only did Kosei know of Yuka's plan, he continued to terrorise her.

The pacing of Kanzo wo Ubareta Tsuma is so much better than Kesenai watashi. The stupidity of Yuka is part of the story because she was super nice to be point of being absolutely naïve and the story is about how taking revenge is corrupting her.

Kanzo wo Ubareta Tsuma is trashy fun revenge jdorama. Yuka's plans are not that clever and she gets unexpected help everytime but I had fun watching because of Kiriyama Ren's portrayal of Kosei. The bad guy who is happy to not lift a finger to help his mother and sister and then you realise that he had to put up with them his whole life. A heroine is only as good as the villain and this complicated villain makes the show go.

Kanzo wo Ubareta Tsuma is no means a good dorama but I had a blast watching. Almost as cheesy, trashy fun as Fukushuu no Miboujin. Watch it if you want a turn of your brain revenge show with campy acting that is fun.

366 Days jdorama review

366 Days is a very evil jdorama. It is the name of theme song 366 Nichi by HY which was also the theme song of a decentd jdorama Akai Ito. Everytime I hear the song 366 Nichi, I think of Minamisawa Nao in that show though to be honest I don't remember much. I say 366 Days is evil because it tries to completely erase all association of the song with Akai Ito and overwrite it with this Hirose Alice dorama.

366 Days is your typical childhood friends who never confessed to each other and meet up years later at a class reunion. Thing start looking up at the end of episode 1 when suddenly something really stupid happens. The guy was trying to save a kid from falling down. I really wanted to quit this show.

Look at this screenshot. Kid is about to fall over. Guy runs over and just have to grab his legs. Easy. Kid weighs nothing. Somehow, guy flings himself over the railing to save the kid. Does not make any freaking sense at all. If Hirose Alice were not in 366 Days, I would have stopped at the end of episode 1. Japan, I am offering my services to be Minister of Common Sense. If a character in jdorama has to put himself in harms way, it has to be approved by my ministry so that it doesn't kill the story.

Anyway, 366 Days like Akai Ito is a story about a couple who should be together but are not because the story keeps throwing obstacles at them which in this case is memory lose and rehab. 366 Days also deals with memory and identity. If someone does not have the same memories anymore, are they a different person and should they behave like the previous person.

366 Days is also a group of high school friends with secrets story ala Nanyoubi ni Umareta No with more secret crushes and everyone trying to find their niche in the world. Besides the main character throwing himself over the railing, I don't have a complaint about the writing. Some parts are super cheesy but this is a soap opera love story and it does it pretty well. It is not Nanyoubi ni Umareta No but I think 366 Days does it better than most.

I have to point out it makes me sad seeing Kitamura Kazuki aged out into a minor supporting role playing a father to adult children. It feels like only yesterday when he was the main actor in Neko Zamurai.

The biggest obstacle for our couple is this nurse played by Natsuko who I only just realised was Ririri in Toki wo Kakeru na, Koibitotachi. She has this anime like, this can't be a real face thing going on. Reminds me of Kobayashi Ryoko.

I also enjoyed seeing Wakui Emi after so long. She used to be the mainstay of jdoramas and has been in so many classics.

I would say 366 Days is a pretty watchable, well done universe trying to keep boy and girl apart jdorama which is not that memorable for me.

The most important question is, has 366 Days removed my association of the song with Akai Ito. The answer is no, because half the time, I could hear True Love, the theme song of Asunaro Hakusho which 366 Days reminds me of though I have to admit I have forgotten a lot of except for the theme song and the feeling of the story. Watchable. Thanks to Blitz for subbing!

Kanzen Muzai Episodes 1+2

Kanzen Muzai is a WOWOW show about a lawyer played by Hirose Alice trying to get a retrial for Kitamura Yukiya who was convicted for the kidnap and murder of a young girl. Hirose Alice was also kidnapped at around the same time and she believes that Kitamura Yukiya may be her kidnapper.

If you have seen Tasogare Yusaku, then you know Kitamura Yukiya can play the role of a convict in his sleep. With Kazama Shunsuke as Hirose Alice's colleague and childhood friend, Kanzen Muzai has a lot of acting power.

However, there was something amiss from the very beginning. The visuals looked a bit off, the lighting looked very amateurish and colours too muted. The worst thing was for most of the scenes the director liked to start of with the wide view and then slowly zoomed in on an actor during a conversation.

Usually in jdoramas when two characters are speaking, there is a wide shot to establish place and position and then alternate close up shots when characters are speaking. Kanzen Muzai hardly does this and it just feels so off. Characters are looking at something far off but the camera just slowly zooms in on them as they are talking instead of showing what they are looking at or any face shots. 

The few times that the director uses the usual alternate close up shots, it is so much better that I am wondering why the director is screwing up his own drama for? There is this scene in episode 2 in the rain outside a house when I was so relieved that the director when back to using close ups. I looked up and to my surprise, the director for Kanzen Muzai is Omori Tatsushi who directed two must watch movies The Ravine of Goodby and Mother! WTF is going on? Some of the angles of the shots made me question are you sure this is the only good angle to shoot from and why just this one angle?

I feel like Omori Tatsushi is wasting the good performances because he wants to stuff around with camera instead of doing the yeoman's job and capturing all the fine acting properly. Even the courtroom scene in episode 2 was not shot and cut together as well as could have been. This is the first time I have ever seen a show where I felt most of the shots were so wrong and I could not concentrate on the story.

I don't know what to say. Kanzen Muzai is just horribly shot. The story should get interesting after episode 2 but it could have been so much better. I feel like a producer should have question the director for his shots and lighting. Disappointing meh. Thanks to luwang for subbing and uploading the hardsub.

Anime review Monster

Just finished the 74 episode epic anime Monster ,based on Urasawa Naoki's manga. I think most people have heard about the time travel problem of if you could travel back in time, is it ok to kill baby Hitler? Monster asks a slightly different question, if you are a super surgeon Dr Tenma and you treat all life as equal, is it ok to save the life of evil named Johan and if you have helped this evil to survive, should you finish him?

The reason I started rewatching Monster was that I was wondering why Japan has not done an anime adaptation of Urasawa Naoki's 20th Century Boys? It is one of the greatest mangas and pieces of fiction ever and Japan can have 50 Isekai animes every season but not an anime of one of the greatest stories ever told. I know I have actually watched Monster before but I don't remember finishing it. I must have watched it long, long time ago when I was still burning anime onto DVDs.

Monster starts of off as a Fugitive clone with Dr. Tenma getting framed for Johan's murders with a cold, calculating detective in pursuit. The doctor of course does emergency surgeries and saves people he meets along the way while he tries to pursue the monster Johan.

THE GOOD

+ Amazing animation. Looks like Urasawa Naoki's manga come to life. You know how anime usually have good first two episodes before the animation goes bad? Doesn't happen for Monster. Quality is consistent throughout and I was thinking no anime that does not sell toys won't get this budget unless it is Netflix.

+ Urasawa Naoki is great at creating terror and delving into the psychology of the characters. A lot of scenes gave me the chills. This is the mangaka who created Tomodachi in 20th Century Boys and he has created another scary villain in Johan.

+ The episodes will often start off with a seemingly unrelated character or situation and bring it back to the main story.

+ Great supporting characters especially Eva, Grimmer and Suk. I would say one of my favourite things is that the supporting characters get treated like main characters. They don't exist just for the sake of the main character Dr Tenma and have their own wants and needs.

+ The world building is excellent. I say this not because the story is based on the real world but the world feels real because of all the little details and the characters behave like complicated people.

+ It is a philosophical discourse on identity. How much does having a name matter or even memories to establishing one's identity.

THE BAD

- The pacing is very slow and can be painfully so. I think the story could have been told more efficiently in 50 episodes. I started to fast forward  during the second half of the show.

- Some of the cliffhanger tropes are overused, especially with the slow pace which make things a bit repetitive. 

- How a Japanese man accussed of being a serial killer can travel so much across Germany and other parts of Europe without drawing attention everywhere is amazing. There is one episode where a cop said that he mistook Dr Tenma because of race.

THE MEH

= I don't know what to think of the ending. Not as satisfying with an ambiguous ending and we should have been shown that dinner.

SUMMARY

I think Monster is very worth watching because there are very few anime like this. Monster is the type of anime you can proudly show non-anime watchers. I don't think an anime like this can be made today. Very watchable with pacing issues. Please watch it on Netflix to support good anime!

Taiari deshita : Ojousama wa Kakuto game nante shinai Episode 1

Taiari deshita is finally here at nyaa! I first saw the trailer very very long time ago for this 2023 jdorama. Main reason I was waiting for Taiari deshita is that it is a gaming jdorama, not just just a random made up game, it is for Street Fighter 5!

Aya is poor girl studying at this prestigious boarding school, Kuromi high school for daughters of the wealthy and influential. You get to see every anime ojousama stereotype from the hohoho to the desuwas to the overuse of hinkaku (dignity)

The Kuromi, gaming is forbidden. Early in the episode we see a poor student who's mobile phone has been confiscated for gaming and told that gaming is an activity that is without dignity. Aya's roommate, Natsume informs her that worst case scenario, one could be expelled from the school.

We are then introduced to the second main character Shirayuri who is the only girl in the school with a white wig who returns Aya's handkerchief to her. Shirayuri is the only daughter of a big zaibatsu. They should have named the zaibatsu Mishima Zaibatsu IMO but that's a different game. She is a potential to become a Kuroyurihime and I think they are 7 of those and they are people with an assured future. Sounds like a going to Toudai kind of thing.

One night Aya discovers Shirayuri playing SFV on a laptop and 

Shirayuri is scared of being expelled.

Shirayuri discovers that Aya is a kakuge (kakuto game/fighting game) player because she called SFV Suto5 and the marks on her thumb are from playing arcade sticks. (akekon)

Shirayuri challenges Aya to a match but is interrupted by someone doing night patrol and they both hightail out of there back to the rooms as they were playing in a forbidden classroom. 

Aya and Shirayuri have unfinished business so they sought each other out and asked Aya's roommate Natsume if she could stay in Shirayuri's room for the night so Shirayuri could stay over.

Natsume's face when she realised why Shirayuri wants to swap and she said love comes in many forms. lol

Episode 1 ends with Aya and Shirayuri getting it on. I love fighting games and Street Fighter and am happy there is a jdorama with an actual real game. I had a quick look and there is an anime version of the story and it seems like they are using a made up anime fighter. I remember learning Japanese fighting game terminologies back in the day and now most of my fighting game knowledge are from Japanese sources.  Thanks to magicstar-subs for uploading the raws to nyaa. For gaming fans and fans of whatever girl group the girls are from. I am going to keep my expectations very low and as long as the jokes are decent, I will be happy. Sadly no Jp subs.