HamsapSukebe - Ramblings of a jobless bum.

Seinaru Kaibutsutachi eps 1 and 2

2012-02-01T20:43:00.000+11:00

Seinaru Kaibutsutachi is similar to Saigo Kara in the sense that it fees like a hodgepodge of genres.Its your underdog medical drama with Okada Masaki as Shiba Kengo, your typical young, nice guy protagonist who is transferred to a rural hospital that is understaffed and in the red. There he meets head nurse Kasugai Yuka (Nakatani Miki), a very dedicated and intense person.

Seinaru Kaibutsutachi is also one of those rich people political dramas. Fuga Keiko (Kato Ai) is married to Suzuki sensei, the son and heir of a major group that runs a lot of schools. While Suzuki sensei is divorced, the daughter lives with him and the ex wife is still an important member of the organisation. Kato Ai suffers a miscarriage during the wedding and as a result is unable to have children. Basically normal daughter in law married to rich family and for some reason filthy rich people in doramas have to speak and act like aristocrats from the 17th century complete with sneering mother-in-law. Perhaps Japanese think people buried in money have lost all sense of normal conversation and only think in terms of duty to the company and family.

Finally Seinaru Kaibutsutachi is a mystery thriller with the first episode starting with a unknown pregnant woman dropped in front of a hospital and the young protagonist Shiba sensei proclaiming that it was all part of a plot. By the end of episode 2, we can pretty much guess who the mystery pregnant woman and the plot was, which is not a bad thing. The important thing is how well it is executed.

To be honest, Seinaru Kaibutsutachi feels very disjointed. The tone of the dorama is inconsistent. The way scenes from the three genres are shot are very different. I think they director made a mistake in not establishing a consistent look for all the scenes instead of playing with different tones for each scene depending on what is was about. For example, the scenes involving Suzuki sensei's aristocratic like family are so brightly lit like an afternoon soap opera. There is a surgery in episode 2 with the music trying to imitate Iryu. Shiba sensei's story with his patient feels like your generic feel good doctor story. Lastly, Nakatani Miki and Suzuki sensei's scenes in episode 2 were like from a realistic and serious dorama where the dialogue meant something.

First off, I have to say what is holding this dorama together is Nakatani Miki's Kasugai Yuka. She is so fucking awesome. She's like Koizumi Kyoko, able to play a character with depth that draws the viewers attention everytime she is on the screen. It also helps that her character Yuka gets more and more intriguing. Let's just say that the title is not called The Holy Monsters for nothing. I love characters that we can see thinking and know what they want and what they have to do.

Contrast with Kato Ai's acting. I know she's not playing the most well developed character in the show but its like she's playing a character in an overacting afternoon soap and Nakatani Miki is playing in a Wowow dorama. I probably should put more blame on the directing and the fact that there's probably some clause in Kato Ai's contract which states that every time she is on screen, warm fuzzy lighting must be used.

Anyway back to my two favourite scenes in the series and they are between Suzuki sensei and Nakatani Miki in episode 2. All I can say is wow. Its like suddenly all the crappy generic dialogue disappears and we get two scenes where what was not said is as important as what was said. I love the smug way Suzuki sensei defends his actions. He knows that he does not have to appeal to Yuka emotionally. Yuka tries to use emotion but Suzuki sensei cuts her off by defending the difficulties and risks his actions pose to his position.

Yuka then plays on his battlefield of logic and asks some pertinent questions that Suzuki has no answer for before showing him how serious she is and how much she is willing to do for Kato Ai. The second scene is Yuka using the allegory of the sea to convince Suzuki that her plan can be done with little risk to his position and company. I just love how Nakatani Miki can put on a different mask for Yuka depending on the situation.

I hope Suzuki sensei's character gets to play a big role. I want to see him engaged in a battle of manipulations but I have a feeling he's going to be just along for the ride. Suzuki Anne shows up in episode 2 as a tool of Yuka's plan. Haven't seen her in ages but I expect good acting from her. Seinaru Kaibutsutachi has potential and Nakatani Miki is worth watching for.

Shokuzai ep 2 and 3

2012-01-30T01:53:00.003+11:00

Episode 2

First thing that struck me about episodes 2 and 3 was that they didn't draw me in as much as episode 1. I think that the main reason is both episodes are solo stories whereas episode 1 had two main 'damaged' protagonists interacting with each other while the viewer tries to decipher what they are about and what is going to happen. Episode 2 is more straightforward.

Koike Eiko is Shinohara Maki, the 2nd of the four girls. Maki was the class president and you have a flashback of her trying to find a teacher after discovering Emiri's body. However, she could not find anyone and afterwards decided to no longer run for class president and say that she could not remember anything about the incident.

Maki was the responsible student of the bunch but she blames herself for not being able to get a teacher and has repressed her memories of the incident. However, she continues to live with the promise to Emiri's mother and has become a primary school teacher. Maki has become an overly strict teacher and we find out that it has to do with her search for right and wrong. As a responsible student, she always knew the difference between right and wrong but Emiri's incident has caused her to question her actions.

There is a superb action scene at a pool which is the highlight of this episode. I'm a sucker for one take action scenes. Its not the Old Boy corridor fight but its still fun. Maki finally gets affirmation that her actions are right from society but deep down her search for right and wrong and her strictness only serves to bottle up her feelings from the incident.

One thing I don't understand is why the teacher would punch Maki at the end? She defended his actions and despite her reasons, she did save the students and him. Its not like she threw him under a bus? The punch is a comical scene that seemed out of place with its only purpose to tease to audience at the end.

Episode 3

From the emotionless Maki, episode 3 is about Akiko, played by Sakura Ando (Love Exposure). Akiko was gifted a beautiful dress which she wore on the day of the incident. Akiko's mother blamed the dress for getting her involved in the incident. Her reasoning is that the dress was too good for Akiko and that the killer was after Akiko but luckily Emiri was there. Akiko's parents see themselves as lower class people and forbade Akiko from wearing 'luxurious clothes'.

So Akiko grew up with the idea that she is a bear and a bear should wear bear clothing. While Maki seemed detached because she repressed all her rage and frustration, Maki pacifies her feeling of guilt by not living her life. She lies around at home, playing retro games and her Wii and doesn't have a job. The story picks up when her brother returns home with a wife and step daughter.

I really like the tension of episode 3 with questions about Akiko's brother. I think that a lot of her discovery about her brother was all in her mind. That she was seeing things that were not there. That she was so desperate to escape from her imprisonment like Emiri's mother said. That the niece not wanting to go back was more to do with the warehouse being a cold and scary place to live. That the niece not wanting her head patted was more to do her not yet accepting Akiko's brother as her father.

Ok the one with the brother at the game center is a bit harder to explain. Maybe it was something innocent like the brother at the vending machine and somehow her mind created certain actions and a sense of dread for her. Akiko basically has no contact with the outside world and maybe she seized on her brother as a manifestation of the killer but there was no one else.

Shokuzai eps 2 and 3 are still good, just not as brilliant as the first one. Can't wait for the last two because its going to have Ikewaki Chizuru (Summer Snow/Josee, Tiger and the Fish) and Ito Ayumi!

Saigo Kara Nibanme no Koi eps 1+2

2012-01-27T02:42:00.000+11:00

With a name like second last love, Saigo Kara Nibanme no Koi seems like yet another obasan dorama. The lovely Koizumi Kyoko playing playing a single career woman who works as a jdorama producer. I am getting sick of obasan doramas because they always stick to conventions and the characters never get past stereotypes. A lot of them look the same and sound the same.

Not so with Saigo Kara. First off, Koizumi Kyoko really infuses her character Chiaki with a lot of personality. She's passionate of her job, wears her emotions on her sleeve and the scene where she admonishes this young writer about her script is so funny. I would say the big difference between Saigo Kara and other obasan doramas is the energy that Chiaki gives out. I feel like the plot is not driving Chiaki, she is the plot.

Saiga Kara is not your prototypical obasan dorama because its a KDO-ish love story with Chiaki running into Nagakura Wahei (Nakai Kiichi), a widower working for the Kamakura city council. Its KDO-ish in that they argue all the time and it is very entertaining. You know the drill, boy meets girl, they fight all the time, hate each other's guts and of course fall in love. The important thing is chemistry and whether the barb trading is entertaining, which Saigo Kara is. The most important thing that KDO did was of course make the two character really interesting and complement each other.

Saigo Kara is also a family drama. Chiaki moves next door to the Nagakura family and gets involved with them. Asada Ryutaro is the free spirited brother of Wahei, with a secret that is pretty obvious in the 2nd episode. Uchida Yuki is Iryu's twin sister who is very strange and seems to have communication problems. Lastly, Ijima Naoko is the oldest sister who is married and is prime canditate for the obasan drama role of wife who gets cheated on.

Acting wise, we've the awesome foursome of Koizumi Kyoko, Nakai Kiichi (Kaze no Garden), Iryuu and Uchida Yuki. That is some serious acting chops. Ok, Sakaguchi Kenji is not that great of an actor and certainly not in the class of the other 3 but he's better than most.

While Saigo Kara looks like an amalgam of genre's, it is very funny and very well written. Even the dialogue between Chiaki and her two friends talking about middle age female problems is funny and entertaining. When was the last obasan dorama that was funny? From the way they compete and console each other to Chiaki calling them traitors 1 and 2 I can't remember when a dorama where obasan discussions did not sound like a dry commentary on mid life crisis issues.

There's a lot of humour in the first two episodes and they are set up by situational humour, not slapstick which is hard to do. Like this old man complaining of Chiaki taking photos of houses and giving Wahei this gravure magazine which created some funny situations in ep 1 and 2. Or like the Nagakura family overhearing Chiaki's phone call.

The writer is Okada Yoshikazu who has written a lot of doramas and movies, Muri na Renai an entertaining drama about a middle age not famous actress and old dude. That show had some pretty good dialogue as well. He also wrote the Ima Ai ni Yukimasu movie, Mada Koi wa Hajimaranai and Flowers of Algernon. Pretty impressive though the above shows weren't notable for great dialogue. He seems to be channeling Nojima Shinji level of entertaining dialogue.

WTF Kaseifu no Mita 40% rating

2012-01-25T01:43:00.000+11:00

I can't not write about Kaseifu no Mita getting 40% rating for the last episode. The last time it happened was Beautiful Life back in 2000, back when KimuTaku was king of ratings. As I wrote at in my 2011 fall roundup, I just find in incomprehensible that Mita managed to average 20+%. WTF is so entertaining about watching this stupid badly acted family giving stupid orders to Mita over and over when they know that she will take it literally and cause havok?

As I said, the definition of stupid is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. I could see it working if the show was more black comedy instead of trying to be cute comedy. I kept watching until episode 7, hoping that having Natsushima Nanako, Suzuki sensei and the writer of Jyoou no Kyoushitsu would turn things around.

Episode 7 was supposed to be this huge payoff with Suzuki sensei breaking down but it was so artificial and contrived. The dialogue and the characters just never felt natural. The whole scene with Suzuki sensei trying to bawl his eyes out and trying to say dialogue that belonged in an afternoon soap opera. It just did not have that heartfelt conviction. Well, the whole build up sucked anyway. I could understand if the characters get desperate enough that they felt they had no choice but to use Mita but the desperation was never palatable.

I tried to watch the remaining episodes just to see what caused the 40% viewership but clearly I am unable to see in Mita what 40% of Japanese like. What I see is just a family dorama that tried to manufacture touching moments without organic execution. Its like the director pointing to the audience. "Here's rousing music with some corny lines and bad crying. Aren't you moved?"

I am moved when the characters feel real. Characters feel real when they have a personality, not a distinct role like Urara. Character have personality when the dialogue is flows naturally and the acting is good. Compare the kids in Mita with the kids in Suzuki sensei. Sure they say stuff that seem outrageous for middle school kids but the acting is so good that the characters believe what they are saying and its not just for the sake of setting something up.

It is interesting to note that unlike the big rating doramas back in the 'golden era', Mita is not a romance story. Off the top of my head, there haven't been good straight forward boy meets girl doramas with the exception of KDO. now that's a show that deserves to get 40% rating. Perhaps something about family values in Mita that has captured the attention of Japanese audiences?

Suzuki sensei ep 6

2012-01-24T01:13:00.002+11:00

I've got a bunch of doramas and jmovies to write about but right now I want to write about the show I had the most fun watching. Yes, Chucks is back and after a long wait, episode 6 is out! I tried watching it raw but there were bits that I couldn't get and Suzuki sensei is one show where the dialogue is very important. Episode 6 deals with the aftermath of ep 5 where Takechi went nuts and is now on a sabbatical from school.

In order to smooth things over and get Takechi back, Suzuki sensei suggested that Konno, who was one of the main rivals for Ogawa bring Takechi the newsletter. Nakamura volunteers to go with him but Kawabe Ayaka hijacks Suzuki's grand plan. Suzuki sensei is similar to Doctors in that it is about human manipulation but we get to see the thought process and things never go according to plan.

So Ayaka visits Takechi and the next day she shows up at school with band-aids on her neck. I won't spoil what happens but suffice to say episode 6 is a dialogue about breaking up and sex, specifically nama (raw) sex. Whether or not one agrees with Suzuki sensei's view, his delivery just makes it a hoot to watch. His acting here is so much different in quality from his acting in Mita. Goes to show how important great dialogue and and well fleshed characters are.

Once again in ep 6, we have another great performance from a young actor in Ayaka. She is able to play someone in puppy love, desperate and the scene with Suzuki sensei in the infirmary reminds the audience that she is so childlike and yet talking seriously about something so adult. Couldn't they have gotten young actors of this calibre when they casted Mita?

The humour of the series comes from character saying unexpected things but they believe what they are saying. There's no winking at the audience as Suzuki sensei has to deal with issues that Kinpachi sensei would not touch. Actually Kinpachi sensei has dealt with some rather adult stuff but Suzuki sensei doesn't talk down to the audience. Its not preachy and not black and white. Suzuki sensei presents his opinion strongly but the audience is allowed to make up their own mind. Actually, you could say Suzuki sensei treats his students like adults.

Big cliffhanger at the end of ep 6. Just when things were going so well and I was looking forward to the students speaking their mind. Ep 6 has not dealt with the two big mysteries of the series. I'm guessing Asami got back with Suzuki because she knows he is trying to overcome his Ogawa obsession. As for whether Ogawa really has powers, we have 4 more episodes to find out.

Shokuzai ep 1

2012-01-21T04:40:00.001+11:00

When I looked at the doramas that were being subbed this season, there was nothing interesting. Just your generic idoru vehicle crap. Thank the powers that be that Vulcan 300 decided to sub a Wowow dorama, Shokuzai. You can always count one Wowow to put story above pushing talento and to cast people who can actually act.

Shokuzai is about the murder of a primary schoolgirl Emiri and the 4 friends who were with her right before her mother. Emiri's mom, played by Koizumi Kyoko blames the girls because they cannot remember anything about the killer and makes them promise to atone for Emiri's death until the killer can be found. The audience can tell who the actor playing the killer is since he's a pretty recognisable and good actor.

Shokuzai switches to present day and we meet Sae, played Aoi Yu. The first noticeable thing is the muted colours, mirroring Sae's mental state. She avoids contact with men and jumps at shadows, forever haunted by Emiri's death. She runs into Moteki and you could tell there was something wrong with this person just by looking at him. He looks the same but the subtle differences in how he acts and speaks gives alarms bells.

Camera work is awesome. Reminds me a lot of Soredemo Ikite Yuku. Less movement but it doesn't utilise the boring studio set camera angles. Just allowing the acting the breath and carry the viewer. There is this great feeling of some great pressure bearing down on the characters and a very sterile feel to the dorama which sort of mirrors Sae and Moteki's relationship and his hobby.

Gotta mention the great lack of music. I'm just watching it thinking, "This awesome acting doesn't need any music to manipulate the audience". The lack of music also means that the audience notices whenever a the score appears and like the colours, Shokuzai also uses muted background music, like the foreboding cello? sounds when Moteki asks Sae to close her eyes or the low rumble when Moteki places restrictions on Sae's movements.

How good Shokuzai will be depends on the final episode but ep 1 was just awesome in terms of acting, directing and emotion. Kept me glued to the screen and eating up every scene. Just looked up the director Kiyoshi Kurosawa and he did Seance and Tokyo Sonata, two very good movies. Can't remember much about Seance since I saw it long time ago but Koizumi Kyoko was awesome in Tokyo Sonata. Congrates to Wowow for getting a great movie director to do a 5 episode series and big thanks to Vulcan 300 for picking this up.

Moriyama sensei and other memorable jdorama characters.

2012-01-19T21:42:00.000+11:00

Moriyama is the Vegeta of Doctors; he is so good at being a bad guy and is so entertaining that I want to cheer for him. However, he cannot turn good because that would destroy what makes him fun to watch in the first place. Takashima Masanobu has been in so many jdoramas but I have never remembered his name and I will forget his name after this sentence. He is usually playing supporting 2D supporting characters that are not memorable with probably his best showing in Rinjo 2. So basically, I could never tell whether he was a good actor and I can say that his portrayal of Moriyama sensei was memorable and I'll probably always know Takashima Masanobu as Moriyama-sensei. Did anyone get the urge to play the Iryu soundtrack during the operation in ep 8 of Doctors?

There are two reasons characters become memorable; firstly they are so larger than life or so good that they carry a jdorama and secondly its a supporting actor finally playing a memorable character. You know a character is memorable/good when you know the character's name and not the actors. Sometimes its because the character's name is the name of the dorama but it would still have to be pretty good to be remembered. So let's have a look what what I think are career defining characters in jdorama!

SUZUKI SENSEI

If he continues to show great acting, I'm sure I'll end up remembering his name. Hopefully he doesn't do anymore bad overacting shows like Mita.

DENSHA & HERMES

I hate Densha and Hermes in everything else they have done cause they can't bloody act. Densha was the perfect vehicle for their no acting skills. Whoever decided to cast Hermes as Otonashi Kyoko in the Maison Ikokku dorama should be shot. No, I have not seen it but I'm certain she does not have the acting chops to pull it off.

ONIZUKA SENSEI

I think most people probably refer to him as GTO. The most charismatic jdorama character ever and a character so iconic I feel he's always under the character's shadow.

HACHI ONE

He is in a lot of shows and his roles are never memorable except in Hachi One which was the first time he was the man and even then, it was memorable because of the supporting cast. Still a name that no one can forget and I can't be stuffed looking up his real name.

AN CHAN

His character in Hitotsu Yane no Shita was always called an-chan so I have no idea what the full name of the character is. An-chan is memorable in that he is the centre and soul of this heart warming 90s series.

ASADA RYUTARO

Can't remember the actor's name but Asada Ryutaro is IMHO, the coolest Japanese name ever next to Kiryuu Kazuma. If the parents of Japan had any sense, they would name their boys Ryutaro and play them the Iryu soundtrack before exams. Why hasn't Capcom or SNK made a fighting game character called Asada Ryutaro? He'll be an S tier character based on his name alone.

MAYA SENSEI

Ok I confess I had to look up the character's name but when I think Amami Yuki I think of the teacher in black.

KINPACHI SENSEI

A lot of people probably remember him from 101 proposals but I don't think many can remember the characters name.

KANZAKI NAO

Not a great acting effort but its one of those names I never struggle to remember.

KITA YOSHIO

He has been in every single dorama, don't remember his name but this was the one time he was not a supporting character and he did a memorable job.

ZAIZEN SENSEI

One of the best anti-hero protagonists ever in the best jdorama about hospital politics.

YAJIMA KINTARO

The GTO of salarymen. Its either Kintaro or Tadano Hitoshi.

UEDA JIRO

Too many memorable characters from Abe Hiroshi. Its either Jiro or Kuwano san from KDO for me.

YAMADA NAOKO

A think a lot of people would refer to her as Yamkumi from Gokusen but Yamada Naoka is her one character that I enjoyed watching.

SAITO-SAN

MANO-SAN

These two come in a pair and they really complemented each other in Saito-san and turned what seemed like your typical suburban housewife dorama into a great character dorama.

YABE KENZO

Another supporting actor who got to be the lead in this Trick spin-off and I'm pretty sure most people don't know his name. Great for laughs and lots of toupee jokes. I think he should be the supporting character in all non-Wowow/NHK cop shows to make them bearable .

Doctors Saikyou no Meii eps 5-7

2012-01-16T01:27:00.001+11:00

EPISODE 5

I really like the idea of Sagara addressing the problems with doctors not respecting the nurses by fanning the flames of war, so to speak. The cause change, things must get worse better getting better or else there will never be a confrontation. I was hoping Sagara would put on the evil hat and didn't particularly enjoy him revealing his intentions to Miyabe. I can understand that its time to make her an ally but I'd rather watch him manipulate her and get her pissed off.

The good thing is that Sagara never need to preach. He just prods. However, I was hoping things got really worse and the way things came together in the end was disappointing in the sense that it was pretty generic. I can excuse it because of time constraints though. Perhaps the doctors vs nurses story should have been a two-parter. I just wanted to see Sagara act Moriyama and insult the nurses with Moriyama watching in shock and awe.

I liked the teasing of Moriyama becoming assistant director. That would present an interesting challenge for Sagara and a nice way to up the difficulty. Alas, it was not to be.

EPISODE 6

Very enjoyable episode. The super doctor Sagara stuck in a bind and the best part was Moriyama tempted to help out because he wanted to be able to diagnose something that Sagara could not. I'm loving his character more and more because his pride can be a source for good, comedy and he doesn't need to and shouldn't turn over a new leaf so to speak. Moriyama put his pride over sucking up to the magazine writer and I was laughing when he was struggling to put the x-rays back so no one finds out that he was looking at them all night.

I like the cause of Sagara's inability to diagnose. The cause is a nice way to challenge a super doctor without using mumbo-jumbo explanation, get Moriyama involved, do your usual feel good ending and get Miyabe out of the boring nurse uniform. Sagara uses the Top 100 surgeon report to great and funny effect on the doctors. Watching them all of a sudden act kindly to patients and staff while being mistakenly self aware that they are being observed is a hoot.

EPISODE 7

One episode away from the end and its sad when the members Team Moriyama blame each other for becoming more serious in their work because I would have loved to see a few more episodes of Sagara manipulating them. It was a signal that the story with the other doctors is done and its time for the main story.

I really like the main problem presented here because I would definitely agree with the father's stance. It is such a huge sacrifice and would lower his quality of life. No viewer can doubt what the ending will be but I hope it is not overly sentimental and will not ignore the negative consequences on the father's life. I'm happy that its an interesting moral dilemma that got me thinking.

Moriyama gets humiliated and I like how he is so aware of Sagara's manipulations. Moriyama is smart enough to know what is going on and he knows its a good thing but his pride will not let him accept it. That's what makes him a compelling character and I wish we have a few more episodes of Moriyama blowing his top as everything goes according to Sagara's plans and Moriyama being the one who knows what is happening. Like when he finally confronts Team Moriyama and asks them the obvious question of why they hang around him when he has not done anything for them. I like smart characters and smart but flawed character are even better.

Very sad that there's only one episode to go. I have a feeling that its not the usual 10 episodes because its not that easy writing schemes for Sagara to do. I'd rather a writer keep the episodes to whatever is necessary to tell the story than stretch and slow the story down.

Strawberry Night SP

2012-01-13T02:06:00.001+11:00

Takeuchi Yuko is back in doramas! Unfortunately, its a cop show and its not made by NHK or Wowow so I pretty much expected all the usual quirks that irritate me about jdorama cop shows. Still, its Takeuchi Yuko and its got a good supporting cast so I just had to check it out. She plays Himekawa, a female detective who rose quickly through the ranks and became head of her own team and Strawberry Night is the name of the case that this dorama special is about.

Yabe Kenzo!!!!!!

Like 99% of the crap police jdoramas, the main character is of course hated and abused by a lot of people for no reason although the main character is of course good at her job. We have your usual superior who doesn't contribute anything to the investigation except to get angry and shout at our main protagonist Himekawa every time she speaks. There's also the fact that she is a woman in a man's world but non of the characters articulate why they think a woman shouldn't be a detective. They just call Himekawa ojousan although she got to her position with her abilities.

Once I got past the usual cliches and telling of Himekawa's past which I thought was revealed too early and too blatantly, the main case itself is actually pretty good. I felt the flashback was broke the writing rule that it is better to show than to tell. They should have hinted with snippets of her past instead of spelling it out in black and white for the audience. The Strawberry Night case had some nice twist and turns and I was enjoying this special.

Kinpachi sensei!!!!

Then we got the villain reveal and it was debate time! Yes, the usual hero debating with villain with the villain of course acting like a lunatic and the heroine shouting 'you are wrong' blah blah blah. Not to forget the killer getting a bit of redemption as well. No idea what the dorama series is going to be about since the case is closed but I'm guessing there are other people involved in Strawberry Night and this time its going to take a whole season to solve.

Strawberry Night has the usual flaws of the non-Furusawa Ryota cop shows but the case itself is not as idiotic as Boss or Tokyo Dogs. Its more towards the gritty and realistic side which is a plus. Hopefully the dorama series will concentrate on making the case itself exciting instead of generating boring and meaningless conflict among the cops.

Jmovie review: Norwegian Wood

2012-01-11T02:06:00.000+11:00

I had read many good things about this movie long time ago but for some reason its taken me so long to get to watching it. Norwegian Wood tells the story about Toru (Matsuyama Kenichi) whose best friend commits suicide in high school. He changes school and while in university in Tokyo he runs into Naoko (Kikuchi Rinko), the girlfriend of Toru's deceased best friend and they start hanging out together. While Toru and Naoko are bound by the act of suicide, it seems like Naoka has yet to get over the past.

First of, the acting in Norwegian Wood is godlike. Kikuchi Rinko is awesome and should be the highest paid actress in Japan. There is a 5 minute one shot scene with her walking back and forth in the early morning which is one par with the hallway fight scene in Old Boy except there's no violence in it but heart wrenching emotional pain. Matsuyama Kenichi is good as well but he's not on that Abe Hiroshi able to elevate anything level. I'm not to hot on the story but the acting just kept me glued to the screen. Props to Hatsune Eriko as well as the suffering girlfriend of the playboy Nagasawa.

There was something about the directing that went above the usual jmovie stuff and surprise, it was directed by a French director of Vietnamese descent. What was shocking was it was the same director of 'I come with the rain', a pretentious arthouse style movie with some big names that tried to be something above convention but turned into a jumbled mess of nothing. Before I get to the spoiler stuff about why I didn't really get the story, I must reiterate that if you are a Jmovie fan, its worth watching for the acting alone.

SPOILERS DO NOT READ FURTHER ON

Norwegian Wood is basically guy (Toru) and girl (Naoko) have a traumatic experience, meet up later, fall in love but girl is mentally unstable from trauma. Guy is compelled to not abandon girl like his best friend did and at the same time is discovering sexuality. Guy meets another girl, Midori who like him has a lover she is unable to have sex with though for different reasons and they both hook up. Naoko reveals her guilt over Kizuki's suicide and in the end commits suicide herself. Toru in the end decides to hook up with Midori.

The storyline of course is not that simple. There are a lot of issues explored in the movie like what is love and what is devotion to a person to the point of disregarding self? The relationship between sex and love and all that stuff. Interesting stuff to be sure but somehow I felt that there was something missing in the narrative. Looked up the wiki for the novel it is based on and immediately saw what was missing.

According to the wiki, Midori is 'everything that Naoko is not — outgoing, vivacious, supremely self-confident.' Watching the movie, I never saw Midori as the opposite of Naoko. She was to me a distraction and a mirror image of Toru. Even more is missing from the movie: 'Reiko talks about her search for sexual identity, and Naoko talks about the unexpected suicide of her older sister several years ago.' WTF isn't this in the movie? I can think of lots of things to cut out or they could have added 10 minutes to the running time.

Here's more: 'Now back in Tokyo, Toru unintentionally alienates Midori through both his lack of consideration of her wants and needs, and his continuing thoughts about Naoko. He writes a letter to Reiko, asking for her advice about his conflicted affections for both Naoko and Midori. He doesn't want to hurt Naoko, but he doesn't want to lose Midori either. Reiko counsels him to seize this chance for happiness and see how his relationship with Midori turns out.'

WTF is the Toru alienating Midori bit. There's only this scene at a bar where he sort of rejects her request for sex. If anything, the movie is more about Toru trying to call Midori after that and she not answering the phone and ignoring him in public.

Reading the novel summary, I can see what the story was supposed to be about. Naoko vs Midori. Naoko the troubled girl that Toru is compelled/obligated to protect and Midori this confident girl who has problems of her own but she is able to face them head on. The movie gave me Naoko as a very nice but mentally damaged girl and Midori as someone who is doing to Toru what he is doing to Naoko. The Midori in the movie doesn't strike me as 'outgoing, vivacious, supremely self-confident'. She sort of is but not in a way that made me think, ah, she's the other side of coin compared to Naoko.

I'm bloody tempted to get the book and have a read. The summary in the wiki and the movie I saw are different in their points of emphasis. Perhaps this is one of those movies that I will never understand like No Country for Old Man. However, until I read the book I can never be sure.

Jmovie review: Scabbard Samurai

2012-01-09T00:20:00.000+11:00

Scabbard Samurai starts off with this samurai, Nomi who only has a scabbard and no katana on the run with his daughter. My first thoughts were is this going to be a lone wolf and cub type movie? I quickly realised it was not when Nomi runs across his first assassin and gets slashed in the back before running off. The daughter, played by the little girl from Runaway nurses his wounds by grinding plants together and applying on his wound.

Nori the scabbard samurai runs into two other assassins and gets shot in the head and his neck snapped before once again running away. Ok, now I know for sure this not a realistic samurai movie. Comedy, perhaps? Nori gets captured and has 30 days to make the son of the lord laugh or else he has to commit seppuku. Ok, now we're getting into the gist of the movie.

Samurai without a sword and his daughter have 30 chances to make this comatose-like young lord laugh or else he's dead. Throw in two guards who get caught up with helping Nori and you have the makings of an interesting comedy. I like the humour in Scabbard Samurai. Of course there's a lot of slapstick with Nori's attempts but the funny thing is how they come up with the jokes and the guards blaming each other when they fail.

Nori attempts a lot of crazy stunts, some of which require turning off your brain but without realising it, this movie really endeared me to this silent samurai and his smart daughter. Behind the 30 attempts to make the young lord laugh is a father and daughter story where the daughter does all the talking. Thank goodness the daughter is not too smart like in Runaway or maybe its just the absense of idiots in this movie that makes her stick out like a sore thumb.

Scabbard Samurai is one of those rare crowd pleasing movies that touches the audience without being overly manipulative. Its been a while since I've watched a Japanese movie this good. I guarantee that you will laugh, you will cry and you will definitely remember this gem of a movie.

Arakawa under the Bridge eps 1-3

2012-01-05T01:41:00.000+11:00

Arakawa is a very weird, fourth wall breaking dorama based on a manga. Riku, our main protagonist is a rich guy who's motto in life is to never be in debt to anyone. His life is saved by this girl Nino who claims to be from Venus and he has to live with her under the bridge.

This mysterious village is populate by strange characters lead by the kappa played by an unrecognisable Oguri Shun. Nacchi is in it playing an orange headed character and we've got a dudes dressed in nun outfits, bird costumes and starfish heads.

I like weird shows but the first 3 episodes of Arakawa are neither interesting nor funny. Its just weird for the sake of being weird. No interesting characters to latch on to. Characters doing activities that have no meaning like building rockets out of bottles. I just don't get this show.

Its clearly:

1) Not a comedy. I didn't even get one chuckle from 3 episodes.

2) A slice of life show in a commune filled with characters that don't make sense. If I'm not suppose to use my brain and its not funny, what am I watching for?

3) Has no main story to look forward to.

Possibly Arakawa could get better. Since the manga was made into an anime there has to be something worth watching for. Unfortunately, I didn't find anything enjoyable about the first 3 episodes and there's no compulsion for me to continue.

Jmovie review: Documentary of AKB48 to be continued

2012-01-03T01:02:00.001+11:00

I remember reading about this movie showing in Japanese cinemas some time ago and I believe they've got a part 2 that's coming out soon. If you follow Japanese pop culture, there's no escaping AKB48. Somehow they've worked their way from a niche otaku idol group to exploding all over the country and showing up in everything. I don't think Morning Musume back in 99 was even that big.

My knowledge of AKB48 consisted of listening to their early very suggestive songs ,playing the two PSP games and watching them in doramas so I went into the movie withsome knowledge of who they are but not their personalities since I haven't watched Japanese variety shows since the good old days of Momusu on Utaban and Hello Morning. The PSP games did provide me with more information such as who liked anime and who had a famous father but its acting for a dating sim.

I was hoping to get the answer to why A-chan is the most popular girl of the group.

So Documentary of AKB48 starts of with the main girls eating around the table, having a conversation and the camera rotating around them. Tells me nothing about who they are and what they do and the too scripted nature of the introduction is boring. Then we get right to a short clip of the main girls miming, I mean performing before showing the girls very excited at the 2009 Kohaku and then distributing heat packs to fans lined outside the AKB theatre a happy new year on new years day. That's interesting because what makes them different is that they're a more accessible idoru group.

Then the documentary takes a turn for the worse by doing various interviews with certain cast members talking about nothing. There's plenty of crying and stuff about members changing groups but I was just fucking bored because they is no good damn narrative. Whoever made this documentary had no fucking idea how to make one. If someone who had no idea WTF AKB48 was they would be even more lost than me and would probably fall asleep thinking why should are care about these girls when it doesn't introduce them to me and tell me what they do?

Not that there's no introduction. The documentary shows their names, which generation they are from but asks them fluffy questions that fans probably know the answers for. Why not bloody start with the main girls talking about how they started and how they worked for years as an indy group? How the group is different in that the fans get to interact with them a lot and how often they have to perform. Documentary of AKB48 lacks a starting point to hook the viewer in and then meanders around having no idea what to impart of the audience.

As can be seen from the screencaps, Documentary of AKB48 looks bloody gorgeous but someone forgot to spend money and hire an editor who could make sense of the footage. Avoid it like the plague. Documentary of AKB48 is a marketing tool that for some reason only markets itself to the most hardcore of fans.

Doctors Saikyou no Meii ep 4

2011-12-30T02:08:00.001+11:00

I love Moriyama's expression going from wtf are they all greeting me to this is bloody troublesome.

Writing about bad doramas is easy, just make fun of how bad it is but there's always that strong feeling of anger and frustration that lingers cause you sort of have to experience it twice. Writing about pedestrian doramas is hard because you can never be sure what's missing, only what you had hoped to see. Writing about well written doramas is a joy because the thoughts come to you when you're watching. Its just a matter of organising it.

After the events of ep 3, we can see the effects of the operation on Moriyama-sensei. People think him a great doctor and the nurses all greet him and he begrudgingly greets them back. A great change from ep 1 when the doctors would not greet the nurses. The theme for this episode is pride, specifically Moriyama's pride. He may be a childish but he has skills and pride and for once Moriyama has actually done something to be proud of. Manipulation of Moriyama's pride is the key to motivate him or use him like the sales rep.

Moriyama and gang reveling in their 'victory'.

I love the scene where Sagara gets into an argument with Moriyama and lets him win. His rational is that winning an argument will not change people's minds. His method is to make people change their own minds not be winning them to his side but by letting them experience what they could be. Moriyama is becoming a better doctor after episode 3. He takes his young patient seriously and even does some reading the night before the operation.

Success and praise has made Moriyama feel more responsible. Its gives him a feeling that he can make a difference. We also get another funny scene with Minagawa sensei appealing to his pride to help him connect with the patient. The whole team thing in episode 3 was also a message to Minagawa to trust that the other doctors would respond to the trust. I hope Moriyama never goes to the 'good side'. His character of being childish and vindictive towards Sagara should not change. He can become a good doctor while still being himself.

This episode really shows the purpose of Moriyama sensei and that he is a cartoon character not because jdoramas always like their villains to be non-threatening, overacting caricatures but because it makes Sagara sensei's manipulations more fun and makes Moriyama sensei great comedy relief. I can't believe he has turned into an enjoyable character! I dare say that Moriyama probably knows he is being manipulated but his pride will never let him admit it.

The other element of episode 4 is the story of the two patients, a middle school student from an elite school and a homeless man and how they are connected. I like how the story addresses two things that we don't see often in jdoramas; firstly that no one wants to be homeless and the pressure of living life as a Todai graduate/elite. Episode 4 doesn't go into the issues great detail but I thought the script deals with it very succinctly and beautifully.

Looks like episode 5 is going to be about the nurses vs doctors and there's a bit of foreshadowing with one of the doctors saying that the nurses are complaining their workload has increased since the hospital started taking emergency patients. I for one cannot wait for Nutcase's subs for the next episode.

Jmovie review: Hana no Ato/After the Flowers

2011-12-28T00:36:00.000+11:00

Hana no Ato is a film in the same vein as the three movies in the Yamada Yoji trilogy; a study of the lives and customs in feudal Japan with a slow build up to a fight in the end. The only difference is that the main protagonist this time is a female, Ito played by Kitagawa Keiko. Ito is the daughter of someone of high rank and has been trained in swordplay by her father. Ito is so good that she managed to beat the best fighters from Hagai dojo.

While sakura-watching, Ito meets a samurai from Hagai dojo, Eguchi who recognises her as a swordfighter and proposes a practice match. After the match, the movie is basically about the situations that Ito and Eguchi finds themselves in and the clan politics that influence their lives. Its an examination of feudal life and how everyday behaviour is regulated from closing and opening shoji doors to how people speak and never say anything directly.

The story is enlivened by Ito's fiancee, Katagiri a glutton who is not as carefree and ignorant as he seems. Komoto Masahiro always plays sad characters who experience tragedies in doramas so this smiling fiancee who is a lot smarter than he looks fits him perfectly. Eguchi has a fiancee as well, played by Ito Ayumi and the two loverbirds can only look at each other from afar knowing that life decisions had already been made for them.

Being the female version of Twilight Samurai and The Hidden Blade, Hana no Ato is not as gritty. The two fight scenes are more fanciful and not as desperate. There's a more sanitised feel with less blood. Enjoyment of the movie will depend on how much the viewer buys into Ito's motivation for the final fight.

Hana no Ato has all the elements that made me love Twilight Samurai and The Hidden Blade but I just didn't enjoy as much. I think it has much to do with the lack of chemistry between Ito and Eguchi, especially with their relationship being based on one fight. Still, the script has gives the viewers more reason why he is important to her. I wouldn't call Hana no Ato must watch but its definitely a pretty decent movie and is definitely better than Love and Honour.

Kmovie review: Blind

2011-12-26T04:50:00.000+11:00

Haven't done a kmovie review in a long while, not that I haven't been watching Kmovies but that they have been pretty meh. No one does black comedy like Koreans especially Park Chang Wook but what I have been watching usually has a lot of gore (usually involving serial killers and violence against women), slick production but ultimately not emotionally engaging. I avoid Korean rom-coms like the plague.

Blind is about this former police cadet Min Soo-Ah who gets involved in an accident with her foster brother where he dies and she loses her sight. Soo-Ah is expelled from the police academy and in the beginning of the show we have her wallowing in her guilt and we find out that she and her brother were actually from an orphanage.

One night, Soo-Ah gets in a taxi which gets involved in a hit and run. Soo-Ah makes a police report but the police are reluctant to entertain her. They assign Detective Jo to interview Soo-Ah and she shows him that although she is blind, she is able to discern clues about the hit and run taxi driver through her other senses. What follows is the best part of the show, cop and blind former cadet trying to chase leads and find the taxi driver. Someone should make a tv series out of this concept because it is an interesting hook. How does one locate a person when all the clues are non visual?

We are then introduced to the third main character, a young kid who claims to have seen the hit and run. I won't spoil any more but suffice to say, there is a very awesome chase sequence in the middle of the movie involving mobile phones that is so gripping. The writer really used the blindness of the main character to create great suspense like the villain being able to get close to Soo-Ah without her realising it.

What I don't like about Blind is that it is very uneven. There is the sentimental sob story about Soo-Ah, her brother and the kid. There is the fun investigation part leading up to serial killer suspense. Guess which part doesn't really fit? I'm not against the story of Soo-Ah's tragedy and the kid. My complaint is that its done in such a way that its like a completely different movie to the point of marginalising the character of Detective Jo.

The climax has this sort of flashback that tries so hard to tie it back to Soo-Ah's tragedy that it completely destroys the suspense. I understand that it is the give Soo-Ah a character arch but there are more subtle ways to go about it. Its like I'm watching two movies view for screen time; a suspense movie and a movie about grief. Problem is both get equal time and the script doesn't feel as tight as it should be.

Blind is not must watch but is certainly watchable. I mostly recommend Blind for the subway chase sequence which had such a awesome ending that it was obvious the final ending would never match it. Whoever thought the Koreans would do a movie about a blind girl that is not an overly sentimental love drama.

Doctors saikyou no meii ep 2+3

2011-12-22T01:20:00.001+11:00

This dorama bloody kicks ass. Ep 2 has two components. First is Sagara trying to teach this stock trading obsessed doctor how to take pride in his work. Sagara does this by making the stock doctor participate in a diagnosis discussion although Sagara already knew the disease and getting the doctor to participate in the operation. Its bloody brilliant, someone trying to make a point without resorting to preaching/shouting/crying like in most doramas.

Sagara makes his point by manipulating the subject to do what Sagara wants them to do and its up to them whether they want to take something out of it. Brilliant. The best part is the stock trader doctor doesn't magically turn over a new leaf. People don't change so easily but for one episode he was able to have pride in his work and forget about stock watching.

The second component of ep 3 is Sagara trying to convince Minagawa-sensei not to leave. He reveals his plan to her in the hope that she would decide to be his comrade in arms and after she rejects it, he has to resort to some underhanded tactics. A protagonist making hard decisions, questioning himself and ultimately deciding that the ends justifies the means. Stuff like this just brings a smile to my face.

Haven't seen her since the Attention Please special.

Ep 3 surprisingly deals with Sagara-sensei's past. Usually in doramas, they leave the character confronting their past near the end but there's a very good reason why it occurs so early in this show. Suguru-chan finds out about Sagara and delights in tormenting him because he realises that Sagara cannot perform the operation. Sagara knows that Suguru only consented to be head of the team to spite Sagara and he devices a way to ensure that Suguru goes through with it.

This scene is just stupid funny, especially when he closes his eyes.

One thought that popped into my head is that Sagara is like an adult trying to deal with a bunch of spoiled kids by manipulating them. Its like a kindergarten teacher trying to teach kids about life lessons by getting them to do stuff and not merely preaching. Perhaps that's why the villains overact and act like kids.

And there is a nice reveal/twist about why Sagara didn't do the operation himself and instead wanted Suguru. The revelation is done matter of factly but it is just bloody brilliant. The fact that Sagara's past has been turned into a mere plot device shows that the writer has bigger fish to fry which is slowly turn the hospital and the staff around. The fact that stock trader doctor has not turned good means that this is not a formulaic one character gets an epiphany per episode dorama.

Guess what else the writer Fukuda Yasushi wrote? Suspect X., Midnight Rain and Wonderful Life. Not impressed with Hero, Galileo and 20th Century Boys Movies but Doctors clearly show he is very good. He is able to take a genre that has been done so many times and put an new and intelligent spin on it. There seems to be a drop off of nearly 300 sub downloads from episode 1 to 2. Either people are unable to recognise how smart the writing is or they realised that there are no johnnys in this show.

Kare, Otto, Otoko Tomodachi eps 1+2

2011-12-19T01:55:00.000+11:00

With a title like that, you can bet your savings that Kare, Otto, Otoko Tomodachi is a female ensemble dorama about relationships. Normally I would avoid such doramas after getting sick of Renai Dekinai but finding rare gems is what makes putting up with crappy shows worthwhile. In a nutshell, this dorama is about 3 sisters. Older sister is married to Santamaria Yusuke and they have a very weird and non-genuine relationship which reminds me of Sono Sion's Guilty of Romance. Eg, husband doesn't like tv so wife doesn't watch tv.

The second sister is independent and in a relationship with a reporter who goes off to the middle east. Second sister is probably the most 'real' and interesting character. She's a sexual being who knows what she wants and has more personality than all three women in Renai Dekinai combined. The running gag about her junior seeing her getting sexually harassed and hearing her phone call about sex is funny.

The writer is not afraid to put in a female character who likes sex for sex. Contrast with the fairy-tale approach of Renai Dekinai with Yoshitaka Yuriko character having all that sex but is void of emotion. Whatever happened to lust and the physical pleasure part of it? Needless to say, second sister is my favourite and I love her response to getting proposed.

The third sister played by Kaho is the weird one of the bunch. She's sort of detached in that she sees things and people from afar and has a grudge against her father. The youngest sister sees relationships as a necessary evil in order to fulfill her function of procreation. There's a character you don't see every dorama. There's also a mystery about her and a homeless dude. I don't know where her story is going except for her father issues but I want to see what the writer can do with her.

The one thing that really got me was the whole unreality of the first sister's marriage in contrast to the other two sisters who are interesting and seem like genuine people. The whole housewife who has no life apart from her husband and is dutiful despite the lack of care shtick has been played out so many times in jdoramas that it belongs in the same jdorama world as Renai Dekinai while the two sisters seem to come from our world. However, it does pay off at the end of ep 1.

In ensemble doramas, characters have to start as as their easily defined or cliched roles. This is byproduct of the fact that there is not enough time to delve into each character. The audience has to be able to watch a scene and get the character. The important thing is whether the characters grow outside their cliches and whether the dorama tries to bring them on an interesting journey.

Story wise, the first two episodes have good cliffhangers and I am excited about the fourth episode which is titled dad's secret. I watched two episodes without skipping any scenes so its certainly good but I am hesitant to say its must watch until I can be sure its not headed into mediocrity. It certainly shows promise and has the foundation to rise above the usual boring jdoramas.

Fall jdorama 2011 pt 2

2011-12-17T12:07:00.002+11:00

There were a lot of comments on the previous post so I thought better to do my reply as a post than in the comments section since there's so much to say.

Nankyoku Tairiku

Haven't watched it because of KimuTaku. Karei naru Ichizoku showed clearly what a fraud he is or how stupid the powers that be were. His character in Karei naru wasn't the main character and was obviously an idealistic idiot but was portrayed as this cool hero because he was Kimutaku. He somehow is unable or is not allowed to play an everyman. If you watch Love and Honour/Bushi no Ichibun, its clear that the only character Kimutaku can play is Kimutaku. Its as if there is an edict whereby he must have wind blowing in his face and rising orchestral music when he's giving a lame speech.

Change, Mr Brain and Tsuki no Koibito turned out to be horrible. I think I had exorcised Tsuki no Koibito from my memory until I looked up KimuTaku's wiki for this post. All three built around his superstar status. It works for cheesy stuff like Pride where its all about macho, cool and hot girls. If you want to do a story about normal people against the elements, I would get a good actor who the producers felt they didn't need to overpush. Jt and jadefrost's comments have convinced me to never watch it.

Boku no Star no 99 Nichi

What I meant by idol pushing is basically a blatant dorama to promote foreign stars, see Rondo, Tsuki no Koibito and Uso Koi. I'm guessing the girl is an accomplished actress is crying melodrama and the guy is some dancer/singer dude. Fact is, the concept of Boku no star probably come up like this (translated in English):

Producer 1: Hey, we've got an offer to do a Kim Tae Hee dorama. She wants to jump on the Korean wave bandwagon in Japan and get a piece of the pie.

Producer 2: Sugoi! I've got the perfect idea. She'll be a Korean star acting in a jdorama playing a Korean star acting in a jdorama! We'll make her a tsundere because all Korean girls in rom coms post My Sassy Girl are tsundere and Japanese guys love Asuka Langley Soryu.

Producer 1: Good idea! Who do we get as the male lead? How about Nishijima Hidetoshi? He's been in so many doramas and movies, can act and we don't have to pay him much because he's not on variety shows. Gwahahahaha. That's what I love about Japan! Fame and salary is dictated by tv time and commercials, not by acting ability. Even better news, we have to push this other Korean singer as well.

Producer 2: No problem. We'll just make him the long lost brother and give him a lot of blatant dance scenes to promote him. We'll need to make the sister of our bumbling hero a dancer as well to justify the dance scenes.

I think Jadefrost summed up why Boku no Star doesn't work in her comments. Any chance of Pandora 3 subs? Jung, let's not crucify JC. I'm more interested in what he likes about Boku no Star.

11 Nin mo iru!

No interest in another family dorama, especially with 11 people (WTF?) unless someone tells me the writing is pretty good like Aikurushii. Wait, its by the writer of Tiger & Dragon and Manhattan Love Story? Thanks for the heads up Yuzu!

Maiku: Permanent Nobara has been sitting in my HD for a while. Just need to find the time.

Sonaaaaaa~: When I was unemployed many years ago, I ended up rewatching all my jdoramas. Good luck job hunting!

Fall 2011 jdorama round up

2011-12-15T01:37:00.000+11:00

Only two shows worth watching this season; Shinya Shokudo 2 and Doctors. So what about the rest of the fall lineup?

BITTER SUGAR 1-3

Another female ensemble mid life crisis dorama ala Yottsu no Uso. Gave it 3 episodes but its so generic I feel like I've seen it many times before.

BOKU NO STAR NO 99 NICHI 1-3

This show makes me want to rewatch Staa no Koi because Boku no Star is so bad that it makes Staa no Koi seem so good. Staa no Koi had charm and Boku no Star is just a souless beast. Its not even remotely funny and the forced brother storyline with the dancing scene in ep 3 just killed it for me. How much more blatant can idol pushing doramas get? Do it with a majisuka low budget midnight dorama, not waste a prime time slot and tons of money.

MITSU NO AJI 1-9

Its gone from a niece vs wife dorama to secret operation story to psychotic ex boyfriend story. Kanno Miho is still the main villain but I enjoy watching evil Hachi-one Diver. I'll like to see him become more evil than Kanno Miho. There's nothing really bad about this but I do skim the series more than watching it.

KASEIFU NO MITA 1-7

How the hell is this POS show getting 20%? Does Matsushima Nanako possess so much star power or are Japanese audiences enjoying this? I stuck around cause the writer has written so many good shows and I was hoping it would get better but the build up to the supposedly emotional scene at the end of ep 7 is so freaking bad that Hasegawa Hiroki performance looked like it belonged on a 2pm soap opera.

The writer was trying to build up to the father breaking down but all this dorama is are people doing stupid things. The definition of stupid is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. The bloody kids and dad know asking Mita for favours always ends in disaster but the characters ignore the simple fact completely and never get into a fix where there is no other choice but to play with fire and get Mita to help.

RUNAWAY 1-4

There is a limit to things I can turn my brain off to. Runaway is an affront to all that is logical.

WATASHI GA RENAI DEKINAI RIYUU 1-7

How quickly it went from tolerable show with lots of eye candy to I can't believe how contrived everything is.

DOCTORS Saikyou no Meii ep 1

2011-12-11T06:51:00.001+11:00

Looks like we won't be seeing the next subs for Suzuki sensei from Chuks until end of Jan next year and I'm waiting for ep 6 subs of Shinya Shokudo from earthcolors. It seemed a bad time for jdoramas at the moment until Nutcase released ep 1 subs for Doctors. On the surface. Doctors seems like another GTO style medical show. Corrupt hospital with with totally inept doctors and of course the usual useless directors. Where nurses down before the almighty doctors, where patient care is non-existent and doctors and staff only care about getting paid extravagantly from the budget.

Along comes this smiling surgeon Sagara-sensei (Sawamura Ikki) who had worked 12 years at Tokyo Medical University but is unknown because he had not written any papers. Sagara sensei drives a simple car and gives ningyo yaki to the staff on his first day. My first thoughts were not another Mr Nice Guy idealistic protagonist! However, there are moments when Sagara sensei lets his smiling face down and its obvious that not only there's a serious person behind the face but also that he is thinking.

Sounds stupid doesn't it. Praising a dorama for having a thinking character but what did Asada Ryutaro think about besides perform his miracle operations? GTO basically acted cool and just lucked his way into solving his problems, not that it wasn't entertaining. The best scene was when the nurse Higa Manami told Sagara that he needed the director's approval for an operation and he looked at her with a serious smile and said, "that's a load of crap".

Its funny how watching this smiling doctor who is not afraid to speak his mind and knows what he is doing politically just makes me happy. We don't get characters like this too often. Most of the time, if a character likes to speak his/her mind, the person is depicted as brash and does not know behavioural protocol. I guess this has to do with Japanese as a language where politeness is important and telling people no without saying it outright is the norm.

Back to the thinking point, yes Sagara sensei has a plan or rather knows what he is doing by pissing the other doctors off. At the end of ep 1, its clear that not only is he a super surgeon, he knows how to manipulate people. Doctors wastes no time in revealing Sagara's past and his reasons for acting the way he does and I think its pretty cool.

Come to think of it, the main protoganists in jdoramas are usually simple people who do not scheme. Scheming and manipulating people is usually for the antagonist and bad characters. The hero beats the schemes but being good at what they do and somehow turns everyone into good guys.

I am obviously the bad guy cause I hate Hitler hair!

Right now I have nothing bad to say about Doctors. Usually I hate the everyone else in an organisation is useless bit but I want to see what Sagara-sensei will do about it. The only danger is overacting evil doctors but so far the overacting has not yet offended my senses.

Matsui Jurina 2011 calender

2011-12-09T06:04:00.001+11:00

Got this shipped from yesasia and they did not put in in a cylinder! Thanks for putting it in a long box that was obviously crushed on the way here. Don't think there's any way to remove those folds.

Zzzzz, boring. The only way ping pong and yutaka can work is with cleavage. Since Jurina is jailbait so they shouldn't have attempted this shot in the first place. On the other hand, that didn't stop Irie Sayaa.

I like this one. Akimoto sensei should pair Jurina up with Itano Tomomi can call them ahiru guchi. The best pic in the calender.

Boring. Don't see the point of doing a collage.

So much better.

First time I've ever had a calender where the idoru wears the same clothes twice. Shows that they made it for cheap. Most of the pictures are bland and boring. They have mute colours, no depth and look very amateurish. Compare this crap with the awesome Mano Erina 2011 calender. Kinda makes me wish I had taken a punt on the Kurashina Kana calender.

Incomplete subbed jdoramas.

2011-12-07T03:34:00.001+11:00

Aibou season 9. 2 eps subbed.

Its got 9 seasons so it must be good, right? Last sub was released in March 2011. Haven't watched it yet but will probably try the two eps to see whether it is more than your generic Japanese boring cop series.

853: Detective Kamo Shinnosuke. 4 eps subbed.

I wrote a bit about eps 1 and 2 here. Frankly, its a pretty bad show and I have no idea how it managed to average 10% ratings.

Dandy Daddy. 3 eps subbed.

Last news was that Renai fansub was picking this up but that was in September. Will probably finish it raw since its stupid fun.

Madonna Verde. 4 eps subbed.

Sadly last update was in September. I really like this show. Its very different and I'm glad that Kuninaka Ryoko is playing a despicable character who is more rounded. Will definitely finish it regardless of subs.

Pro Golfer Hana. 6 eps subbed.

The coach is bloody hilarious but the rest of it is run of the mill. Last sub was ages ago. I'll definitely try to finish it raw but the jokes might be impossible to understand with my limited Japanese.

Tomehane. 2 eps subbed.

You don't see doramas about calligraphy everyday but I don't have any desire to watch it raw since its pretty mediocre and has lots of difficult words.

Last Present. 1 ep hardsubbed.

On my to watch list. Its got Amami Yuki, Nagasaku Hiromi and Fukuda Mayuko. Should be pretty easy to watch raw.

Room of king. 6 eps subbed.

I dropped it after 4 episodes.

Jmovie review: Guilty of Romance/Koi no Tsumi

2011-12-05T01:29:00.001+11:00

Sono Sion is turning out to be my favourite Japanese director ever since his incredible Love Exposure. What's more amazing is that he writes his movies and unlike Miike Takeshi, the quality of his movies is always consistently good. Guilty of Romance starts of with Mizuno Miki as a cop who gets called into a murder crime scene. A woman has been murders and her parts have been joined to two mannequins. Do not eat when watching this movie.

Mizuno Miki may get top billing in this movie because of her name but her role is very limited. The movie goes back in time and introduces the audience to Izumi (Kagurazaka Megumi) a housewife married to a famous novelist. They have a very sterile and shallow relationship. Izumi's husband wakes up everyday at 7 to go to work and comes back at exactly 9 every night and they never eat together. Izumi is expected to line up his slippers neatly next to his bed when he wakes up and in front of the door when he returns home. She has to makes his coffee just right and but his specific brand of soap.

Its pretty much a staid maid/master relationship where no conversation of importance happens. Izumi has trouble sleeping, feeling something is missing and needing to do something starts working at a supermarket. She has no confidence in herself and has trouble drawing the attention of shoppers when she meets this woman who offers her a modeling job which turns out to be an AV shoot.

I won't spoil the rest of the story but suffice to say there is a lot of Sono Sion character development, sex, weird scenes and beautiful and slow climaxes (literally and figuratively) set to beautiful music. Unlike Cold Fish which was a hybrid of Korean style dark humour murder movie, Guilty of Romance is more like a companion piece to Love Exposure. We get to see the movie from two characters' point of view and then it all comes together for the end. Well, two and a half characters if you include Izumi's husband where is character traits and history is more implied.

There is even a scene reminiscent of the beach scene in Love Exposure where Mitsushima Hikari goes on a long bible quote. Similarly with Love Exposure and Cold Fish, Guilty of Romance deals with oppression but in this one its oppression of living lives where words don't really mean anything. The movie can feel like a retread but goddamit, only Sono Sion can make it so fun. The movie also delves into duality of lives but to so more would spoil the movie.

Guilty of Romance is not the masterpiece that is Love Exposure but its a pretty awesome companion movie that makes me wonder whether Sono Sion sees them as related. Definitely a movie not to be missed.

Shinya Shokudo ep 4

2011-12-01T05:12:00.001+11:00

It is pretty sad that season 2 of Shinya Shokudo is not only the best but probably the only decent subbed jdorama this season, besides Last Money. I really like ep 4. Its a cheesy story about a struggling bento-ya Masashi who meets this prostitute Ikumi (Ito Ayumi who I last saw in Solanin) but its executed in such a masterful way that I just have to tip my hat to the writer.

Episode is an exercise of telling a simple story effectively in 20 minutes. With a few lines out dialogue to the other customers, Masashi gets to introduce himself to the audience, tell us a bit about his history and this exposition is invisible because he does it in the process of complaining about his new colleague. The dialogue is natural and before the audience even blinks, they know who this character Masashi is and what he does.

I like the cameo from the kara-age girl.

Next, we have Ikumi coming into the diner and master telling the audience that Ikumi's choice of food is nikogori, which is hardened fish stock on rice. Masashi seems interested in Ikumi and then we get our romantic jdorama scene of Ikumi helping Masashi out at his bento shop. He buys her dinner as thanks, confesses and gets turned down because she already has a boyfriend.

I won't list of every scene but basically every shot in episode 4 had a purpose or two. For example the scene establishing that Masashi can't forget Ikumi as he eats nikogori at the diner while Rumi talks to two other patrons about her confidence and strong sense of self worth while the two chide that her new love interest is only buttering her up. A short scene that establishes Masashi's turmoil after he learns the truth and Rumi chatter implies the issues that nag at Masahi and Ikumi's thoughts.

Gotta love that scene after Ikumi declares to the master that she is going to graduate and wonders whether she can return to her original self. We had Ikumi scrubbing down the inflatable bed with the awesome sad music playing in the background and no stupid sign telling the audience what a great metaphor it was. *cough* Renai Dekinai *cough*

The last scene I want to talk about is the scene where Ikumi was hesitant about Masashi's proposal and he reiterates that it would be ok as she has broken up with her boyfriend. I love Ikumi's slow look of realisation that Masashi might know what her boyfriend was and then he gives her a nod. Beauty in simplicity. No need to spell everything out to the audience. No time fillers and useless characters that are there to push an idoru. Simple story told magnificently.

Hatsune Miku append figure

2011-11-29T23:35:00.001+11:00

I remember seeing this image during my first trip to Japan and thinking I've got to get this if they ever make a figure out of it!

Its been a long wait waiting for this. Preorders opened right after my second trip this year.

And.... it looks bad from the front...

and worse from a lower angle.

Looks brilliant from a 45 degree angle...

and from the side.

Back view.

I need to place it someplace lower but I'm so afraid of that protruding part of her top snapping if it falls.

Looks good from this angle which I only get if I'm standing. Look at all that dust. If I won the lottery and could afford my own place, I would buy glass cabinets to house my figures and never have to worry about dusting again.

Kind of disappointed that Miku Append only looks good from certain angles. My favourite Miku figure so far has to be the World is Mine figure. Now I've got to resist temptation to buy the Love is War figure...

Watashi ga renai dekinai riyuu eps 3-6

2011-11-27T20:32:00.001+11:00

EPISODE 4

The fourth episode is written as if a child suddenly discovered what a metaphor was and decided to litter a whole episode with it thinking what a genius the writer was. Not only did episode 4 have 101 words of dialogue mentioning wounds and how to heal them, the writer decided it would be a good idea to attack a flashing neon light pointing to the inspired genius of having the peeled paint as a metaphor for the girls' wounds and have them paint over it in the end as a symbolic ceremony of overstatement.

In other words, episode 4 is like beating a dead horse with another dead horse. Someone forgot to tell the writer that metaphors are supposed to be subtle, its existence never declared but felt by the viewer. By non-stop hammering a nail that had already gone in through a whole episode, the metaphor had ceased to be one and every ounce of dialogue became unnatural with the purpose of cramming a single point down the viewer's throat.

KARINA'S STORY

I remember reading at Tokyohive that this is a true to life dorama about women. Yet, here we are with a story featuring a poor light technician having difficulty marrying the wealthy daughter of doctor because.... *drum roll* the father wants a son-in-law doctor to take over the clinic and says the daughter can never be happy marrying a non-elite. Hhhhmm, something doesn't smell true to life to me. Did I somehow miss the fact that this dorama is set in the 1980s or perhaps I am ignorant as to the fact that such real life issues plague the poor women of Japan today.

SAKI'S STORY

Best character and best storyline of the series. The whole thing makes too much sense and doesn't play out like a soap opera. *cough* Karina *cough* Takumi has been married to this successful woman, Izumi and is dependent on her for his business to survive. They have a living arrangement where for her, job is no.1. Basically they are not in a relationship of need or rather he needs her for to get more work.

Suddenly Izumi turns around and decides by herself that she suddenly wants to take on a huge mortgage and the financial millstone which are kids. So Takumi, who has been living his life perfectly fine is like 'wtf do you want from me??!!!. I've lived my life according to your whims and suddenly you change them at the drop of a hat.'

So Takumi meets Saki (Yoshitaka Yuriko), a lovely angel who tempts the stoutest of hearts but more importantly there is a relationship of need. He is able to counsel and encourage Saki and that makes Takumi feel more alive than his drab life with Izumi. They somehow connect on their similar desires to escape their current life.

Now that Takumi has found out that he's shooting blanks, he cleverly uses it as a sob story on Saki and he has got the perfect reason to break up with Izumi. For the love of all that is holy, please do not let this end in the everyone goes their separate ways and proclaim that they have become stronger ending.

OSHIMA YUKO'S STORY

She feels less like a character and more like random plot stories that the writer wants to use. Sister sleeps with colleague that Yuko likes and then she gets involved with this possessive guy that she tries too hard to please. Yuko complains that she doesn't feel anything but pain during sex and the only counsel Karina and Saki have is 'have you told him?'. I was waiting for 'maybe you should try using lubricants' or 'you sure he's going in the right hole?'.

Runaway ~Aisuru Kimi no Tame ni~ eps 1+2

2011-11-23T01:22:00.001+11:00

I was going to skip this because a fugitive dorama with the tag 'aisuru kimi no tame ni' fills me with dread that it would be a dorama with excessive effort trying to manufacture warm and fuzzy fillings. Off the top of my head I can only recall two fugitive type doramas; Tobosha which was good except for Abe Hiroshi's character's constant posturing and Tobo Bengoshi which was so ineptly written. Jung said that Runaway was fun so what have I got to lose?

That girl does not look Japanese...

Runaway is a fugitive dorama and the tag line refers to Katsuragi (Ichihara Hayato) who escapes prison with 3 of his mates because his daughter is dying and needs lots of money to get an organ transplant. After watching the first episode, the final twist of the dorama is very obvious to me. Anyone with decent eyesight can see that his daughter is clearly Eurasian and with the mom being Fukuda Saki and Ichihara does not look like a gaijin, its obvious that he ending will be him finding out after running for 10 or so episodes that he is not the dad.

On a more serious note, Runaway is indeed fun. Considering the lack of qualities among action jdoramas, Runaway is impressive with lots of chase sequences including probably the first decent car chase scene I can remember watching. I'm impressed that they managed to do car chase despite the obvious lack of time and budget. However, there are a few warning signs that tell me this dorama could easily fall apart.

Cops going to open cargo door where fugitives might be hiding. A row of cops behind the two main cops with full SWAT gear and semi-autos while the two cops opening the cargo door are wearing suits and carrying pistols.....

First is that this group of fugitives get spotted way too often by the cops and somehow the next scene they manage to evade them. I would imagine running away from a bunch of policemen is very, very difficult unless all of them look like they eat 20 doughnuts everday. With like 5 or 6 close encounter scenes in two episodes, Runaway is really stretching the boundaries of believability here. Chalk it up to the fallings of the fugitive genre in that the writer has to find time for the characters to do. In Tobosha, it was Abe as the chasing cop posturing a lot. In Runaway, its lots of infighting, crying and being able to magical lose cops on their tail.

Secondly is the little girl who talks and thinks so much like an adult that she's scary. If not for the fact that her character was abused by her mother and her boyfriend, I would find her to be an opinionated and annoying brat. Contrasting the ultra smart adult in a child's body character, one of the fugitives was so fucking stupid as to post updates of their whereabouts on the web. I was bloody hoping that the ex-yakuza Kawashima (Tsukamoto Takashi) would kill that idiot. Speaking of Kawashima, he is my favourite cause he actually has a brain and is not trapped in a child's body though he has the melodrama story of having a hot blind girl as an ex-girlfriend who broke her promise to wait for him.

Its bloody scary how this girl can pull off a 'she's thinking something deep' expression.

Third is that Ichihara Hayato's overacting is just horrible. Its ok for comedy like Saru Lock but I can't believe he won best supporting actor for that stupid cryfest Rookies. Maybe straining yourself looking like you're constipating anytime you're crying is regarded as good acting by the Japanese. Maybe I'm just not judging acting by Japanese standards and Ichihara Hayato's two facial expressions are actually good. But then again, Japanese give out random awards for shit like best jeanist which means best looking talento in jeans. He's not as bad as no expression Kame but its obvious that he can't or does not use his eyes to act and overcompensates with his face.

So two things I enjoyed are the effort that the director put into doing the action stuff Fukuda Saki is always fun to watch. Can't believe she's playing a mom, sniff. The bad news is this is going to be a melodrama heavy story and in every episode I've got to put up with Ichihara Hayato who looks like he wants to cry all the time.

JAPANESE IS WEIRD

If you've watched fighting anime, you've certainly heard the words 'name janeiyo' which is usually translated as 'don't underestimate/look down on me'. Was talking with a friend yesterday and found name 舐め actually means to lick. Yes, for reason the kanji for lick also means to make fun of or to put down.

On an unrelated note, subs for eps 4+5 of Renai dekinai are up at jdramas@livejournal.

Sasaki Nozomi 2012 desktop calender

2011-11-21T00:49:00.001+11:00

Japanese is hard

Just realised that nigate 苦手 which means not good at something also means dislike. I can understand why kurishii 苦しい (painful) + hand 手 means inept but dislike? At least I've realised there is a softer version of kirai 嫌い. Query how to avoid confusion when saying Nihongo wa nigate.

Mama wa idol eps 1+2

2011-11-19T00:46:00.001+11:00

There have been a spate of old doramas getting subbed and one of them is Mama wa idol starring Nakayama Miho as the herself as she gets married to her old primary school school teacher who has three kids.(Suzuki sensei, take note) Normally I pretty much hate jdoramas as idol vehicles. That's why most of the big name ones are crap. Stunt casting and fitting the story around the idols they want to promote. But Nakayama has credibility in my book with Oishii Kankei, Sleeping Forest, Home & Away, Love Story and Love Letter.

Maybe I'm biased towards old jdoramas. Maybe its just the case that only the best of the old jdoramas get subbed so my perception of the standard of oldies is skewed. Surely the ratio of good and bad doramas can't that much different between the 80s and this 2k10 era. One the other hand, my favourite shows from the past few years have mostly been the not so famous ones.

Anyways, Mama wa idol is an idol vehicle but it is a fun one. The youngest one is stoked because he is a huge fan. The oldest son is, well which guy wouldn't be happy living with Nakayama Miho. The only daughter, Akira though objects vehemently. Its not clearly stated what her reasons are but its obvious that she has taken over her mother's role since her death and does not appreciate a stranger walking into the family and trying to take away her role, much less an idol.

One interesting observation is a storyline where the father, a primary teacher is mistaken for a lolicon when Nakayama Miho's collection of underwear drop from a box. The whole lolicon thing is used as a joke when in a lot of countries, The father would have been branded for life and kids would have looked at him in fear. Also interesting to note that the housekey was placed under a flower pot. Not exactly in plain sight but not exactly as safe as well.

Its only been two episodes so far but I've enjoyed them very much. Too early to judge whether it is a must watch show but I am glad that this is not another in-law jdorama. I'm happy to watch to watch cute daughter fights hot mom with generic dad in middle. Not much chemistry between Miho and the dad but we'll see when the story gets to revealing details of their relationship. The raws can be gotten from rare doramas, an awesome site with lots of golden oldies.

addendum: Just noticed rare doramas has dvdrips of Love Complex. Now that was a good dorama with a weird ending.

Hitorigurashi eps 1-4

2011-11-16T04:34:00.001+11:00

If Renai dekinai riyuu is sort of a mirror of present day young women, then Hitorigurashi is a look at not just women in the 90s but also society's views and prejudices. Tokiwa Takako is Miho, a 26 year old department store salesperson who is planning to move out of her parents', hence the title hitorigurashi. Kyoko (Nagasaku Hiromi) is her best friend and colleague and unlike most supporting characters, she is more central to the story. Kyoko is then yin to Miho's yang as Kyoko sleeps around a lot while Miho is, in Kyoko's words more in love with the concept of love.

Ah, the good old 90s, when strict fathers were the staples of jdoramas and no one blinks an eye when the father admonishes his daughter for not thinking about marriage at age 26 and living life without a purpose. Yes, the era of young women working as OLs or in department stores engaging in a race to get married before 30 and somehow attain this mythical thing called happiness.

Takahashi Katsunori is the male lead Shintani and its weird seeing him not doing his overly serious low voice stuff that he has been doing recently or the overacting antics of Kintaro and Tadano Hitoshi. Shintani is a beer salesman who lives for work and dreams about mountain climbing. He also is popular with the ladies but doesn't really do anything about except give advise to his colleague.

When Miho meets Shintani, she suspects that there is something behind his jovial and playful face. This for some reason drives her mad and we have 4 episodes of declaring that she hates him but at the same time always thinking about Shintani. Its been slowly cooking over four episodes but the romance part is nothing special. Actually by today's standards its pretty decent but by 90s doramas its run of the mill.

The interesting thing for me is the relationship between Miho and Kyoko. No, I'm not talking about the implied yuri scenes as can be seen from the screencaps. Its the love hate relationship that Kyoko has with Miho. Kyoko is in all these relationships but she declares that Miho is all she has. She views Miho as a coward who is after a hit, ie getting a guy to declare his love for her and discloses this to Shintani.

I think Kyoko doesn't want Miho to hook up with Shintani because she'll lose her one source of comfort. I think that Kyoko looks down on Miho and as long as Miho is perceived to be more miserable her, Kyoko is happy. I guess you could say the supporting character is the most interesting one because she's the most rounded character.

Yada Akiko is in this dorama as well playing Miho's younger sister. For fans of 90s doramas like me this is a must watch just for the casting. Best bits are Nagasaku Hiromi portrayal of Kyoko. There's nothing really interesting about the Miho-Shintani relationship Its not the best of the 90s but its solid viewing.

Suzuki Sensei ep 5

2011-11-13T19:30:00.001+11:00

I've got a few jdorama reviews swimming in my head but have just been too lazy to take screencaps and start typing. Then I watched episode 5 of Suzuki sensei and I just had to write about it. Episode 5 starts of with more of Suzuki sensei and his wild fantasies about Ogawa. The revelation at the end of episode 4 casts doubt on whether the fantasies are his imagination going wild or a product of some mental projection from Ogawa.

I love the possibility and I love the tease that it could be true. More importantly, it doesn't have to be for the storyline to work. It is the possibility that makes it fun to watch as it enables the viewer to see things in two different ways. It also gives the viewer impetus to watch closely and look for clues whether it is one or the other. Is Ogawa sharing in his fantasies or is Suzuki sensei letting his infatuation with her get out of hand?

Episode 5 deals with friendship, jealousy and changing oneself to better get along with others. But first, a new sports teacher Tsuzuki sensei arrives threatening Suzuki sensei's throne of most admired teacher. Worse, Tsuzuki sensei seems to be acquainted with Ogawa which ignites Suzuki sensei's infatuation with Ogawa even more. The scene with Suzuki sensei typing angrily was overacted too much IMO and went too much into camp which does not fit in the dorama world. Have to admit it was funny though.

Ogawa and Honoka have become the best of friends and this provokes Saki to start spreading rumours about Ogawa and Tsuzuki sensei. One thing leads to another and suddenly the rumour takes a life of its own and gets connected with the identity of the person Ogawa really likes, which is the main mystery for Suzuki sensei and the viewers.

I have to say, I am still a bit unclear on the whole class experiment thing. Suzuki sensei has said that normal students usually have issues that are buried and Ogawa was central to his plan because she is the model student. The show has been pretty much the Ogawa fascination, whether she can project her thoughts and what is Asami's role in the story going to be. I'm starting to think its just Suzuki sensei's way to justify spending so much time thinking about Ogawa.

I liked how ep 5 incorporated more Ogawa teasing the audience and Suzuki with a look at Saki feeling betrayed by Honoka and turning her ill feelings towards Ogawa. Like episode 4, you have another student seeking an outlet for negative emotions and not realising the harm the student is doing. Once again, I can't hate Saki because you can see her point of view, however misguided. Its kind of like the intro of the song where the students put on Suzuki sensei's glasses and pass it on. Its like seeing the world through each of the characters' eyes and the quality of the writing and acting makes them more than 2D cut out problem students.

I felt that there had to be a big reveal at the end of the episode and boy, it was an interesting one. It also made me think about Suzuki sensei's rationalisation to refer to Ogawa as god. We know that Ogawa is self conscious of other's perception of her and wants to be liked and get along with everyone. We know that Suzuki and Tsuzuki worship her. We know that at least 5 guys in the class do.

We know that there is a possibility she has the ability to project her thoughts onto others. What if she had been actually doing it to the 5 classmates and the two teachers? Subconsciously making them fall in love with her? I am sorely tempted to watch the rest of the series raw to find out....

Last Money ~Ai no Nedan~ eps 1-3 and invisible exposition

2011-11-08T16:12:00.003+11:00

I had watched the first 3 episodes of this series some time ago, had some idea of what I wanted to say about it but couldn't be stuffed figuring it out... until last night when I was reading Jim Shooter's blog and came across the magic words that I had been looking for: invisible exposition. Shooter writes: it’s generally good policy to try to seamlessly weave your introductions and establishments the info into the action so it’s invisible exposition. And provide only the info necessary to understand the story in hand.

We all know what exposition is, its explaining things to the audience whether it graphics on the screen giving a summary of character traits like in Renai Dekinai, a conversation between two characters or a character voicing his/her thoughts or having them being audible to the audience. I would say exposition is the passing on of information to the audience so that they know who the characters are, what they are doing and what the possible outcomes are.

So what does it have to do with Last Money, a dorama about insurance fraud investigation? Well, its got this young trainee character who of course is idealistic and who's function is to provide information to the viewers in the form of asking stupid questions and stating his ideals without thinking realistically in order for the main character to state his stance.At first, I was thanking the gods of jdorama that the trainee was not the main character but it got worse when he asked questions for answers that can be easily be inferred upon and generally act like a bumbling idiot who is not funny.

Of course I understand that insurance fraud is not something most people would be familiar with. If this were say a surgery dorama, the only exposition needed is onlookers commenting on the process of the surgery and its difficulty. However, Last Money already makes use of written information on screen as well as the insurance agents reiterating the important bits of the insurance claim to the clients. So what we are left with is a waste of space character who is goddamn irritating giving more than enough information that treats the audience like we have an IQ of 50.

Invisible exposition this is not. Invisible exposition is when the conversations feel natural and characters don't say or ask things solely to get something across. A lot of times it is necessary when it cannot be woven into the fabric of the story or 'action' scenes like during a surgery. In the case of Last Money, most of the necessary exposition can be done during the course of client interviews or inferred during work conversations. There is no need to treat the audience like idiots.

However, I would not be too quick to condemn the writer because the trainee character is apparently played a johnny. Smells like someone told the writer to give him more lines. Bloody hell explains why his character feels so jarring when giving more than enough information and sometimes repeating information that the audience can easily work out for previous information. Why generally non Wowow and NHK doramas suck is not just because they cast bloody idorus who can't act, poor bloody writers have to appease the agencies and sacrifice efficient storytelling. Fucking johnnys, the backbone of the Japanese entertainment industry and the bane of good storytelling and decent acting.

What of the dorama? Besides the white elephant that is the trainee, its pretty interesting. Insurance fraud is something that we don't see everyday with interesting cases like who died last in an accident or trying to determine whether a death was suicide or an accident. There's also a mystery element to it with the death of a character shown in the beginning of the show. The hardsubbed version was stopped at ep 3 and I believe someone started softsubs for ep 1.

Watashi ga renai dekinai riyuu eps 1+2

2011-11-06T02:52:00.002+11:00

Someone shouldn't be in this picture...

Watashi ga renai dekinai riyuu starts off by asking the audience whether they are in love, showing some random normal looking women with their attitudes towards love written on the screen. Then we are introduced to our three main characters ; Karina plays a tomboy who is best friends with a dude, Yoshitaka Yuriko is two years out of uni, looking for a job and has a lot of fuck buddies and lastly Oshima Yuko is young, very straightforward virgin.

Honto no koi wo shiranai. 24 sai. The only kanji I know from the last three kanji is naka/chu.

The purpose of the elaborate introduction in ep 1 is too fold. First is to say that the three ladies are ordinary girls and asking the female audience to relate to them because apparently girls watch doramas/movies to relate to the characters and project themselves onto them. First off, if you look like Yoshitaka Yuriko and you have problems finding love, what you are claiming is an impossibility. Secondly, the whole let's talk about modern girl issues could quite possibly take a back seat to telling a good story.

Ren ai ga mendoukusai. Didn't know that mendoukusai is face (men) + defeat (taosu). Kanji never makes sense.

I can't complain about what Renai Dekinai is. I very much want it to be watchable because its got crazy eye candy. I am so tempted right now to buy the Kurashina Kana calender. I went into this series with the lowest of expectations and so far its been pretty good. Its clearly got a high budget with cool music everywhere but the surprising thing is that this is one 'trendy' dorama in a long time that doesn't try to hard. I don't even want to go near the new Kimutaku one. If Renai Dekinai can be half as fun as Love Shuffle, I will be happy.

Hopefully I can remember 重い which means heavy or in this case serious.

So far, the stories are holding up. Karina's got the best friend who's getting married plot. Hhmm, I never really bought her tomboy act which she started in Freeter though. Now if they got Yoshizawa Hitomi, that would be different. Looks like there's trouble in the horizon for Karina's best friend's engagement. Personally, I think Karina stands no chance against Kurashina Kana. Oshima Yuko has the most boring story of this girl who is too serious for her sempai. Her most important role so far has been the catalyst to cause Yoshitaka Yuriko to rethink her stance on fuck-buddies.The best storyline so far belongs to Yoshitaka Yuriko who will undoubtedly get involved with the married T.Shiraishi.

Look at that smile...

One sign of the apocalypse for me is Katou sensei from Iryu/Mrs Shiraishi on the title screen. Please do not have her move into the house and have an episode of them sleeping in the living room together bashing men for one whole episode. Actually, I wouldn't mind it if they were all wearing lingerie. Just gotta have the older woman who wanted independence and then turns around when her biological clock is ticking and makes decisions on her own.

Three 'everyday' single girls who live in a gigantic house that the average person can never afford.

In summary, pretty watchable and I hardly fast forwarded anything. A must watch in terms of eye candy but story wise remains to be seen. Everytime I see Oshima Yuko, I can't help thinking about the ending in AKB1/48 where after running from paparazzi, Yuko asks the player to wait for her to become a full fledged actress as love relationships are forbidden in AKB48.

Shinya Shokudo season 2 eps 1+2

2011-11-03T03:24:00.001+11:00

The first season was a pretty enjoyable series about food and its significance to people. The best way to describe Shina Shokudo is that it is the jdorama equivalent of a Kiroro song. It doesn't catch your ear so much as you find yourself enjoying it more than you thought you would and Kiroro songs never disappoint.Just realised its been less than a year since I first saw the first season.

Season 2 starts off right where season 1 left off and the first thing that struck me was that there were a lot of scenes set outside the eatery. If my memory serves me right, I think in season one everything was set in the eatery and anything outside would merely be recollections. HHmm, actually I think there was a stripper story and actress story that had scenes outside the eatery. Ep 1 just felt a bit weird with so many hospital and batting centre scenes.

Nevertheless, season 2 continues the excellence of season 1 of efficient story telling and ability to do heart warming stories without being contrived. I have no idea what the difference is between Shina Shokudo and a lot of jdoramas where happy/touching endings are forced out and feel inorganic. Perhaps it is the laid back attitude of the dorama which makes it seems like we the viewers are merely peeping into the lives of the people who frequent the establishment.

WTF is Shinya Shokudo in Shinjuku? To the left is Kabukicho and the Ryuga Gotoku Don Quixote and the right is Taito Game Centre.

With Suzuki sensei and Shinya Shokudo, it is a great time to be a dorama fan. Do check out the first season if you haven't. It will not blow you away but the characters and stories will make you smile. Oh yes, Erecto Ohki is one of the best stories from season 1. Hope he makes a return in 2! Most importantly, do not watch on an empty stomach!

On an unrelated note, I have been playing the first AKB game on PSP like mad for the past 3 days because the endings for the sequel suck and I just find a lot of the conversation stupid (for a dating sim). A lot of the stupidity has a lot to do with setting the game in a foreign country (Guam). Its like watching Japanese pretending to converse in English in jdoramas . I've developed an obsession with getting all the Oshima Yuko cards in the first game but more importantly I needed to play the game often to retain all the kanji that I learned.

The proper way for learning is to write a word at least 20 times and test myself the next day but I'm too lazy. I've thought about doing a kanji a day thing on my blog to help reinforce my memory but I can't be stuffed. Kanji always does my head in. Take for example 覚え is oboe or memory. 不(fu) means not or negative and 不覚 (fukaku) means failure/defeat instead of no memory or something to do with memory. Gah, talk about square peg in round hole. Probably the biggest hurdle in my Japanese learning is that reading does nothing for my speaking.

Suzuki sensei ep 4

2011-10-31T01:35:00.002+11:00

How bloody good is this dorama?! Ep 4 was so good I've forgotten what to write about ep 3. Ep 4 is basically the self destruction of Takechi, the class representative. Takechi is this smart student who has a crush on Ogawa and has a tendency to look down on people. He causes an accident to happen to Nakamura who just reminds me of ex Momusu Koharu Kasumi.

A simple apology from Takechi would have sufficed but somehow he fells like he has to vindicate himself in front of the whole class. Chalk that up to his attitude of superiority. With all the secrets and tension behind the incident, Takechi's whole plan was sure to blow up and it did.

The fun thing is watching him unravel piece by piece. Part of it is good writing and part of it is great acting by the kid. After watching so much overacting and trying to be cool acting from students in jdoramas, its so refreshing to see a flawed character being portrayed. Was Takechi the evil kid in Koukuhaku? Anyway, kudos to his awesome acting.

The implosion of Takechi is done is such a way that you can see what he's thinking and why he does certain things, only that he doesn't realise what he looks like from other perspectives. A true self centred character but I think everyone can sympathise with Takechi having bouts of being self absorbed and not realising the effects of single minded kamikaze revelations.

Ep 4 ends with the mother of all revelations. A revelation so genius that it just blows my mind. All the freaking while I thought Asami was having problems with depression or something. Even better, the revelation leads on to a possibility with Ogawa which the writer could possibly have fun teasing the audience into doubting whether it is actually true.

With so many doramas out right now, I don't feel like watching anything else. Suzuki sensei is so much better than everything else at the moment. So tempted to just watch it till the end. D-addicts has only up to ep 7 but myasiancinema has the whole thing, thought half of it is in flv format. Suzuki sensei is certainly the strongest contender of best dorama of 2011. There has to be more than 200+ people downloading the subs. Can't believe the subs for ep 1 went from 400+ to 288 in ep 2 and we have shit like Hunter going for 1k sub downloads. FFS can the people at d-addicts not realise the greatness they are missing here?

Mitsu no Aji eps 1+2

2011-10-26T01:47:00.000+11:00

How to get your not real niece who is very kawaii to fall in love with you. Step 1: Meet her at train station on rainy day and tell her you can't come see her anymore because of work/study.

Mitsu no Aji has a premise that seems to have come out straight from an eroge. Naoko (Eikura Nana) falls in love her her uncle Masato (Arata) when he shields her from water being splashed by a bus during a rainy walk from the station and his mole on his chest is apparently a big turn on for her. At that moment, she decided that she would study hard and enter the medical school that her oni-san was studying to stalk him.

Step 2: Ignore all wet schoolgirl fantasies and do not stare so she'll think you are nice guy. Because she is from the country, she has no idea that the only guys who do not stare are gay.

Yes, there's nothing that says eroge like a niece that calls her uncle oni-san.Unlike your typical eroge main character, Masato does not experience any nose bleeding at the sight of his drenched niece in a high school uniform. Oh yes, in true let's put a loop hole in fashion, Masato is not Naoko's true uncle. He was adopted by relatives when his parents died which would make him a distant relative.

Step 3: Use splashing water from bus as excuse to initiate body contact.

So, innocent country girl goes off to wild Tokyo to be with uncle. Except Masato oni-san now has a girlfriend Aya (Kanno Miho). Aya doesn't want to get married and doesn't want kids which is a godsend to all men. However, upon meeting Naoko, she realises the truth about Naoko's feelings for Masato and quickly accepts his marriage proposal and wants it done asap.

Step 4: Have a body mark such as a mole (use a fake if you have to) so it can be seen through your shirt and arouse her. Hey girls have wet t-shirt fantasies too.

Naoko using her innocent niece powers sees that Aya does not really love her uncle as much as her job and is marrying Masato to because of Naoko. So basic premise so far is innocent country niece wanting to save dumb uncle from scheming fiancee who doesn't love him as much.

Step 5: Don't say anything because it will take all your willpower to resist the urge too look at bra through the wet top.

I really enjoyed the whole evil Aya acting like this perfect girlfriend in front of everyone and only Naoko being able to see through her. Its kind of an eroge twist to your perfectly innocent protagonist having the kitchen sink thrown at her to stop her saving her true love in the mold of Hoshi no Kinka.

Step 6: Wait for her to finish high school and don't hook up with a two faced girlfriend who looks like Kanno Miho.

Now, there are two things that could ruin Mitsu no Aji. First is making Aya not so evil. They've already started making excuses for her with her parents being workaholic doctors and her not being loved. Zzzzz, boring. I want bloody conflict and when I say bloody I mean going for the jugular stuff. Second is Naoko having a potential love interest in Hachi one Diver.

Ooops, too late.

For the love of all that is good and holy, please do not give it a peaceful happy ending where Aya cries out her excuses turns over a new leaf with Naoko going with Hachi one and everyone saying out loud that they have learned something from this ordeal. Anyway I enjoyed the hell out of the first two episodes. It really appeals to ero ojisans like me but fingers crossed it doesn't turn pedestrian like Guilty. Actually I can't wait for Masato's brother to find out about Aya.

Perfect Report 1-7

2011-10-24T01:45:00.001+11:00

Perfect Report is dorama about a underdog tv journalist department headed by Aoyama Kana (Matsuyuki Matsuko). They are the general of back up section staffed by rejects and their job is to back up whatever tv journalist group needs help whether it be politics or staking out an idol.

Once again, we have another job dorama where the main protagonists are hated by everyone else for no reason. Someone needs to explain to me why in so many jdoramas, they writers feel a need to create unnecessary obstacles which don't make sense. Actually its not the hated part that doesn't make sense, rather the continue to depise our main characters while they continue to succeed and prove their worth part that makes no sense.

There the sub story that the head of the news section is merely using Aoyama for his own end but so far nothing has come of it. Usually in jdoramas, the main characters just take this abuse and bullying on the cheek and continue to do so despite doing what the bullies could not. Is this a reflection of Japanese work practices? That capable people should be aware of their place on the totem pole and not rock the boat?

The one show that keeps popping into my head is Beauty or Beast which was a very fun show about tv reporting with a bunch of underdogs. Perfect Report follows the same formula with stories that highlight each character but with some episodes, Perfect Report tries too hard to be cool. The on that comes to mind is the Aibu Saki episode. Not to mention how she could have caught up with a bus while waddling with an injury unless bus driver in Japan go 20 km/h.

The highlight for me is Akasaka Shu (Keisuke Koide). He starts of as one of the bullies, is career minded and is transferred to spy on Aoyama but we soon see that he has journalistic integrity as well as a host of problems which make him more of the main protagonist of the show. His got a good story arc and his main story is the driving force for the series while Aoyama's pops in and out at times. Actually Akasaka wins the main character spot because everyone else is a one note character.

Perfect Report starts off shaky but the two main stories especially Akasaka's has kept it from being a generic sob story with tryhard cool moments of investigative reporting. My gut feeling is that it will end strong. Perfect Report is just above the sea of mediocrity. Compared to Beauty or Beast, the quality of the episodes has not been consistent. Let's see if the main stories will make up for it.

Kaseifu no Mita ep 1

2011-10-19T02:00:00.000+11:00

My first thought when watching Kaseifu no Mita was what happened to Matsushima Nanako's nose? Did she go see Michael Jackson's plastic surgeon?

Housekeeper Mita who likes to wear a lot of dark make up works for the Asuda family where the mom just passed away. Mita is very competent and is able to recite the name of all members of AKB48. However, she is very robot like in that she can only take orders and sometimes, too literally. Kaseifu no Mita is not Jyoou no Kyoushitsu in a house. Its more of a housekeeper who strictly follows orders with disastrous consequences that end happily.

Despite having two good actors in Matsushima Nanako and Suzuki sensei, this dorama does not hinge on their acting abilities. Rather, how good it is will be decided by the writing and the acting of the kids. That's because Mita is more of a robot housekeeper and the father, played by Suzuki sensei is doesn't have much to do besides act incompetent and order Mita around.

Didn't like the kids in episode 1. I felt they were trying way too hard, especially the scene where they took turns crying. They are trying to milk the youngest daughter for the kawaii factor but it just comes off as too fake.

The writing is a disappointment, specifically the scene where the son punches Mita multiple times in the face. That was a so WTF scene. You're pissed off at your housekeeper and you assault her face instead of maybe, taking the clothes away from her? There is no excuse for beating up on a woman unless you are an evil villain!

Seriously, there was no apology for the assault and no WTF have I done moment following the attack. Only more crying about his mom. Does the writer expect the viewer to care about the piece of crap son who did not have second thoughts about abusing the housekeeper or the father for not reprimanding his son and offering his sincere apologies to Mita? Too early to say don't watch but it is not promising at all.

Mano Erina 2012 calender

2011-10-16T23:17:00.002+11:00

There was only one calender that I knew I had to get and it turns out to be one kick ass calender. The cover picture is awesome.

This one's ok. Sorry about the light reflection but I can confirm that she is wearing blue shorts in this picture. (Probably jean shorts)

Hhmm, I think Hello Project needs to do an equivalent to the AKB1/48 game and include in the Dream Momusu members. I would gladly pay $200 for a special edition of that.

Love her smile.

Almost bought a Kurashina Kana calender but the small preview pictures on the front of the calender don't look good. I've got also ordered a Nozomi Sasaki desktop calender for use at work but it hasn't been sent yet.

Suzuki Sensei ep 2

2011-10-13T00:47:00.004+11:00

I just had to write about ep 2 after watching it. Problem is its hard to say why Suzuki sensei is such a good dorama besides great acting, writing etc. Its difficult to describe because while it is like your typical teacher dealing with school problems and students, its the execution that makes it interesting.

For the whole, complete 45 minutes, ep 2 had my complete attention. Even for something seemingly as mundane as something being taken off the lunch menu, I was hanging on every word, laughing at the appropriate moments and just being absorbed into the story. Even a teachers' meeting was very exciting.

Actually, if I had to come up with a description of Suzuki sensei, it would be a person narrative of a teacher, done in a way that is amusing and entertaining not because the teacher is a larger than life character or has personality quirks but because the writing allows you to get into his thought processes, it makes sense and you end up thinking along with him.

Examples of the humour in this dorama is when Suzuki sensei tries to convince himself of something but we know its not true, like when he runs into Ogawa Somi at school after his dream. The punchline is when he succumbs to her smell and he is sniffing the air like an idiot at the school gate. The joke continues during lunchtime when Suzuki sensei comments that he was glad it was curry because it would wipe out the shampoo smell. To me, its just hilarious and brilliantly funny.

Episode 2 had two storylines; the lunch menu story and the mystery of the disgusting behaviour. The execution of it was masterful. You get to see it from his point of view and share his stress as the time limit drew near. Its not a detective movie where you watch from afar as the detective declares he has solved the mystery and explains it at the end. The viewer stands in Suzuki sensei's shoes and tries to solve it along with him.

An anonymous commentator mentioned that the writer is Furusawa Ryoto who wrote Gaiji Keisatsu, probably the best police jdorama ever along with Gonzo. You can't click on his name on dramawiki and I had to go to the Japanese wiki to find his the list of his body of work. So he has done:

1) Always san chome movies which are pretty good feel good movies.

2) Aibou police series which I would occasionally see news of on Tokyohive, seems to be popular and has 9 seasons!

3) Gaiji Keisatsu.

4) Gonzo. Yes, he has written two of the best police jdoramas I have seen! I've never watched Aibo though.

5) Oishii gohan which is subbed and which I will definitely check out.

Can't read the rest of the list as my kanji is still shit but WTF??!! This guy is one of the gods of jdorama writing along with Nojima Shinji and Ozaki Masaya and he has no drama wiki entry? I am ashamed that I did not realise that the writer of Gaiji Keisatsu and Gonzo was the same person.

Hhmm, Vulcan 300 fansubs have subbed 2 eps of Aibou season but the last update was in March so its pretty much dead. Maybe I can find the HK English subbed dvds. JT also mentioned that the ratings are very bad, averaging about 2%. WTF???!! Its a 10pm dorama, not a midnight dorama! Has there ever been a non midnight dorama which was so good and has such horrible writing??!!!

AKB1/48: Idol to Guam to Koishitara First Print Limited Edition unboxed!

2011-10-11T01:51:00.001+11:00

Everything came in this box about the size of an arcade stick.

AKB1/48 Idol to Koishitara is probably the best game for studying kanji. As mentioned in a previous post, learning kanji is a bitch. I don't have a patience to slowly work my way through a kanji book. So what makes AKB1/48 for PSP such a great game for studying Japanese?

Back of the box.

First, its all pure text gameplay like a dating sim and its fully voiced except for the words from the protagonist, which is the player. Second, it doesn't auto go the next line so you can take your time looking up the kanji dictionary. Third, its got the can look through all the lines of dialogue and play the voices again.This helps when I see a kanji character that I think I saw a few lines back and I go back and its voiced. If I don't know what the word means at least I know the pronunciation so I don't need to waddle my way through the kanji dictionary.

Game, card with download code for 48 PSP themes and blu ray of all the movies in the first game. I am happy to report that the blu ray is region free! If only Oz had the same blue ray region as Japan, I would be buying Japanese blue rays.

Lastly its basically basic spoken dialogue. I tried replaying this old SRPG Terra Phantastica and as it was a political middle ages type story, its was old Japanese and lots of kanji that I can't be stuff learning. Hhm, come to think of it, its a bishoujo game without sex. When I play, its in front of my pc with two tabs on tangorin.com, a tab for Denshi Jisho kanji dictionary and a tab for romanji to hiragana converter. I have a notebook that I write the kanji I look up. It doesn't help me as much as coming across certain words multiple times during gameplay which will hopefully reinforce it in my memory.

UMD of game and making of video. I've not even watched the making of UMD from the first game.

I wasn't planning on getting the first print limited edition but I thought my preorder of the special edition of another game, Ico/Shadow of Colossus Collection wasn't coming through because play-asia marked the game as sold out but my copy had not been sent and went in search of another source. The reason I wasn't sure was that the preorders had sold out long ago but one morning before work, I spotted a preorder button and made my order hoping that it was because someone canceled and not because of a glitch, which has happened. My search took me to HMV Japan, Ico was sold out but they still had AKB1/48 First Print. I was pissed off thinking I missed out on the Ico Collectors Edition and decided to get another special edition in its place.

Three making of DVDs for each of the 3 teams and a fashion collection DVD which I hope translates into cosplay. No idea what the team 4 special DVD is.

Anyway, because of the crazy drop of the Australian dollar and HMV Japan charging in yen, this has become a very painful purchase. Essentially, its the same game with a much better looking interface and ability to move the 'camera' during dialogue which just means that you can scroll down and look at their thighs/legs. The other addition to the sequel is the ability to choose whether you want to refer to yourself as boku, watashi or ore. Don't think this has any bearing on the game but to be more manly, I chose ore.

10 photos. I think I need to burn the one on the middle right cause that looks like a man.

I've gotta say one thing and its that AKB girls DO NOT looking good in swimsuits. Very few of them have womanly bodies. Akimoto Sayaka's body is like a dude's. Wide shoulders and straight hips. Kayo Police is 10 times for feminine than her. They should have been wearing one piece swimsuits.

Yup, you get 48 mini posters from the game.

Final note, I'm not a big fan of AKB48 despite spending almost $200 aud on a game. Started listening when they weren't famous and liked how explicit their lyrics were and now that they are famous, we will never hear songs like Sailor Fuku jama suru na again. They got big had nice songs but bloody mimed all the time. That's why I swore of Kpop many years ago. On the very very rare occasions that you get to hear someone from AKB48 sing live, let's just say I've heard a lot better at karaokes.

Super skinny Shinoda Mariko in 2 piece? Not a good look.

However, spending so much time on the first AKB1/48 game, the songs have ingrained themselves in my brain and I've gotten really fond of some of the girls in game character. No idea how they are like on tv since I don't have time to search. That's my excuse to keep what little dignity I have left.

At least we finally got some cleavage here. The rest of the mini posters are too horrible to be shown.

After I finish up this post, I'm going for the Yokoyama Yui ending because kansai-ben turns me on. You don't usually hear idols speak kansai-ben but when there are 48 of them, you gotta do something to be different. I wished someone had made a game like this for Morning Musume back in the day. Imagine Tsuji and Kago fighting over the player!

My PSP screen.

Suzuki Sensei ep 1

2011-10-10T02:47:00.000+11:00

In jdoramas, there are usually two types of teacher shows. First is the variation of the GTO theme which is larger than life teacher uses unorthodox techniques to help students. Examples of this type dorama which are pretty good are Dragon Zakura and Jyoou no Kyoushitsu. However there are plenty of such shows which fail because an actor who is either really good or has that screen presense like Sorimachi is necessary.

The second is the Kinpachi sensei variant. Normal teacher, lots of problem students and problem solving that is more conventional. An example of a good one would be School!! The other difference with the Kinpachi type of show is that it is more serious and less outrageous. However, both types are prone to the usual cliches like the sports teacher being a useless guy, scheming vice principal and the young hot female teacher being the supporting character.

Imagine my surprise when Suzuki sensei starts off with a group of middle school teachers trying to mix the students up before the start of school in order to balance the classes. Not only that, we get to hear the thoughts of Suzuki sensei (Hasegawa Hiroki) which was so different. For the first time ever, we have a dorama which really delves into the mind of a teacher and see his thought process.

The other thing about the usual teacher doramas is that the problems are pretty black and white. Its a question of how cool/entertaining/tear jerking the solution is. Suzuki sensei is presented with problems that are not so simple and hearing his thoughts makes things even more complicated. Like do you try to confront a student in class when he is accussed of something or do you wait til after but risk him being more unsettled because of the pressure? How would you investigate?

The main problem presented in ep 1 is truly WTF because it is handled in such a non sensationalistic and realistic way. It is also a source of a lot of comedic moments. I love it when a show manages to be funny by being serious. On the other hand the main problem makes me feel like a missed out on my childhood. :( The only thing I was thinking about at that age was Dragonball Z and Lynn Minmay. Are kids today really that smart and eloquent? I was just laughing and smiling my way through ep 1 because I had no idea what was going to happen next and Suzuki sensei went to places I was not prepared for. And that's an awesome thing.

The main story is that Suzuki sensei seems to have chosen the make up of his class specifically to run an experiment. We'll see how it works out but the first episode has the feel and vibe unlike any teacher dorama I have seen, except for the useless physical education teacher. Definitely check it out and I guarantee you'll be pleasantly surprised.

Don Quixote eps 4-11

2011-10-07T00:21:00.001+11:00

There's this part at the end of Don Quixote that really pissed me off.

Yakuza about 50 meters away from Shirota and Sabashima and kids in the middle.

Little girl is left alone.

Sabashima to the rescue. Probably never occured to him or Shirota to move away so the kids won't be in the line of fire.

Sabashima crouches down, holding the kid, 25 meters away from yakuza with gun while Shirota is 50 meters away from yakuza. Note where gun is pointing.

Somehow Sabashima gets shot in the waist. I don't know about you but the yakuza would have to be pretty much pointing the gun at Shirota's feet to hit Sabashima. If the yakuza were a crap shot, recoil would have made his shot go higher, not lower. Who's the bloody dickhead who thought this would make sense?! Just because this is a comedy with yakuza playing a stupid card game to decide their leader doesn't give the director license to ignore the rules of physics.

Is this the same director who did the action scene at the end of Shiroi Haru that nearly killed the dorama? There are many ways to make this work better. Eg, kids run to the side and one stupid kid runs towards Sabashima and Shirota. Or kids were passing by our heroes and one falls down right in front. The set up that works best is Sabashima taking the bullet for Shirota.

Don Quixote which is pretty good for the first half tapers of (like most jdoramas) when they run out of new and different stuff of Sabashima to do. Actually, the main problem was they didn't give Shirota anything cool to do. Usually for body swap stories, both characters were used the respective skills and do things different. Shirota may be a chicken-shit but the writers never let him use his brains and tech savvy to solve yakuza problems.

If Sabashima can help kids by shouting and rushing headlong into problems, surely Shirota can solve problems not by violence but by cunning. The only character growth Shirota had was to learn to be a bit like Sabashima instead of realising and utilising his skills. Its still watchable but I'm disappointed that Don Quixote never fulfilled its potential. Its as if instead of looking at all the cliches of body swapping stories and thinking about how to make this the body swapping dorama to end all body swapping doramas, the makers decided to play safe and go for crowd pleasing mediocrity.

Mano Erina Concert Tour 2011 ~Hatachi no Otome 801 DAYS~

2011-10-05T01:25:00.000+11:00

The dvd of the concert I went to 4 months ago is out! Well, not exactly the concert I went to since I went to the Osaka one and the dvd performance is from her Shibuya show. Its basically the same thing anyway so yeah, its another way for me to relive one of the highlights of my Japan trip and finally see what those old ojisan fans were seeing with their binoculars.

My favourite part of the concert besides her playing all her piano songs and Genki mono de ikou! was her performance of Daredemo Iwanai de. The lyrics combined with her dance was the ultimate combination of innocent and sexy. The sight of her doing all the gestures with the microphone stand got me all excited.

When I came back from my trip I tried to find any performances of her Daredemo Iwanai de but couldn't as it wasn't a single. IMHO, it should have been but now I get to watch it everyday. :) As mentioned in my post about the concert, the only negative thing was Sekai wa summer party was sung as part of a medley.

Also included in the dvd are the end rolls. At the end of the concert was a montage from of Mano Erina rehearsing for the particular show spliced with scenes of the fans lining up and getting into the venue. This was also shown at the end of the concert I went to which was a nice touch. The knowledge that I am somewhere in the crowd of a bonus clip of a Mano Erina dvd warms my heart.

I am somewhere on the bottom right on the screen.

Now I have an excuse to put on my Mano Erina t-shirt and wrist bands. :)

Yuusha Yoshihiko to Maou no Shiro eps 5-12

2011-10-02T22:01:00.002+11:00

Fun. Lots of fun. That's probably the most apt word to describe this series. You can see on their faces as sometimes they don't bother keeping a straight face. Yuusha Yoshihiko is a collection of Dragon Quest inspired skits held together by your typical quest to destroy great evil storyline.

It sort of got less funny after the halfway point, specifically ep 7. Way too many running jokes that have lost their flavour and comedy that has absolute no connection with the fantasy setting. They recovered in ep 8 with a funny episode on changing character classes but I wasn't laughing as hard as in the first half of the series.

Danjo-san, don't sacrifice your sideburns!

It probably had to do with all the fights turning out to be gang fighting some inept villain all the time and there were not any cool fights to break up the monotony. I think the two episodes I found not so funny were episodes 7 and 9 where Yuusha and gang had to fight a succession of bad guys to reach the boss.

Oguri Shun's costume is awesome.

Some of it had to do with me not understanding the jokes like the raccoon washing the gun or Jyaitan the shaman. The Oguri Shun cameo was funny as hell and you can just see it on their faces. There's basically two episodes over a total of 12 that weren't as funny as the first half of the series but on the whole Yuusha Yoshihiko has provided me with more laughs than any jdorama I can remember.

I've got to say, I really enjoyed the last two episodes. Yuusha and gang have got to go to Maou's castle to fight and since they have no budget and need to set the final battles in a strange place, they decided to set in the modern world which I think had a lot of hilarious results. I don't know why they never addressed how our heroes payed for everything though.

Some of my favourite bits of the series:

Ep 5 - Walking in a straight line and into people's homes to break pots and open drawers. One of the staples of Fantasy RPGs that people never question.

Ep 6 - Yoshihiko X Rien was so freaking funny. I need more Nakamura Shizuka but I can't remember how big a role she played in Mioka which I had dropped quickly. I just can't watch bad doramas just for eye candy.

The whole song sequence was just pure gold!
Ep 7 - Dying and going to a priest. Makes me feel like playing Shining Force.

Ep 8 - Yoshihiko becoming an idol. Actually every episode with Yoshihiko abandoning his quest is funny.

This has nothing to do with Yoshihiko becoming an idol but somehow I have taken too many screencaps of Nakamura Shizuka.

Ep 10 - Cloning skill. Nuff said.

Ep 11 - Yoshihiko and gang enjoying the trappings of modern life. The Murasaki confrontation was the highlight for me.

Murasaki's face after the 'sore wa sore, kore wa kore!' retort.

Ep 12 - They saved all their CG money for the final episode.

On the whole, Yuusha Yoshihiko has given me more laughs per minute than any other dorama I can think of. Its a homage to one of my favourite game genres and there's no reason why anyone would not enjoy this even if they don't play Japanese RPGs. I so hope they do the movie.

Soredemo Ikite Yuku eps 9-11

2011-09-28T20:26:00.002+10:00

I finally caved in last night. I just could not bear the wait for ep 9 subs and then the long wait for the last two. This isn't KDO where you could watch it raw for the story and enjoy the dialogue again with the subs. The emotional impact when first watching is important and lack of comprehension would dilute the experience/enjoyment.

There was a risk but this wasn't Hagetaka the movie with all the technical terms. I gave it a go and suffice to say episode 9 and 10 were pretty awesome with ep 11 being a lot calmer. Nothing could match the emotional kettle peg of ep 8 but the quality of the acting and story doesn't stop.

I just love how Soredemo can tackle the frequently used subjects of revenge, responsibility and forgiveness in jdoramas and avoid all the pitfalls and conventions that make most jdoramas very preachy. It is testament to the writing and acting whereby the characters do not need to voice out their emotional turmoils and how they come to terms with things. They actually do but they say it in a way that it feels like they are telling the other person, not the audience.

Soredemo is so non judgmental. We get to see Kenji as this cold blooded, unfeeling murderer. We get to see him like a kid, scared to remember what he had done when confronting Aki's mom in ep 8. We find out about his traumatic childhood but its not offered as an excuse. He tries to absolve himself of responsibility by blaming it on Futaba. He blames his father and at the same time he wants his father to acknowledge him. Kenji is what he is. A murderer, son and a brother.

Soredemo is a godlike dorama. It is invincible. Not many jdoramas can touch it. It is destined to be on my top 10 list of jdoramas, whenever I get around to it. Fukuda Mayuko may have a limited role but I'm pretty sure she got to take a small part in this show.

If you know a bit of kanji, I find watching it with Japanese subs helped with my understanding and is a great way to learn kanji besides playing the AKB48 game on my psp. I copy and pasted the Japanese subs onto google translate but it transted the counter for the lines as well, ie the first line was numbered 1 and it became 'one'. I think rewatching Soredemo and older jdoramas with Japanese subs is a pretty good idea. I'm running out of superlatives for Soredemo. This is truly IMHO, a jdorama classic and everyone must watch it instead of generic crap like Zenkai girl which has 3000 downloads per sub.

VAGUE SPOILERS FOR ENDING

As for the ending... I get it but I just didn't get why it had to be so sad which the last episode was based around. Its not like they couldn't be in touch and stuff. Unless of course Futaba thinks of it as a punishment for her. That she should be happy while Yuri's mom is still in the hospital.

It doesn't bother me that much cause this is a character based dorama and Futaba made that choice which I can respect. I really like the last bit where they are trading letters/lines and its just awesome scenery with rolling piano music. I just don't buy the 'we can't meet again' cause I'm going to be Yuri's mom' bit cause there's emails, skype, mobile phones and cars/trains to meet up on weekends unless there was an obvious 'we can't meet' cause I can't be happy thing that Hiroki understood. Need to wait for subs to see how it works.

Some other stuff that I loved:

- Hiroki becoming almost like an enlightened monk in ep 9, free from the shackles of hate and the past. Query where Futaba can ever be free or should she free herself? Is atonement for her brother necessary? Perhaps it is for her to find peace.

- The flying kick. I was laughing and having the feeling of WTF at the same time. After all the crying, it all the anger that is buried is unleased as she pushes the policeman aside like a rag doll. Lol. And the flashback at the beginning of episode 12 makes it even better.

- Yuri's mom didn't wake up. Forced happy endings have no place in dramatic stories.

- Alas, Kurashina Kana turned out to be merely a plot device and a sounding board for Hiroki to voice his thoughts. :(

How can I be so blind!

2011-09-27T11:09:00.002+10:00

While looking up calenders to buy for next year, came across the calender for Kurashina Kana. Nothing much to look at but there was something about her name that bothered me.

So did a search and what do you know, she's Satsuki from Soredemo Ikite yuku! However, that can't possibly be why the name rung a bell for me. Looked up google images and there was something oddly familiar. Can it be?

Yes, she's the girl on this Choya advertisement which greeted me everytime I took a train in Japan. I would pay $40 for the above picture in my room. I am ashamed that I was unable to link the smiling face that I saw everyday in Japan to the Tokyo girl in Soredemo who's purpose in the dorama is still unclear. In penance, maybe I should get her calender, though the cover looks pretty bad. Kurashina Kana looks infinitely better with a smile rather than a blank stare.

Risou no Kekkon eps 1-4

2011-09-25T19:56:00.001+10:00

90s doramas have something different that we can't find anymore. I'm not talking about the giant suits that salarymen wear or the fact that people in that era think someone using a laptop on a flight is showing off. There's this kind of innocence and simplicity in them. Koukou kyoushi wasn't an innocent dorama but I find I cannot be cynical about oldies. Its like the overacting is different, it doesn't grate me like the ones today.

Risou no Kekkon starst with Tsutomu (Takenouchi Yutaka) meeting Mari (Tokiwa Takako) on a plane and next thing you know, he randomly proposes to her and she says yes. At this point I'm thinking WTF and where is this dorama going. Gotta go along with the premise and see where the story goes.

Mari is this emotional 26 year old girl from Osaka and Tsutomu is this smart salaryman who is dumb in other matters. Girls speaking kansai-ben is sexy though harder to understand. Mari's age and background is important because it touches on ideas from the 90s such as an OL's job is to get married by a certain age and the importance of wives to salarymen's careers.

Nowadays instead of romantisicing about an OL from the country finding her prince, its about uni girl dying from rare disease playing married couple with boyfriend because girls like projecting themselves onto sick beautiful creatures. There's a sort of chemistry going on between Tsutomu as the emotionally detached guy who seems to be on Xanax all the time and Mari who does all the talking and crying.

Why have I not thought of using spoons before? Probably cause there were not any places with hot waitresses in short skirts where I grew up.

At the end of episode one, we find out that the reason the proposal was so fast in the first episode was that this is going to be about the family war, especially between the mothers. Normally this would cause me to stop watching but when the mothers are being played by Nakama Yukie's mom from Trick and the old lady from Akimahende! I'm happy to make an exception to my no more evil mother in law doramas rule.

If the stupid idiot had lowered his spoon more, we could have seen some colour.

Risou no Kekkon emits warm fuzzy feelings but at the same time it seems more like high school students falling in love for the first time dorama than adults. One thing this dorama has given me is a very good reason to go eat at Anna Miller's next time I go Japan. The way the uniform emphasizes certain parts of the body is genius and I'd rather be served by a regular sized waitress wearing an Anna Miller uniform than one huge Hooters girl anyday.

Back to the dorama, Risou no Kekkon is pretty much what one would expect from a 90s dorama about an innocent couple getting married and both families who are against it. It doesn't do anything bad and there are plenty of funny moments especially Andy in ep 4 but its not good enough to be called a must watch. For fans of oldies like me, its worth your time though. Do check it out because they don't make doramas like they used to.

Soredemo Ikite Yuku ep 8

2011-09-20T18:53:00.001+10:00

I didn't want to write about Soredemo until the subbing was completed by I am compelled to to put my thoughts on this magnificent series onto paper after watching episode 8. I had just come back from work with my take away dinner and decided to watch ep 8 out of my gigantic backlog of doramas/movies/anime and then suddenly I was just transfixed onto the screen.

More than transfixed, I was pulled in. As if I were a fly on a wall peering into the lives of the unfortunate families. I could feel the air thick with so much tension and emotion that I had to step out for a cigarette mid way through the episode.

There's no point writing about the story because episode 8 puts you right in the confrontations and the mental anguishes that the characters experience. Futaba's father in a daze thinking not again. Why did I survive 15 years only for the same shit to happen again? You really felt for the poor father who had stayed strong all this while for the family, daring to have a faint glimmer of hope that one day they would be able to live a peaceful life and put the events of the past behind them.

Aki's mom finally getting her confrontation with Futaba's brother and what a bloody (figuratively) explosion of emotion that was and not an ounce of overacting in sight. I loved it when she said "You can kill me but I won't die cause I'll only die after you are dead!" The best way to describe Soredemo Ikite Yuku is that it makes you feel. Minimal music, raw emotion on display and I almost feel like I'm seeing something that I should not.

The fact that Soredemo can't even reach 10% ratings is a crime against art. So bloody tempted to finish the series without subs. Not to know how it ends but because the characters' emotions linger on. Do not miss this.

Ai Kotoba wa Yuki eps 4-11

2011-09-20T02:23:00.000+10:00

Ai Kotoba wa Yuki is basically an underdog dorama. Poor ignorant villagers versus evil big corporation and the villagers have placed their hope on a struggling actor pretending to be a lawyer. My big reservation about Ai Kotoba was how long they were going to play the don't let the villagers discover that the lawyer is a fake. There is only so many times he can recover from a slip of the tongue and then act like a lawyer on tv before it gets repetitive, far-fetched and boring.

Probably the best thing in the show is the actor bringing in his writer friend who has good knowledge of the law because he has watched many hours of legal dramas for research. This was awesome because now our underdogs have a brain instead of the actor magically stumbling into safety each episode.

Putting the writer into the story also brings into it a stronger team element. The writer is the brains and the actor is the brawn who has to execute the plans. Shingo is the audience POV and of course Suzuki Kyoka is the hot love interest/de facto representative of the villagers for the audience.

For me, I didn't like that they took so long for the truth to be revealed to Suzuki Kyoka's character. She is a key character and its just wrong to keep her out of the loop for so long and protecting the false identity stopped being funny a few episodes ago. I really wanted the dorama to spend times showing how the underdogs can work together instead of wasting time having the actor make slips of the tongue in front of an oblivious Suzuki Kyoka.

The big climax is of course a trial and there are things that are head scratching though I have no knowledge of Japanese jurisprudence but a lot of things are meant to be feel good and funny rather than legally thrilling. (Can't they issue subpoenas in Japan?) I can't penalize Ai Kotoba for being absolutely warm and fuzzy but I just feel underwhelmed despite Yakusha Koji's awesome acting. His ability to play this actor who is sleazy one minute and then can turn into a hot shot lawyer is just fun to watch.

I think the main reason why its not a must watch in my book is that the script is not tight enough. 2 episodes less would have made it better. I just find it was stuck too long in a holding pattern in the middle of the series. And the final speech while heartfelt was not the attention grabber that the Yakusha Koji's first speech was. Don't get me wrong, I still enjoyed watching it, its just not as good as I hoped it could be.

Piece Vote 1-4

2011-09-15T02:21:00.000+10:00

I was hoping Piece Vote would turn out to be an awesome midnight dorama like Liar Game and The Quiz Show season 1, two awesome shows that Piece Vote is similar to. The main character is the younger brother of a successful internet guy who was recently killed. He and a group of other people were drugged and ended up on a ship to participate in an unknown game. The purpose of this game is to make each of the participants confess their sins which they are being watched by people on nico nico.

First thing that really bugs me is why the fuck did they have to listen to that overacting host played by Jinnai Takanori. They could have easily overpowered him and taken over the ship, especially in the beginning. Even when he had a gun, it wasn't like he was holding it in his hand and he was close enough to be taken down before he could pull the gun out from his pocket.

There's like bloody 7 of them and they have all been drugged and imprisoned and the idiots decide to listen to this lone guy's orders instead of bloody attacking him when he's walking in their midst and making idle threats on their lives. Maybe there's something in that equation that is supposed to make me care about this story. Now if the 'host' where giving orders with a gun in hand standing where he can't be reached, then it would make more sense for them to listen to him.

Secondly, the rules of the games are changed/ignored a lot which defeats the whole purpose of these type of doramas. There is nothing for the characters to solve. The only hook of the story is that it seems all the characters on the ship have some connection with the murder.

Let's not forget the super overacting in this non-comedy and a lot of time wasting monologues, even for a 20 minute dorama. Its pretty obvious that the writer(s) has an interesting conclusion but has no bloody idea how to get there. Even the revelations can be head scratching dumb. (Probably to fit the ending) Avoid.

Jmovie review: Gantz Perfect Answer

2011-09-12T01:33:00.001+10:00

The second part of the Gantz movies is here! The first movie ended with Kato and the not so big breasted Kei having died and Kurono vowing to revive them. The movie then takes a huge deviation from the manga with Aisha, the model who graced the posters in the first movie in possession of a small Gantz which is sending her on missions to kill people.

Yoshitaka Yuriko is so adorable I forgive them for not casting a loli Tae.

Aisha's story however makes sense and pays off very well during this awesome action sequence in a subway train. Once again, I need to tip my hat off to the writers for maximising the budget. We don't get to see the missions during the early parts of the movie but they obviously saved everything for the train fight where we get the Gantz people vs aliens using swords and guns.

My only complaint is that the katanas seem more like the rubbery swords used in wuxia movies but chalk that up to limited budget. There is this really cool sequence where Kurono gets knocked out of the train that just had me really pumped up. I really like the 3 on 1 fight sequence where for the first time, 3 people actually rushed the 1 at the same time. I'm sick of watching when people attack someone who is outnumbered one on one so I was pretty please with that.

My favourite fight in the movie.

I have mixed feeling about the ending. Action wise, I found the ending battles not as awesome as the train scene especially the retarded shoot out at the end. I think the last boss needed to show his true form and after the giant boss battles in the first movie and the train scene, the big fight was weak in comparison. The conclusion was pretty interesting and is something that I've never considered before though it wouldn't work in the manga now.

For what Perfect Answer is, a decently sized sci fi action movie, it does its job pretty well considering that 99% of big budget CG fest Japanese movies all end up being souless movies that relies on CG too hard. Just for the best Japanese CG action fest and not stuffing it up like 20th Century Boys movies, I would like to consider the Gantz movies must watch with a caveat of effects that are not as polished and your typical Japanese philosophical questions like why do you fight.

Ai kotoba wa yuki eps 1-3

2011-09-08T00:35:00.001+10:00

Managed to find auto subs for Hagetaka the movie and decided to see what WithS2 are up to and to my surprise, they've subbed yet another jdorama, Ai kotoba wa yuki! Talk about a stellar cast! Its got Yakusha Koji (Shall we dansu) and Suzuki Kyoka! Yakusho Koji plays Akatsuki Nitaro actor who is way past his glory days and yet still acts as if the world owes him a living.He can only get roles as a corpse or monster, his mistress is cheating on him and his wife wants a divorce but he is still rude to everyone and thinks only of himself. In short, he is our asshole main character in dire need of redemption.

Yup, that's Goro from Kita no Kuni Kara!

Tadashi (Katagori Shingo) is in Tokyo on a mission, to find a lawyer to defend his village from the evil polluters. Every lawyer Tadashi has seen has refused to help because the case is hopeless and the polluters have a legendary lawyer on their side. One night, Tadashi sees Akatsuki doing his best Gregory Peck impression from To Kill a Mockingbird and hatches a plan to hire Akatsuki to pretend to be a lawyer and tell the villagers that it is not worth going to court.

Goro speechless seeing ganguro for the first time.

Akatsuki, having reach the lowest point of his professional career is now enjoying all the attention that the villages shower upon him in their mistaken belief that he is here to save them. His selfish, nonchalant attitude is in danger of being exposed but in important moments in front of the villagers, his acting skills save the day.

First off, this is a mistaken identity dorama, a genre I don't particularly like because its so formulaic. Akatsuki is going to struggle, he's going to slowly change and do well before his true identity is found out and then we get the happy ending. Normally I would avoid these shows but Yakusho Koji's performance as Akatsuki is awesome.

What happens when simple country guy meets gaijin women for the first time.

Yakusho Koji gets to play him as the whining, primadonna actor as well as when he puts on his lawyer face. Akatsuki has to be funny, compelling and even when he's at his worst, amusing. I can only think of 4 other Japanese actors who could have played this role today. Shingo does OK as the audience's POV and Suzuki Kyoka is so far just window dressing.

I am skeptical about how good this show can be because they'll have to find some interesting ways for this actor playing a lawyer to successfully defend this village of country hicks for the next 9 episodes. Add to the fact that I don't find mistaken identity doramas appealing means I have little hope. Still, I shall give this dorama a fair go because Yakusho Koji is awesome, Suzuki Kyoka is easy on the eyes and they don't make doramas like this anymore. I would like to declare Ai kotoba wa yuki must watch but I can't until I have seen how the writers can keep things interesting in later episodes. However, if you're a fan of old school doramas like me, this is definitely worth checking out.

You can find the raws at Project Restoration and the subs at With S2.

Kita no Kuni Kara 1983 ~Fuyu~

2011-09-05T00:59:00.000+10:00

Fuyu is the first special is set one and a half years after the end of the series. Nothing much has changed for the Kuroitas. Fuyu deals with two stories, first is about Shoki and his mom and the trouble that she causes Goro. The second is about one of the founders of Furano who has come back after running away from his family many years ago.

There's going to be huge spoilers ahead so read at your own risk. Once again, Kita no Kuni Kara is about old/country values and both stories are written to illustrate that well. Goro (stupidly) signed on as a guarantor for Shokichi's mom and she has gambled all the money away and the only way Goro can settle the debt is to sell of his property.

Just realised that Yukiko is the mom in Kurumi no Heya!

While no one would certainly believe that the Kuroitas were in danger of losing their home, the highlight of the story for me was not how the townspeople came together and share Goro's burden the fact that Goro is unable to hate Shokichi's mom and the farewall scene at the train station. Goro was more concerned with Shokichi's mom losing her hometown. After what she has done, she would be forever shunned and forbidden to return to Furano.

That goodbye scene with Nakajima Miyuki's Ikoku, which luckily was translated by Chuks as well was superbly powerful. Its like saying more than money, one's hometown and the strength of the people there are more important.

The senile old guy story isn't as good though it has similar themes of regrets and forgiveness but it shouldn't have been the climax to the special. Of note is Fukubi Jun who plays the old man's granddaughter and Sota's new love interest. She looks the same as in Soredemo ikite yuku but is so much younger. Well, it looks like the Kuroita family gets a new member and I can't wait to see what the other specials have to offer.

Majisuka Gakuen 2

2011-08-30T01:32:00.002+10:00

If you've ever wanted to know the answer to the following questions:

- What does it mean to be maji (serious).
- For what purpose were you born.
- Why yankee girls can graduate high school without studying.
- Why do sakura petals blossom.
- How good must Maeda Atsuko's bj skills be with her continually being the face of AKB48 despite no acting and singing skills.

She looks exactly how I feel when I see her in doramas.

Then Majisuka Gakuen 2 is not the place to look for the answers.If you enjoyed season 1 for what it was, as I did then its more of the same but worse in some parts and slightly better. First season was Maeda Atsuko being the transfer student who doesn't want to fight taking down everyone climbing to the top. Pretty simple and straightforward.

In season 2, she faces the same problem as Neo after the first Matrix. She has become so powerful that there is nothing for her to do storyline wise. She is a force of nature. In Dragonball Z, they had to make things even more over the top but this is a low budget dorama. The writers decided to put her in the background in this quest of beating up yakuza and eating a sakura petal everytime she finishes a fight. Suffice to say, the reason she's doing it makes no sense at all.

The Maeda part is excusable. She's the face of AKB48 blah blah blah. The main problem with season 2 of Majisuka Gakuen is Itano Tomomi's character of Shibuya. Shibuya in season 1 was one of four Queens of Rapapa except she didn't really do anything besides get defeated with one punch by Maeda. Clearly she's a weak character or the director realised that no amount of cutting and camera tricks can ever make Itano Tomomi not look embarrassing.

Since, Itano Tomomi is AKB48's biggest solo act (her EM ads were everywhere in Japan when I was there), they decided to give her the main role as the antagonist where all is required from her is pouting her lips and declaring she wants revenge on Maeda. One of the important rules of wrestling is that the heel (bad guy) has to be threatening to the babyface (good guy).

Still can't believe she is only 14. She's like the Goto Maki of AKB48.

Is Shibuya remotely a threat to Maeda based on season 1? Nope. Do the writers 'power her up' in season 2 to make her look like she might give Maeda a run for her money? Nope. Ok, not all villains have to be strong but does she even hatch some insidious plans to put Maeda in a bind. Nope. Then in wrestling terms, she is a heel with no heat. I don't want to boo/hate her character because she's not a threat. She simply sucks and is boring.

I once thought Kojiharu was cute until I found out she can't act or sing.

Worst part is that there is no payoff. The main story of Majisuka 2 which has been building up in the background is the showdown between Maeda and Shibuya. In the end, we don't even get a bloody epic battle between the two of them. Not only have the completely stuffed up building Shibuya as a credible villain, they do not engage in fisticuffs.

Don't know who she is but they wasted so much time on her useless character.

The saving grace for Majisuka 2 is the relationship between Nezumi (Watanabe Mayu) and (Matsui) Matsui Jurina. Nezumi is the same mouse from season 1, always trying to fan the flames and incite people to fight each other. Matsui is sort of like her minion who does Nezumi's dirty work. Matsui like Nezumi even though she knows that Nezumi is a lying bitch and will use everyone to her end.

Kisu! Kisu! Kisu!

I'm not ashamed to say it. I finished Majisuka Gakuen 2 because of this relationship filled with yuri undertones. The scheming rat and her loyal to a fault muscle. It doesn't hurt that Matsui looks legal but is actually jailbat. Speaking of Matsui, she has a lot more charisma than that blank look which is stuck on Maeda's face all the time and she can emote decently unlike most of the people in AKB48. Mayuyu's not too bad either. It unfortunate that the duo are given main story screen time but are treated as a side story in the end.

In the beginning of every episode, there is disclaimer asking the viewer not to judge the acting too harshly. Overall, the acting in Majisuka is on par with shows like Buzzer Beater, Boss and Orthros no Inu so I find the disclaimer laughable. Does whoever put in that disclaimer have no idea about the acting quality in jdoramas? I expect overacting and seeing people on screen because they have fanboys/girls. Soredemo ikite yuku acting is the exception rather than the norm. Sadly, the writing is on par with the above mentioned shows which nearly makes Majisuka unwatchable and the disclaimer should have read,

"We had certain characters push onto us by AKB48 management and have had a hard time putting so many girls in so don't expect any decent writing."

Kurumi no Heya eps 1-4

2011-08-25T01:25:00.001+10:00

Matsushita Nao starts as Momoko in a family drama set in the 80s. I really like the setting because its a different time and people have different views on things compared to today. It was a time one could find public phones on every street corner and people didn't have video cassette players. NHK doesn't have the budget to reinforce the 80s look but that's understandable.

If there is one word to describe Kurumi no Heya, its charming. Its not dark and dreary but it doesn't have the bright light artificiality of a prime time dorama like Freeter. Its a fun show without having to make everything happy. Momoko is the second oldest sister among 4 children and one day her father goes off to work and never returns home. Its turns out that he had been fired and is now living with a woman. This sets of a chain of events which exposes problems in the Mitamura household.

Matsushita Nao does a decent job as Momoko. Talent-wise, she's not really main actress material but for doramas where the main character is a nice, strong girl she does ok. She just doesn't have the ability to speak with her eyes like Mitsushima Hikari.

You get your usual family drama plotlines of affairs, suffering housewives and money problems. Nothing we've not seen before but unlike Freeter, it knows what it wants to be and does it well. I've got no complaints about Kurumi no Heya. This season has been awesome. We've got a 3 pretty good shows and now with Kurumi no Heya, we've got two very watchable shows as well.

IS ~Otoko demo Onna demo nai Sei~ eps 1-4

2011-08-21T22:10:00.001+10:00

IS is one confusing dorama. I haven't been this confused since I found out Kayo Police was a dude. Anyway IS is a story about intersexuals, people who are born with both more and female traits like in the case of our main protagonist, Haru (Fukuda Saki) who was born with a vagina and an oversized clitoris/small dick. Haru was born with both ovaries and testicles but her testicles were removed when she was a child.

However Haru was raised as a boy and acts like a boy thanks to Fukuda Saki's acting which will prevent me from looking at her the same way again. To get into high school, Haru has to pretend to be a girl and he finds himself getting his period and dealing with all sorts of confusing questions.

IS starts of with a recap of the parents having Haru and them learning to deal with Haru being an intersexual. With the happy intro and perfect parents, it just looked like yet another Ichi Litre no Namida/Taiyo no Uta. I'm not saying IS is a disease but rather that it seemed to be following the formula of here is a rare condition, they're gonna have a perfect family and its going to be a bright melodrama with all the cliches.

IS finally got interesting for me when it was revealed that Miwako (Gouriki Ayame), Haru's friend is also an IS. Her male organs had been removed and she had been taking female hormones since young but her vagina is underdeveloped. Oh yeah, Gouriki Ayame is a picture of kawaiiness who needs to be put in a goth loli dress. :)

I guess the whole point of IS is the journey of Haru, a person who's gender cannot be defined. It is an interesting topic but whether it will rise above the standard show and tell stories of Ichi Litre and Taiyo no Uta, I cannot say.

Freeter, Ie wo Kau eps 5-10

2011-08-19T00:54:00.001+10:00

Freeter is a dorama with an identity crisis. It wants to be this character study, serious movie type story life as a temporary employee and dealing with an assortment of family problems including a mother battling depression. On the other hand, it is shot like your typical brightly lit prime time dorama with your usual jdorama cliches to help pad it out.

Yup, I'm still hung up over the lighting that makes it look like a daytime soap opera because Freeter has some interesting things to say about working life and depression. About how choosing who you work with can be more important than choosing where you work. About what the big deal is about being a temp worker rather than a permanent one.

Sure, there is no job security but what job has? The only major difference would be long service leave. Lots of I.T. jobs now are contract based. I kind of enjoyed watching Seiji gaining his confidence in himself one step at a time and his dysfunctional relationship with his father is fun to watch.

On the other hand, we have Karina's soap opera story which just feels like fluff especially the 'woe is me cause two accidents happened on my watch' self pity. Talk about trying to squeeze blood from a stone. If you followed all safety procedures or if someone was bloody reckless, then its not your fucking fault! Instead of calling out Karina's character for the idiot that she is, everyone just stands back and just says 'poor girl'.

Then we have Igawa Haruka's story where she plays this wife with mother in law trouble to an absent husband. I can see why they chose not have to the husband on screen but it does not validate her relationship with her rich husband. Sure, in the end she learns to stand up to her mother in law in the end but there is nothing to cheer for. There is no background story. It is a mere conflict because she had for a long time chosen to accept the mother in law's abuse. In the end when the husband supports her, it is not big deal cause we don't know who he is. He has been a character that existed by name throughout the series.

The less said about the OL relationship with the persistent guy the better. I enjoyed Asano Atsuko's portrayal as Seiji's mom. Maybe its because her face doesn't look as plastic as it was in Maria or maybe her relationship with Seiji's short tempered dad felt real. In summary, Freeter has a good main story and is brought down by cliched side soap opera stories. Its watchable but prepare for some scenes and storyline that would make you cringe. Perhaps I am concerned to much with what Freeter could be and not what it is, fluff with hints of substance.

Quartet

2011-08-14T23:33:00.001+10:00

And I thought Halle Berry's wig in X-Men was bad...

Quartet is a crime/undercover dorama which unfortunately tends to veer towards the colourful anime side. When we first meet Shun (Fukuda Saki), she is cheering on her brother in some underground MMA fight. The fight goes on for way too long but there's blood and decent action and it looks gritty. Then we are introduced to this mysterious guy Takeru (Matsushita Yuya) who likes to beat druggies up for some reason.

If you want to hear Fukuda Saki say words like this, this dorama is for you.

Soon, Shun and Takeru are recruited by Kunichiwa (Kamikawa Takaya in a very fake grey/purple wig) to go undercover in this town called Midori, in order to find out information about this drug factory by the villain Tsukamoto. Midori is basically a town that does not exist on the map and is inhabited by illegal Chinese immigrants. In other words its an illegal chinatown where even the police dare not thread.

Quartet has got a more mature theme but some ports are so juvenile.

Midori is my favourite part of Quartet cause it reminds me very much of Little Asia in Ryu ga gotoku/Yakuza 4. Its also fun to hear so much Mandarin in a jdorama and to hear Fukuda Saki butcher it, lol. There they run into Kasumi (Watanabe Natsuna) who is the fourth member of the quartet and is undercover as Tsukamoto's lover. We get implied sex scenes but yes, she's fucking the villain for information.

I thought Watanabe Natsuna looked very familiar but I just could not put my finger on where I had seen her before. To my surprise, she was Kei from the Gantz movie. I didn't find her hot in Gantz but she looks pretty good here. Maybe its just that she never stood a chance to Kei from the manga.

For an undercover action dorama, there isn't much undercover stuff going on besides Kasumi's story. For Shun and Takeru its basically befriend the hostile locals and defeat the villain in the end. Utterly forgettable stuff and the one thing that gets on my nerves is the fact that they call this dorama Quartet when Kunichiwa doesn't really do anything besides issue orders. Its like saying Charlie is part of a quartet with his angels.

Speaking of Charlie's Angels, I've always thought that the formula for team stories was that each member was suppose to bring something to the team. Kasumi is the seductress/bombs girl and the only one who is doing real undercover work. Kunichiwa is the cop in charge of the group. Shun can fight, speak Mandarin and use her brain. Finally Takeru can fight and is an idiot. Hhmm, someone seems very expendable.

Truer words have never been spoken.

Actually there is one more thing that I really hated which was the Matsushita Yuya video during the credits and him doing some dance moves in the story. What a way to put a flashing neon sign saying the purpose of this dorama is to push this dude. I basically fast forwarded the last few episodes because there is nothing compelling about Quartet. Avoid.

Soredemo ikite yuku eps 3+4

2011-08-09T02:37:00.002+10:00

How can there be any justice in this world when a dorama as good as Soredemo ikite yuku getting only ~10% viewership?! This dorama just makes me gleefully happy because it is nice to go through a season without getting pissed off with amateurish writing or wooden acting. I can't even remember a season when we had two must watch doramas and at least one pretty good one.

If Mitsushima Hikari doesn't win all the best actress awards this season, it will be proof that the winner is probably the best in the world at giving blowjobs. I just love her portrayal of Futaba. She's so headstrong in believing that something good will come out of her relationship with Hiroki, despite the fact that social rules dictate that her family will forever suffer and live in shame.

Instead of burying her head and living her life, she wants to confront the pain of Hiroki's family. Maybe want is too strong a word but she exposes herself to the pain of Hiroki's family. Perhaps as a form of penance on behalf of her brother or perhaps Futaba is sick of living in fear and silence. The dorama doesn't allude to anything but one thing we can be sure is that she is not afraid of getting hurt.

Her feelings for her brother have not really changed despite the revelation at the end of episode 2, which I find interesting because it leaves open the possibility for a Berserk ending. One of the big ongoing questions for the manga Berserk is whether the main female character, Casca will want to seek vengeance on the villain when she regains her memory because she has worshipped and adored him. I will probably have to wait 10 years before it is answered in the manga.

Its pretty safe to say that Fumiya is not exactly reformed will all the neon, flashing hints the writer has been giving us. There could be some twist but it would be way too convoluted and would bring the story down. At the moment of truth, will Futaba still help her brother? Just as all Berserk fans have been wondering for years whether Casca will seek revenge on Griffith or even save him in the end, I want to see whether Futaba will protect her brother, even from Hiroki.

The dinner table argument scene at the end of episode 4 had tension and high emotions so thick you could slice it with a knife. I was thinking would Futaba's dad risk breaking up his family because of something that he felt was his duty as a father? It looked like the family was going to break up and then unexpectedly Akari supported her dad! Is this going to turn out to be a high tension seemingly ok brother back in family but sister suspect something is amiss? This brings us to the huge awesome revelation that came out of the blue and just blew my mind. The way the truth was revealed was so beautiful because it was not through words but by the faces and reactions of the characters.

I certainly did not see it coming but it explained certain things, created more questions and creates a strong case for a potential Berserk ending. In two episodes, Sakomoto Yuji has also introduced a new girl to add some excitement into Futaba and Hiroki's relationship or perhaps she will be more than just a plot device. So many side stories to fill out the dorama and I expect something for Hiroki's brother as well. I'm so tempted to watch ep 5 raw but that would mean I would have to wait longer for episode 6. Unless I watch it again when the subs come out. Hhhhmm. Do not miss this dorama!

addendum: Decided to ditch Hanawake no yon shimai. I just cannot bloody stand the storylines for the other 3 sisters and the ending of episode 3 has not gotten me excited for anything.

Yuusha Yoshihiko to Maou no Shiro eps 1-4

2011-08-05T01:57:00.001+10:00

Yuusha Yoshihiko is a low budget fantasy adventure story. However, it is not a sentai show with big name actors like Saiyuki was. Yuusha yoshihiko is brilliant parody/love letter to the DragonQuest series and JRPGs in general. The plotline is of course this village boy Yoshihiko (Yamada Takayuki) on his quest to save the world. Along for the ride is your chick fighter of the group played by Kinami Haruka who wants to avenge her father by killing Yoshihiko, and old fighter played by Shin Takuma and your compulsory wizard who can cast spells.

Hhhmm, this picture looks very familiar.

If there is one word to describe Yuusha Yoshihiko, it is FUN. This is the most fun to watch dorama to watch since... I can remember watching doramas. As the subber danburi says, you can really tell they are having great time making this dorama. We need a behind the scenes episode cause I can see them cracking up after most takes.

Fantasy comedy is something that we hardly see. There was a movie called Your Highness that had one of the funniest trailers ever but in the end the movie just relied on cursing and sex jokes without making use of the fantasy setting. Which is not to say, Yuusha Yoshihiko does not contain dick jokes and characters speaking in modern slang but rather at its heart, it is about taking fantasy/JRPG conventions and turning them upside down or asking some pertinent questions.

Abandoned set from 13 Assassins? Either that or Juji TV has an abandoned village set for anyone to use.

Yuusha Yoshihiko makes fun of those conventions but in a way that embraces them. I've watched a lot of B-grade Japanese movies and most of the time they're more throw stuff at the wall and hope everything sticks. Yuusha Yoshihiko has the feel of a carefully crafted story or rather the awesome gags just fit together in the spirit of JRPG conventions. I don't want to spoil the jokes cause they are all awesome but my favourite one so far has to be forging the soul sword.

They've really embraced the low budget setting and this has led to some decisions which I think turned out better than if they had the budget such as the magician Merebu's spells. Everytime he proclaims he has learned a new spell, you know you're going to be laughing. Or even using animation for a big monster fight which I think is a brilliant idea and just makes it all the more funnier.

I love how they've gotten rid of the wires on the Evil treasure chest by mosiacing (does this word even exist?) them.

Whoever the masterminds behind this dorama, my hats of to them and Takayuki Yamada for taking on this midnight dorama despite him being a major actor. I'm pretty sure he's not doing this for the money. One of the reasons why I continue watching jdoramas despite most of it being crap is that once in while, they come up with excellent shows like Yuusha Yoshihiko which you can't get anywhere else. Big thank you to danburi for his speedy subbing and I can't wait to watch the rest of series.

Don Quixote eps 1-3

2011-08-01T23:54:00.001+10:00

When I first read about this dorama, I couldn't figure out why a body swapping dorama would have the name of a story about a delusional old man. I wasn't expecting much for this genre of doramas because I've seen enough of it in movies and dorama to know its a concept that is usually used to play safe and struggle to get to the finish line of both parties learn more about each other and come out at the end as better people.

Love this shot!

Interestingly enough, Don Quixote is more of a spiritual sequel to Ninkyo Helper and the body swap is more of a the mcguffin. Ninkyo Helper was basically about yakuzas working in a retirement home. The mcguffin was that it was part of some stupid test to determine who the next leader would be. The first rule of enjoying movies/dorama is of course never question the mcguffin because it is necessary to drive the story but everything that flows from it is fair game for criticism.

Poor girl gets like one line per episode and most of the time the camera has her ad side view.

So instead of doing another you have to work as a child care worker because it is somehow relevant to test your leadership qualities, its yakuza ends up in body of meek child care worker. The premise also presents its own interesting problems for our yakuza protagonist. As much as he likes to shout and act tough, he is in a weak body that can't fight, drink or smoke while the meek child care worker is in possession of a tough body that can fight but is afraid to do so.

I'd hate to see the bill after this kyabakura session.

Sounds a bit like the formula for Trick, which is the foundation for any odd couple pairings. Have a couple of flawed characters who make up for each other's weaknesses have to work together. This is also where Don Quixote made the right choice in terms of storyline.

Just read that she played young Yamada Naoko in Trick.

Most of the time, in body swapping stories one story is usually better than the other but they end up giving equal time to both or less time to the funnier story (Papa to musume nanokakan). Clearly in this one the yakuza being forced to saved kids is more interesting than a wuss who does not take advantage of being a yakuza boss. A sacred child worker in a yakuza's body trying to get out of fights is not really entertaining. So its basically the odd couple saving kids with the yakuza problems as a side story.

The three episodes so far of course have their Full House moments but nothing overly melodramatic. Don Quixote is pretty funny and this is a show where overacting helps. It doesn't reach Yasuko to Kenji's level of over-overacting until it becomes impossible to watch. I really enjoyed Uchida Yuki's 'anata' running joke with her yakuza husband. Kinda reminds me of her 'Sam' running joke in Akimahende which was one of the earliest jdoramas I watched. So far, I have a feeling the writers are aiming for more than just your generic body swap story and feel they have planned the story well. With Don Quixote and Soredemo Ikite Yuku, this season is turning out to be a good one.

Soredemo, Ikite Yuku eps 1+2

2011-07-28T01:24:00.001+10:00

Do you really need any reason to watch this besides Sakamoto Yuji, the writer of Chase, Mother, Taiyo to umi Kyoushitsu, Watashitachi no Kyokasho, Itoshi kimi E and Last Christmas? Ok, kyokasho wasn't that good but that had nothing to do with the writing and more to do with Densha being miscast. Actually Densha should never be the main actor of any show. How about Mitsushima Hikari and Fukuda Mayuko, two of the best young talents in jdorama playing sisters?

Soredemo, Ikite Yuku is basically a revenge + love story. Hiroki's (Eita) sister Aika was murdered when he was young and the incident has had a profound effect on him and his family. Basically time had stopped for him. His parents divorced and the incident hangs above him and his family like an dark shadow.

Futaba (Mitsushima Hikari) is the younger sister of the criminal who killed Hiroki's sister. Her family is still constantly being harassed by people who find out about the incident. At the beginning of the episode, Futaba's boyfriend breaks up with her and her father loses his job. Her parents have gone so far as to officially divorce (though they are living together) so that the daughters are not on his register.

One thing that I can never understand is the whole Japanese thing of cursing the family of a criminal. WTF is the point of abusing and bullying innocent people just because they are related to a criminal? Surely there has to be a limit to collective or familial responsibility? Is the general consensus in Japan that parents are ultimately responsible for raising criminals? Its sort of similar to Ashiteru Kaiyo but is a much darker and more realistic look at the subject matter. Two families on each side of a crime and two of the children who get together.

Soredemo, Ikite Yuku is also a sort of character study of how people cope with a tragic incident. Hiroki has been basically sleep walking through life and has never fallen in love. He blames himself for Aika's death because he refused to go kite flying with her that fateful day and regrets being mean to her. His father tried to force his family to forget Aika which led to his wife divorcing him and is living just do die so that he can see Aika again. Hiroki's mom and brother and since moved on his mom is like in a zombiefied state unable to cry because nothing is more painful than losing a daughter.

Futaba's family is coping with the public resenting them as best as they can. The parents put on a brave face and have to make the difficult decision of sending the grandmother to a retirement home. Futaba has learnt to live with her 'fate' and has experienced bullying in school but still loves her brother and believes in him. The younger sister Akari (Fukuda Mayuko) is determined not to suffer her sister's fate.

There are a lot of nice emotional touches like Hiroki regretting his treatment of his deceased sister and wondering whether he should be glad she had been born and then Futaba telling him from her perspective that no matter how many times an onichan is cruel to the imouto, she remembers the one time he is kind. It speaks so eloquently of the Hiroki's relationship with Aika and Futaba with her brother.

Look at the size of the..... bottle of milk...hhhmm.

I kinda wished they did not reveal Futaba's identity from the get go but the scene at the end of ep one at the overhead bridge was nonetheless awesome. So much emotion and tension. Episode 2 teases the story going in one direction and then hits you with a revelation that makes you sit up straight.

Here's hoping Akari gets her own story arc.

This is probably THE dorama of the season. Can't think of anyone better to portray the emotionally scarred main characters other than Eita and Mitsushima Hikari. Hope the story doesn't slow down like Byakuyakou but there are certainly enough storyline possibilities to fill up 10 episodes. As long as the rest of the series is filled with angst, screaming, revelations and perhaps some violence, its going to be awesome. Do not miss this jdorama.

Hanawake no yon shimai eps 1 and 2

2011-07-25T00:41:00.001+10:00

Hanawake no yon shimai title is pretty self explanatory, its the story of the four Hanawa sisters with a playboy of a father and the perfect mother. However, this is essentially a Mizuki Arisa dorama with her playing another eccentric character who has a huge influence on everyone around her. This time, Arisa is Takemi, the 2nd sister who is twice divorce with kids and has this magical ability to enchant any man in her vicinity. She also has a history of causing a lot of trouble for her sisters.

If I had three daughters who looked like this, I would lock them up in my nice big dungeon.

Of course, in typical Mizuki Arisa fashion while she is an inconsiderate sister and will engage in stupid fights, she will at the end inadvertently save the day or two something cool. Think of her as the reverse Saito-san. This selfish character who is a source of much comedy who will perhaps accidentally right wrongs. Like Saito-san, its fun to watch Takemi impose her will on others.

Takemi is the light and joy of this dorama.

The bad part of the dorama are the three sisters because their stories are so fucking boring, especially Kawashima Umika's. OMFG, you have not seen the worst bad acting in jdoramas until you have seen the guy playing her love interest. He is so fucking bad that he makes Fukada Kyoko look like Mitsushima Hikari. I propose all Japanese tv stations set up a department to issue acting license to make sure that people in jdoramas possess a minimal level of acting ability because a statue would be a better actor than this guy.

I like this view.

Back to the boring three sisters. Its unfortunate this dorama is not called 'The interesting Hanawa sister'. Hanawake no yon shimai would have benefited greatly from following the formula of Mukodono, sprinkle a little bit of backstory for the sisters but deal with each of their issues in their own episodes so as to ensure that the interesting character is involved in their stories to keep the show interesting.

That looks like Umemiya Masako. By the jdorama gods, she has aged.

Episode 2 ends with a major cliffhanger and I am sticking around to see where this goes. In summary, the more Mizuki Arisa this show has the better it is but unfortunately, the 3 other sisters get too much screen time. Imagine a GTO dorama where half the time, its the adventures of his 3 boring underlings. Check it out for some laughs but do make use of the fast forward button. If you haven't seen Saito-san, watch it instead.

Need name of actress.

Jmovie review: Gantz

2011-07-22T00:21:00.001+10:00

Gantz is one of my favourite mangas. Its is a story where people who have died are called to participate in this life or death game whereby they have to kill aliens within a certain time frame and the only way out is to score 100 points. Someone who reaches 100 points can also choose to resurrect someone or gain a more powerful weapon. What makes the manga so fun is not the violence and nudity but rather you grow very attached to the characters and anyone in the story can and will probably die. The other thing is the sense that anything can happen.

The famous image from the manga. Hhmm, where's the dog that liked to lick Kei?

A lot of things in the manga just don't make sense and you wonder whether the mangaka is putting story elements in for fun or does he actually have an explanation for everything? Its a manga where ultimately, its quality will be judged by how well the ending can tie everything together.

Somehow Watanabe Natsuna's face doesn't fit Kei's.

Gantz, I am happy to say is a pretty good action movie. Of course Battleship Yamato makes every action CG movie look good but I am quite impressed that the makers of Gantz did not fall into Yamato's pitfall. If the movie were to follow the manga, the cost for a movie would be at least $100 million dollars. The manga has action scenes that only a combination of Michael Bay and Takashi Miike can dream of.

This view however, matches her character as Nino sits and contemplates the meaning of life.

Gantz the movie has probably didn't even have Yamato's budget so they had to rework the story to fit its budget and the film makers did the smart thing. They tried to minimise the use of CG throughout the movie and save it for the big finale. Even then, they would use more reaction shots. Yamato did the opposite and blew its wad in the first 10 minutes of the movie.

Yoshitaka Yuriko knows how to overload her character with enough sweetness and kawaiiness to give me a heart attack.

Such sacrifice does affect the story as well. Only the two leads get to see any action Kurono and Kato get to see any action which is kind of sad as it gets rid of the team feeling from the manga. One of my favourite characters, the ojisan is in the movie but he does nothing whereas in the manga, he is an awesome supporting character. He does get to say his famous line from the manga though.

This is not the manga Gantz. There is no way that they can do anything close to the manga with their budget. The best way to enjoy this movie is to think of it as a Gantz story set in an alternate universe. The one thing missing in this movie for me is that Kato never really got to show his leadership skills. I also liked how they raised the characters' ages. The downside is that we lose Tae's lolitaness but Yoshitaka Yuriko does her best bringing forth Tae's innocent qualities.

Looks 10 times better than all the crappy CG in Yamato and 20 times more exciting.

Nino is the one Johnny who can act and he does an awesome job as Kurono. Kenichi Matsuyama didn't impress me but that's more because Kato was whining and crying all through the movie without showing the leadership and self belief that he had in the manga. Not to hot on the actress playing Kei though. She didn't have strong screen presence and there are plenty of more attractive actresses/gravure idols with a more Kei like bust size.

I hope this Aisha ad was not done merely as a nod to the Reika character.

There is of course a to be continued ending and it seems that the second movie will take a very different route from the manga. I bloody hope that Reika is in part 2. My hats off to the makers of the first movie. A really think they did as good a job as they could have. I was impressed by the action and CG sequences. Storyline sacrifices had to be made but I'll always have the manga. Bring on part 2!