Day 6, Osaka: I wish I were a white guy.

Gaijin and 3 supporting characters.

So there we were, after having tomato ramen for dinner and looking for a bar to go to. New Yorker wasn`t open yet so we walked around and came to this bar which shall remain nameless for obvious reasons. The master was really good and we managed to hold conversations with our limited Japanese.

Kawa from Kyoto!

Then this chick strolls in and the master asks her whether she`d be able to converse with us in English. After some awkward pauses, me and Rei started conversing with her. Usual introductory stuff. I realise that I didn`t know my job description in Japanese. She was a hairdresser but other details are to be omited in order not to identify her.

Does this face actually look like..............

We got to talking about movies, music etc. She was a big fan of Lar en ciel which Rei was so that got the conversation moving smoothly. She mentioned that she was a huge fan of Hyde and said that Hellcar looked like him. During the conversation, she mentioned a couple of times that she thought Hellcar was kakoii and cute. I told Hyde about it and asked if I should call him over but she was all hazukashi and all.

this?????????? She also said I looked like the drummer from Spitz which I do not look like. I probably look like the drummer from GagagaSP.

The theme became practicing English and it was basically me asking her questions in English and saying it in Japanese if she didn`t understand and her replying in Japanese. I wrote down two sentences seen below and suggested she practice on Hellcar but she kept on doing her hazukashi thingie. I`ve seen enough JAV to know that yamete means no so I got Hyde to come over and her to ask him those two lines.

 This is my first ever English lesson. I`m feeling the inspiration to teach English here.



Temple in Kyoto. For me it was pretty much go in, nice temple, where do we go next? Kyoto is too small unless you really really like this sort of thing.

Problem was, Hyde could read katakana and hiragana but couldn`t do much speaking. So I basically had to be the interpreter for them. Translating English to Japanese and Japanese to English. Now I know how the supporting characters in jdoramas feel. I was the plot device to bring the Japanese girl and her Hyde together and I was the device that allowed them to communicate.

Abe on a vending machine.

Seriously though, it was pretty fun. Loved seeing her hazukashi expressions. Like I told her, I think Osaka girls are way better and more natural. She was saying she didn`t have her full makeup on and I was telling her she looked kirei. Somehow or rather, we got to talking about going to her workplace for a haircut. Pretty sure she was talking about Hellcar only but but goddamit I might as well get something out of playing supporting character to Hellcar. Oh yeah, Hyde said maybe to her propositions which I thought was very Kimutaku Pride like.


Dragon from temple near JR Kyoto.

So tomorrow`s plan is Den Den Town, haircut by cute Japanese girl who thinks Hellcar looks like Hyde and I`ll have to do the supporting character thing and leave them alone after that. If only there were a female supporting character. Next time I come Japan, I`m going to have a face off transplant with a gaijin and probably a chest hair transplant as well.

Day 4: Hakone rules

Group picture with master of Kurata Izakaya.

River next to Hakone-yumoto station.

Stew pork soba at Hakone. The main dish was yuba tofu soba which was way too healthy for me.

Yes, smoking and ping pong at Ohmiya Ryokan. They had ping pong bats so we didn`t need to use slippers.

To Yao Ken aka Will J, this is what you are missing out when you decided to FFK us. Did I mention that they got two ashtrays in our rooms and in the toilets!

Chicken skin yakitori! Yes, Jeff they are even tastier than Melbourne`s.

Chanko nabe stew. Apparently E. Honda eats this so he can do the flying headbutt.

Our rock band singer plus the best maracas in Japan = win!

I finally got to sing Love Machine at a karaoke! Unfortunately, my mind went blank at the beginning of the song much to the amusement of my friends.

Yes those are real geisha. Thanks to Hellcar and his gaijin ninja shot skills.

Rei failing at busu-kawaii. Clearly he had enough alcohol at this point.

Billy showing us his excitement from being so close to the geisha.

More Hellcar gaijin ninja shot skills. I need to rent me a geisha in order to practice my Japanese with.

Two guys and 3 geisha? Throw us a bone here mate!

Waking up 10 minutes from check out time.

View from overhead bridge at Hakone-yumoto station.

Our rooms at Ohmiya Ryokan.

Random notes and observations:
- We went to an outdoor onsen and it was really good. Thank god I`m short sighted so I didn`t really see anything. There was a wall divider like in the doramas/anime but it wasn`t to the female section. Ohmiya Ryokan also had a private indoor onsen which I woke up at 6am to enjoy.
- Kimutaku`s ads suck.
- Ohgura Yuko seems to be a staple of variety shows. Saw her in two different shows and she`s no longer speaking in her fake voice although its still very kawaii.
- The boss of Ohmiya Ryokan and master of Kurata Izakaya really went out of their way to make us welcome. Ohmiya Ryokan gave us free tickets for the onsen and made a booking for us at Kurata. I really had a lot of fun and would definitely come back here again. I wish we could have stayed an extra day.
- Now in Kyoto and its raining so we couldn`t be stuffed going to shrines etc. Off to Osaka tomorrow!

Days 2 and 3 or why UFO catchers are evil.

I had actuallz written a very, very long post but this because of this goddamn Japanese keyboard causes random refreshes and I was relying on autosave but one stupid mistake cost me the entire fucking post. Gaaaah. Stupid keyboard! Rather than type out the entire damn thing again I'm going to just put up pictures taken by Hellcar and add descriptions. Next time I'm bringing an English keyboard to Japan.

Eating with Iino at a Hakkaido Izakaya. Bloody expensive but at least we got to eat horsemeat.

Kyushu Jangara Ramen. Rumour has it, Daigo ate here before he went on his 200 win streak rampage in Vampire Saviour.

Hellcar going for his Japanese girl printclub look.

Do you think I might get a 200 game losing streak after eating here?

Rei to drunk with love for his new camera.

Hhhm, I think I need a pillow to rest my head.

Another 1200 yen gone. This time I'm going to get the Love Plus pillow for sure.

Vending machines are the best way to get rid of coins.

Billy playing at Big Box arcade. For some reason you can only play against people opposite you.

Right before Hellcar got warned not to take pictures of weapons. I can kinda understand those army otakus now. Who wouldn't want this in their house?

New Hatsune Miku arade game with long queue and yes, pictures were prohibited.

I'm going to Japan!

In a few hours I will be leaving for Brisbane for a connecting flight to Japan. Yes, finally I shall take my first step on the land where 90% of my entertainment comes from. My first pilgrimage to the holy land. My only disappointment is that SSF4 is not out in the arcades yet. Talk about bad timing. There's supposed to be 5 of us going but one pulled out due to wanting to have more money to spend on his new daughter. Talk about getting your priorities wrong.

Nevertheless I look forward to fulfilling my dream of being addressed as goshujin-sama by cute Japanese maids. Besides that I expect to eat lots of great food and consume lots of suntory premium malt. I'm going to meet with two friends there, one of which is turtleAE86/bframe5 so its going to be fun talking jdoramas with someone who knows his stuff.

Not sure if I will have time to blog about it while there for two weeks. I'm not one for taking pictures and I'll probably be too drunk most nights.

Dosokai eps 1-3

Another housewife fantasy dorama with a slightly different twist on it. This time about about a 30 year middle school reunion which sets off a dramatic chain of events. Kuroki Hitomi is Tomomi, your picture perfect housewife with an unemployed husband who is forced to downsize the family home. At the reunion, she meets Kosuke (Katsunori Takahashi), her middle school crush who is now a married cop, Yoko a seemingly happily married housewife (aren't they all?) and Hiroshi a playboy magazine editor.

After the reunion, two of their former classmates didn't return home and ran off together. Tomomi and friends are concerned by this seemingly uncharacteristic behaviour but it gives her an excuse to continue to meet Kosuke. Tomomi and Kosuke maybe 45 but the had this middle school attraction to each other that never materialised into anything. 30 years later and they're still acting like middle school kids resuming their very awkward courtship.

Yes, Dosokai centered around a middle school romance dorama with characters who are married and in their fourties. Not to mention continuing all the middle school rivalries and stuff. We have all the hallmarks of the housewife fantasy genre such as suspicious spouses, snoopy kids and the audience wondering why the characters got married to their respective spouses in the first place? The main plotline is the four ex-classmates trying to search for the runaway couple but the true main story is of course uncovering the characters' secrets and watching the chaos when the affairs happen and are uncovered.

I hope we haven't seen the last of Mano Yuko in ep 3.

Gotta give props to the soundtrack which is pretty good and really amps up the excitement. There's this scene in ep 3 where Tomomi's husband is driving fast and then the camera switches to a first person driving view and some midi like videogame driving music appears. Absolutely brilliant!

Hate the irritating kid.

Dosokai is not the most original housewife fantasy show. Kuroki Hitomi and Katsunori Takahashi do their usual acting stuff but I submit that Dosokai is a pretty well made one and I had great fun watching the first three episodes. Highly recommended.

Shinzanmono eps 1+2

Abe is back in Shinzanmono, where he plays Kaga Kyoichiro, a new detective working at Kodenmacho. Like your typical Abe characters, Kaga is a bit aloof but is an expert at what he does, which is to solve mysteries. Shinzanmono isn't your typical cop show with a different crime each week for our protagonist to solve. Instead, its more about the colourful cast of characters that populate Kodenmacho. A small town dorama full of mysteries about its residents.



The main/background story is a murder mystery which will indoubtedly take all series to solve. During the course of the murder investigation, Kaga cames across various characters that have their own mysteries for him to unravel, usually leading to a heart warming ending. Not really a fan of too much feel good mysteries because its more of the domain of B-grade doramas like Hancho; safe family friendly stories.


However, this show is riddled with so many guest stars and good acting that I don't really mind. Especially Natsukawa Yui in ep 2. We need another dorama with her and Abe as the leads. Good news is Kuroki Meisa is not the love interest. She is Kaga's kouhai from her tea ceremony club though query how she would even know a sempai 24 years her senior. She does have some sort shared history with Kaga.


Hachi-one plays Kaga's partner but he's basically relegated to plot device, not that I care anyway. The strength of this show relies on the writing and ultimately how good it will be depends on the murder mystery that lurks in the background. I fear that all the episodes will be too formulaic in that the suspects will have nothing to do with the murder and it'll be about Kaga unraveling something hidden in the resident's lives.


There's not much humour in this one, only a running joke about something always stopping Kaga from buying a taiyaki. Its way to early to judge the writing but for Abe fans this is must watch. Unless there's a brilliant individual episode or great twist in the main murder mystery, I'll probably only write about Shinzanmono after it is over.

Mother ep 1

Mother starts with a rescue scene with people frantically searching for a little girl that had fallen off a pier. They had found her scarf in the water and was asking her stunned mother whether it was her daughters scarf, which she answered in the affirmative. Flashback six months before the incident, we are introduced to Suzuhara Nao (Matsuyuki Natsuko), birdwatcher enthusiast who is stuck with a temp teaching job.


Aside from bird watching, Nao has no interest in anything else. She goes about her job teaching primary school kids in a nonchalant manner. She ignores phone calls from her mother and lives in a sparsely decorated unit. Nao is intrigued by a student of hers, Michiki who has a very mature view of things when the class is instructed to write a letter to the dead class duck who of course can't read. Nao doesn't bother to answer Michiki's question.


Michiko seems to take in interest in Nao but she is indifferent. However, she notices that Michiko has scraps and bruises on her. Nao is hesitant to pursue the matter further but another teacher takes interest and drags Nao to make a complaint to a Child Counselling Center. The counselling center can't even be fucked to make a visit or just open a file because they lack 'conclusive evidence'. If this type of places won't even place weight on teacher's complaints, who is going to fight for the abused children?


Michiko's situation gets worse but Nao just found a bird watching job and is eager to quit her teaching job. Of course, you can pretty much guess what happens next and we get a really nice plot twist that should have ended the show. Instead, we get a sort of epilogue followed by a big reveal at the end that answers some big questions. I'm complaining about the big reveal because doramas should spend no more than 1 big bullet per episode, unless its the last one.


The writer could have stretched the 'mystery' a bit longer and reveal it at the end of the second episode. Of course, there is the possibility that every episode will have a nice twist/reveal but in my experience, this screams of putting one's eggs in the first episode just for ratings. If anything, I'd rather a dorama start out slow and end strong (Shikaotoko) then have an impressive 1st episode and fizzle at the end because it didn't pace itself well. In other words, the first episode is too awesome that I'm skeptical they can maintain this standard throughout.


Matsuyuki Yasuko's acting is awesome as always. Michiko is your typical cute little girl who thinks and talks like an adult whose sole purpose is to make the audience to aawwwwwwww and kawaii~~~~~~. There are same moments which are overly melodramatic which is expected but hopefully it will be kept to a minimum. The outdoor scenes in particular look awesome. The first episode is definitely must watch stuff. Where the story will go from here is intriguing. Looks like this season is off to a flying start.