Hitori Shizuka ep 1

I feel bad I didn't talk about Hitori Shizuka in my jdorama write up for this season. I've learned my lesson; any WOWOW dorama is worth checking out. The main character for ep 1 is Takizaki played by Takahashi Issei, the guy who looks like he wants to cry all the time from Gonzo. Takizaki is a low level police officer who is stuck working in a police box and dealing with grandmothers making a report about 900 yen being stolen.

I love good old WOWOW realism. I really enjoyed the look at being a grunt in the police force. Doing menial work such as keeping onlookers away from crime scenes or being tasked to random questioning of town people. I like that even when Takizaki manages to hit on a lead from asking random people at public places, he is unable to present his finding because other senior members of the investigation team have hit upon the same information from chasing juicier leads. I love that its not preachy but shows it as it is.

Not going to say much about the plot save that a murder occurs close to Takizaki's police box and he goes to investigate only to find another policeman already there. I went into Hitori Shizuka with no knowledge save for Kaho's face on the poster an I enjoyed every damn minute of it.

Hitori Shizuka looks like your typical awesome WOWOW dorama. Gritty and real. Even Tsugunai doesn't look as good. There must be something about the directors who work for WOWOW or something in the water there that make their doramas look so much better than the rest. Personally I think its because the lighting doesn't make it seem like every room has multiple light sources and the earth has two suns and the directing is about capturing performances and not making actors look good.

I am very excited about this and its a definite must watch for me. If you've seen Kaho from Kare, Otoko, Tomodachi, you know she's got the acting skills to pull this off.

Tsugunai ep 1

Something unrelated first, was out all night in the city and I brought my 3DS and turned on wifi for streetpass, ie if someone with a 3DS is close by you'll exchange miis. Should have done this stuff when I was in Japan 6 months ago. I'm currently playing Bravely Default and one of the interesting features of the game is that people playing the same game can become villagers in your game and you can use them as summons as well.

Chances of that happening are remote since I wasn't going to Yodobashi Akiba but I managed to get three streetpass miis and they were all in Japanese. No one was playing Bravely Default but it warms my heart that there are other Japanese 3DS playing people in Melbourne. No idea whether I can streetpass with Australian 3DSs.

Anyways, to the main topic at hand which is my much anticipated Tsugunai. Tanihara Shosuke plays a homeless doctor, Hidaka with a dark past. I'd wager my life he does a much better job than Kimutaku in playing homeless. A lot of the first episode is setting up his past as well as Hidaka encountering a series of murders.

There's a bit of a soap opera angle with him running until a woman who looks like his dead wife but the main thing is setting up his situation and his connection with the murders. Don't want to spoil anything cause its best to watch it with no knowledge but there are some interesting themes going around here.

Can't call it must watch yet cause ep 1 is pure set up. It does it well but nothing that comes close to Tsumi to Batsu or Shokuzai's ep 1. I'd rather it start slow and finish strong than the opposite. Fingers crossed ep 2 is good and I really hope furransu uploads ep 2 cause he says he'll only continue uploading if someone subs. This is a solid first episode and be be a pretty good series.

This is supposed to be Tanihara Shosuke's first dorama lead role so congrates to him. He definitely deserves it over those johnnys that plague jdorama land. Managed to get most of the dialogue with the help of Japanese subtitles though some of the investigation talk was lost on me. Too lazy to stop line by line and go through the kanji dictionary. If you've got basic Japanese and love more realistic WOWOW-like stuff, you can't go wrong with Tsugunai.

Edit: stupid recent comments widget is broken. I've added the most popular posts widget and the results are interesting. I've redownloaded Jyouou Virgin 3 so I might do an episode by episode screenshots galore with summary in the future lol. Anyone know where to get the Japanese subs?

Going My Home ep 5

Currently waiting and hoping that Tsugunai gets uploaded.Ep 5 is when going my home is starting to click for me. We finally get a picture of what the story is about, name regret with the whole Kuna will allow you to talk to the dead thing. We get Abe Hiroshi gearing up to do the Kuna hunt thing for his father and conversations start to be more about the past and regrets.

Abe's character arc is different though, he is still the useless supervisor who doesn't know how to do anything but only how to survive. Looks like Koreeda is building up to the Kiseki moment, where everyone will find their answers doing an event in the end. I hope and don't think its the Kuna thing. I think Kunas appearing in Abe's dreams is much more interesting and can be a fun tool to say more about his character. Still not must watch but we're up to the halfway mark and things are looking promising.

Poison eps 1+2

A midnight dorama about a mysterious fella who lends this super untraceable poison to people in trouble. The poison is undetectable and takes 24 hours to take effect. Since the premise is that the mystery person somehow knows a lot of private details of these people in trouble, I'm not going to question it.

The first two episodes are pretty much don't kill someone you think is a threat to you until you are absolutely sure. The third episode seems to be about using it against someone who is actually a bad person. Usuda Asami is the cop who is chasing cases involving the poison. I think the main story is not going to be good and its pretty much about what type of stories they can tell about people who are desperate enough to use this poison. Watchable.

Kodoku no Gurume ep 3+4

OMFG, I want to eat this wasabi karubi.  Very rare karubi with wasabi. Can't imagine how it tastes like. Tempted to go random yakiniku and just ask for wasabi.

Does this guy have the best job in jdorama or what? No acting required.

I enjoyed ep 4 cause it had more story instead of just Goro walking around and thinking 'hareheta....'. That was what made Shinya Shokudo fun and what keeps Kodoku no Gurume from being a glorified food variety program. The story doesn't have to say a lot and in this episode you've got one old friend who used to be very against public displays of affection and now he's married to a Brazilian milf and has a cute daughter.

Plus there's the daughter asking Goro why her dad is such a spineless person. Simple character stuff, no need to explore too deep like Shinya Shokudo and the brevity is what makes it good.

Just some excess screencaps I feel compelled to use...

For those interested, her name is Kamada Fuuko. She kinda reminds me of Asuka Io.

There's a tiny part of me that feels like an erooyaji...

..but I can't help liking beautiful things.

Was there food in ep 4? Oh yeah, mouth watering picanha. Never had Brazilian food before but fark, my stomach is rumbling right now. Hope to see more stories and less food. Less is more.

Going My Home eps 2-4

And the very slow burn continues. I enjoy every minute this dorama but I wish storyline-wise I would have something to look forward to or get excited about. Its a Koreeda dorama so I might as well enjoy his knack for making delicious small picture situations such as the banter between mom and daughter. Very Nojima Shinji like except not as fast.

I'm hoping Going My Home does a Shikaotoko where ever it slowly builds up over 6 episodes and everything goes apeshit for the second half but its probably going to end up being the best example of a fun dorama to watch where nothing really happens.

RECOVERING FROM DEAD HDD

The slog continues. It hasn't been too bad actually. I've got a ryushare account and found many ryushare links, especially movies. Plus a lot of this year's doramas not so good so I'm not redownloading them. My 2TB jdorama backup is nearly full. I have to either get rid of old stuff that I won't watch again or get a 3TB or use two 2TB hdds as backup.

After the flooding in Thailand that made the price of hdds shoot up, looks like its finally going down. You can get a 3TB for aud$150. There's a Seagate portable one that comes with software to make it recognisable by XP. Yes, I'm still running XP.

With the newer doramas, I don't keep what I won't rewatch but with the older ones, there's a feeling of wanting to keep them just because they are old and rare. I've also noticed that I have missing eps in my backup hdd cause of dead DVDs and I never got around to fixing that. I got some crc errors when copying some movies from my 1TB movie backup hdd. Looks like I'm going to have get another hd and back it up before it goes. The thing about the digital age is that paper lasts longer than cds, dvds and hard disks.

Double Face - Gisou Keisatsu-hen

Coming into this series, I was afraid that they would infuse Infernal Affairs with all the Odoro Daisasousen cliches that that plague so many Japanese cop shows; the inability to go dark and serious while trying to much too look cool and ending up looking fake. The first Double Face was a great copy of the first half of Infernal Affairs and I was very much looking forward to part 2 because it was going to add a lot of extra stuff to the story.

 I like the set from the first scene. Looks great. Too much water but can't fault the effort. Takayama's first meeting with Kita Yoshio. This is when I stopped seeing Takayama as a copy of the Andy Lau character.

We need a WOWOW dorama with Kita Yoshio as a scheming godfather character. The guy can act, its just he's overexposed with so many bit parts and he definitely needs to be the lead actor in his own dorama. That's why I know him as Kita Yoshio, cause it was the one time he's not playing a random supporting role. Also take note the line from this scene. :)

I like the Aoi Yu character because she serves as a mirror for Takayama and a spark in his life. Also explains why they did not do they flashback for Takayama and Moriya at the police academy. Its less about contrasting the two undercover dudes and more about their separate situations.

Can't wait for Ryu ga gotoku 5!!!! One more month!!!!

Bloody exciting scene when the two moles make contact. I like the comic book panel effect.

At this point I was fearing the jdorama cliche of a long debate.

Then Takayama says this killer line. Nice, I like that its different from Infernal Affairs and echoes Kita Yoshio's words.

The iconic rooftop scene from Infernal Affairs.

There's something about Japanese women and mourning clothes that make them twice as attractive. :)

I was worried they would change the ending and luckily they added something at the end. I like it because it ties into the Cantonese title of Infernal Affairs which refers to the lowest level of hell.

Great job by TBS and WOWOW. No idea what the ratings were but I want to see more of this and less Ueto Aya trying to pretend to be a policewoman. Must watch.

Jdorama horror story

Today, my worst nightmare as a jdorama fan came true: one of my hard disks died. Actually my worst nightmare would be my 2 jdorama backup HDDs dying. The one that died was a 1TB HDD and I've lost my manga, probably photobooks and jdorama gods only know what else. The worst part is losing jdoramas that I've downloaded since the beginning of this year and a whole bunch of Japanese movies.

Thank the jdorama gods that a whole bunch of last year's jdoramas were in another drive. The only missing dorama is Suzuki sensei which I can get from my brother. I written about storing jdoramas before and the last time I did that was early this year. :(

Having to redownload this year's jdoramas doesn't sound too bad except when I started looking through my must watch tag that I realised that I had a lot of older and probably harder to get jdoramas on that list.

1. Furuhata Ninzaburo
2. Mama wa Idoru
3. Salaryman Kintaro DVD rip
4. Shinya Shokudo S2

Why didn't I back up my mangas??!!!!

Losing movies is gonna hurt my ratio at asiantorrents that I've worked so hard to build up. If only downloading something you've already downloaded doesn't count. I just checked my movie backup HDD and the last back up was two years ago. :( Two fucking years of movies gone and I had so many on my to be watched list in there. I am going to have to redownload Scabbard Samurai, Guilty of Romance etc and kill my ratio. If only megaupload were still around.

Just realised I never backed up my manga. WTF. I may have some cd backups from god knows how many years ago. Its going to take me a long time to get what recover and this is going to keep me from playing Street Fighter online.

I need to make it a habit to back stuff up every 6 months at least. Every 3 months would be ideal. Now getting Tsumi to Batsu and my upload is faster than my download. Its going to be a long road to recovery. After jdoramas, I'm going to have to work my way down my asiantorrents list. Back up your stuff before this happens to you!

10 things to do when d-addicts is down

1. Press F5 repeatedly while shouting ganbare!

2. Cyberstalk Ruroshin and keep asking him when it will be back up.

3. Go to France to study to be a patisserie and find out why Japanese doramas always use it as a plot device.

4. Shave off facial hair and try to enrol in a Japanese high school so you can skip class and hang out on the roofs.

5. Hang around train stations waiting for cute dojikko girl to fall over and drop her pass.

6. Work late night jobs in front of constructions directing traffic or for girls working in a kyabakura.

7. Anytime it rains/snows look up and say ame/yuki da!

8. Go to the beach and shout umi da!

9. Call someone you hate and tell them you want to meet up asap to tell them something important so that they will get hit by a car/motorcycle.

10.  Keep crossing roads in the hope that time will pause for a bit when you cross paths with a cute girl so you can stalk her and claim all encounters are guuzen.

Keiko1981 has updates on d-addicts site status.

Further thoughts on The Wings of the Kirin and trying to hard to touch the audience.

First of all, the end of the world is nigh cause d-addicts is down. Usually happens once a year and we should offer sacrifices to the jdorama gods so that it comes back again. I've had this post cooking in my head for the past week after watching The Wings of the Kirin. I've got a few things I want to say and hopefully I can type it out coherently.

Movies, doramas etc are about provoking a response from the audience. Whether its to make the audience laugh, feel for a character or the usual melodrama to try and bring out some tears. Take for example, crying porn series Beautiful Rain. There is no fucking interesting story to tell or character to examine. The sole purpose of its existence is to have a cute young girl crying every five minutes so that people who get off on crying along without rhyme or reason can join in.

Izydata said that Kekkon Shinai was like a documentary which was the marketing for Renai Dekinai as well. Problem is it becomes a dorama with no interesting characters cause there's no character study and the story just becomes a soap opera. What does it have to do with my earlier point or provoking a reponse?

I think the selling point of Renai Dekinai and Kekkon Shinai is for the female audience to go, "oh, I've had that experience before and therefore this is a good dorama." Provoking empathy by ticking a box of problems facing 20+/30+ year old women. No need for strong story or characters. That's why all those older women doramas always feel like a watching a bunch of characters going through a checklist.

Anyway, back to The Wings of the Kirin which belongs in the melodrama category. Its basically melodrama disguised as a mystery and Shinzanmono was a overly safe, feel good dorama disguised as a mystery. The aim was to create this melodrama where a father finds out that his son was involved in a swimming pool incident that left his son's teammate paralysed. Father gets stabbed by son's ex teammate, doesn't call for help and drags himself for 7 or 8 minutes to the Kirin to send a message to his son.

Now, if I were a writer and the producer were telling me the concept of this movie, I would be asking why would someone we got stabbed not call for help and drag himself to point at a Kirin statue? I know its based on a Higashino Keigo novel but bear with me. The hard sell by Kaga is that the dad knew he was dying from the stab and wanted to send a message to his son.

I could have sort of bought the not calling for medical attention because he didn't want the person who stabbed him to be caught... what that doesn't make sense. Maybe he knows that the insurance money will provide a comfortable life for his family. Maybe his mind was blurred as mentioned by Kodoku no Gurume and that was the only thing the dad could think of. Regardless, there's no way to know and Abe's preaching to melodramatic music towards the end was excessive.

If the movie ended there, it would still be ok. Then Kaga dumped a whole bunch of paper birds found in the father's car and then I realised that the first half an hour of the movie was a waste of time. The whole running around and stupid cameos were unnecessary if Kaga had known about the paper birds. One would think the police would have searched the murder victim's car in the first place.

The existence of the dad's paper birds in this movie is basically to be the climax to the melodramatic scene of Kaga's preaching. Trying to hard to provoke something certain emotions from the audience to the point of sacrificing logic. So different from Suspect X, which is an awesome movie based on a Higashino Keigo novel.

I think, The Wings of the Kirin should have been about the dad just like Suspect X was about the professor. Like how Shibasaki Kou was a waste of time in Suspect X, Aragaki Yui's role should have been minimal and there should have been more flashbacks about the dad, especially his mental state and how much desperate he was to connect with his son and get him to confess. I'm talking throughout the movie, not just towards the end with a couple of lines. I feel like the family who didn't know the father and towards the end when they summed him up in a few lines I did not care because I've not gotten to know him throughout the movie.

Yuusha Yoshihiko to Akuryou no Kagi eps 2 and 3

The Hirano Aya cameo was ok. Not too funny but wasn't that bad.

The punchline of the joke being Yoshihiko's face.

The ugly princess/maiden joke never gets old. Yoshihiko is best when it takes RPG conventions we take for granted and turns them on their heads.

Love the reaction to the above line.

At this point I was ROFL.

Yoshihiko's eeerr goodness is always a great source of comedy.

Episode 3 is a funny twist on the bad guys going after village maidens concept.

Funniest thing in ep 3 for me were the ventriloquism scenes. Hope they have a talking bird scene every episode. Next episode is going to be spoofing ghosts. Can't wait!