Jdoramas that should be subbed - Summer 2013

1. WOMAN

Mitsushima Hikari is the best Japanese actress today, Sakamoto Yuji (Chase/Mother) is writing this and the director Mizuta Nobuo also did Mother and Maiko Haaaan! If that is not a recipe for a classic dorama, I don't know what is.

2. DOCTORS 2 : Saikyou no Meii

The dorama SP was good. Is there anything left for the second season?

3. Akuryou Byouto

Kaho as a nurse! Woohoo. Scary dorama by the guy who directed Ring 0. I'll only be watching for Kaho.

4. Keibuho Yabe Kenzo 2

More from my favourite detective with the wig. Can we please have a cameo from Abe Hiroshi?

5. Limit

Sakuraba Nanami in a schoolgirl survival dorama? What can go wrong? Actually, hold that thought. Its still worth a look.

6. Saitou-san 2

No Mimura. :( Their chemistry was what made the first season work. Same writer might recapture that magic, maybe.

7. Meoto Zenzai

Moteki and Ono Machiko playing a Geisha? Yes, please. Let's see whether Moteki can really act.

8. Double Tone - Futari no Yumi

A dorama about 2 Yumis who see each other's lives in their dreams. Sounds interesting.

9. Furueru Ushi

From Jadefrost's synopsis, sounds like a murder + corporate conspiracy dorama. Right up WOWOW's alley.

PREDICTIONS

Will this be the greatest season ever? Woman and Meoto Zenzai will probably end up being good. Can't think of what else to do with Doctors 2. Everything else will be pedestrian, Saito-san will be boring without Mimura and Furueru Ushi will end up like so many WOWOW doramas that peter our at the end. What do I need to sacrifice to the jdorama gods to get 3 must watch shows this season?

Gekiryuu ~ Watashi wo oboemasuka? ~ ep 1+2

EDIT: Episode 2

I've always found Tanaka Rena to be a decent actress. There's this scene in episode 2 where things go bad for her at work and she comes home, runs into her husband and throws a tantrum, except its probably the fakest tantrum ever. In my mind I was screaming at the director to cut and reshoot the scene. There was no way any decent director would have allowed that crappy performance from Tanaka Rena. Was it a one-shot take? Was she not able to do better?

20 years ago, some students went to Kyoto for a trip and a girl named Fuyuha disappeared. One day, her former classmates receive a mail from her asking whether they remember her. The five classmates reunite and we start to get a glimpse of the lives of these former classmates.

Gekiryuu is two doramas, the mystery dorama and reunion dorama. The meat of it seems to be the five characters and their various secrets. The one thing that will ultimately decide the watchability of Gekiryuu is the mystery. The emails at the moment feel very prankish instead of scar.

I love the casting. Tomosaka Rie, Tanaka Rena, Kuninaka Ryoko and Yamamoto Koji who is losing the battle at the top. Kuninaka Ryoko needs to break out from being typecast though. Unfortunately, the directing is very pedestrian and generic. NHK should have paid the people who did Hatsukoi to do this cause it looks so uninspiring. Hatsukoi was such a visually sumptuous dorama to watch.

Too early to judge this show. Not optimistic but I will keep watching for the cast which also includes Satsukawa Aimi. :) Nice reveal at the end though. 

Kaibutsu

Kaibutsu is a very interesting thriller. Sato Koichi is a police detective dealing with two cases. First is a murder case where Mukai Osamu who works at a high-tech garbage disposal research facility is suspected of murder. The waste disposal tech is able to reduce rubbish and bodies into pure liquid, making it the perfect tool for getting rid of dead people.

The second case is a 15 year old case where Kaname Jun who  a political prince, is suspected to have murdered a 15 year old girl. Tabe Mikako was also a victim of Kaneme Jun turns up wanting to confront him. Needless to say the two cases somehow get connected and interesting things happen.

This is a show about monsters/kaibutsu and I'm happy that it doesn't take the black and white route. Its sad that all jdorama villains have to laugh like a maniac but I'll take that since the story is good. There a lot of twists and turns that I wish they could have done it in 5 episodes instead of a 2 hours special but I'll take grey area morality any way I can.

The one thing I was worried over was the ending and I was so glad when the karmic ending turned out to be a hallucination. The ending is really exciting, ends on a cliffhanger and I really want to see what happens next. I really want to give this a must watch but by the jdorama gods, the lighting in this is horrible. Lots of random light scources from who knows where litter this dorama SP and light glares. The lighting guy on this dorama uses glares like JJ Abrams uses lens flare. Overall, really fake mood lighting.

Highly recommended. They don't have enough time to sell some twists and turns and you'll probably be wishing someone from WOWOW directed this but any serious thriller dorama that manages to go to interesting places is not to be missed. If Sono Sion or Kurosawa Kiyoshi had directed this, it would have been a classic. I want to know whether the novel stops here or whether it has a sequel because the possibilities for part 2 are endless.

Minna! Esper Dayo! ep 10

 I'm loving this episode not just because it has Mano Erina frolicking in bed singing Morning Coffee. As an old school Momusu fan, its just perfect.

 Yoshio's parents are funnier when you've got Terumitsu (Tenga guy) going nuts over Yoshio's mom in the background.

 Love the dry humour from Mano Erina's dad asking about nonhoi.

 The best part of the episode is Sometani Shota and Kaho going on a date and making full use of their powers to their and our great amusement.

I think Minna! Esper Dayo!'s greatest sin is that it could have gone to many interesting places but instead went for the most boring slice of life angle.

Shota and Kaho are the bright spot of the series.

Love Kaho's acting and facial expressions. She's so a natural.

ROFL.

End of the day, I just want to watch these Espers use their powers and have fun using it.

Haven't been impressed with Mano Erina yet, besides the speech scene a couple of episodes ago.

Then you finally get to the Mano Erina and Kaho bitch fest!

Sono Sion should have done this 4 episodes ago!

This should have been an tsundere osananajimi vs yandere dorama from the get go.

Mano Erina singing Aogeba Toutoshi just caps of a perfect episode. Two more episodes to go. Can Sono Sion keep this up?

DOCTORS Saikyo no Meii SP

Sawamura Ikki is back as Sagara. I really love the first season because it takes your generic jdorama hospital stories and adds some brains to it. Good things don't happen just because Sagara is good and naive. Things happen because Sagara knows how to push people's buttons for his own interests. Things happen because our main character makes it happen, not because good things happen to good people.

Of course the magic of DOCTORS is not complete without the character defective Moriyama sensei. What started out as just another useless colleague who is angry at our hero is the perfect foil and partner for Sagara. Sometimes overacting can be a great performance.

It is just me or do a lot of the eyes in this show look like they've been operated on?

Its not we haven't seen people manipulation doramas before. Shows like Hammer Session are stunt based and rely on people realising the 'goodness' in their hearts. In DOCTORS, Saga uses Moriyama's pride and other people's insecurities to get the desired results. I doubt Sagara will ever go full Machiavellian but to me, its such a breath of fresh air.

Anyways, the same characters return for the dorama SP with Moriyama sensei coming back from a 3 month stint in Texas. The villain for this SP is Sengoku sensei, the leader of the group that Moriyama left in episode one. Sengoku who is up for re-election at his University Hospital wants to destroy Dougami hospital. I really wanted to see this type of story in Iryu. Sengoku actually does the same type of 'relocations' that Noguchi sensei did in Iryu.

The other story is a patient from Sengoku's hospital who has lost hope of living and is depressed. Nothing much to see here. Its your typical sweet hospital story. Interesting to note everyone tells her to live for her son but say nothing about the invisible husband. Lol. Can't blame the writer since being a widower with a kid is probably a great pick up story.

Its fun watching Sagara appeal to Moriyama's pride and the running joke of the SP is Moriyama being too proud to kneel before Sengoku. A character who sticks to his guns whether for good or bad is always interesting.

She dressed up to tell the rich lawyer this load of crap?

Another thing I liked abour the script was inferring that Sagara's plan was not contingent on Sengoku losing the election. Sagara did not do much to plausibly claim he had a strong chance of effect the elections and part of his persuasive reasoning was that Sengoku would have a hard time if the operation is successful. The only part of his plan Sagara was counting on was the operation succeeding.

I am kind of surprised they wasted this villain and story for the dorama SP. They could have easily stretched it to one whole season. I was looking for whether its the same writer but no confirmation from Fukuda Yasushi's Japanese wiki. So the evil big hospital trying to destroy our heroes is out for the second season. What other ways can Sagara improve Dougami hospital by manipulating people? I await the second season with cautious optimism as long as its the same writer. Must watch SP and I highly recommend the first season.

Yeah right. Probably cause her eyes are so big the veins look like they could pop.

Jmovie review: Fourteen / 14歳

While bullying movies/dorama are a dime a dozen, I've don't remember seeing one that approaches it quite like Fourteen. If I have to compare it with another movie, I'd say its a darker version of Kirishima, Bukatsu Yamerutteyo and explores issues of bullying and being 14 years old through the eyes of teacher and students without giving a simple answer.

The first half of the movie is very disorganised. We see bits and pieces about the 5 main characters but the narrative is quite weak. Compounding the problem was some very questionable cinematography. For example, there is an important scene where the teacher finds something written on the blackboard but the camera is just floating around aimlessly and distractingly in the middle of the classroom and its not even representing  a student's viewpoint.

The movie starts to make sense in the middle when the connection is made with the stabbing scene in the beginning and we realise who the characters are and what actually is going on. Its hard to talk about the movie without spoilers but let's say it covers a lot of dark and interesting subject matter well. Like all dark/realistic movies, everyone's got issues not just the students and nothing gets resolved easily.

Interesting to note that the director, Hirosue Hiromasa also plays on the of the main characters Sugino, a piano teacher and a very young Sometani Shota (Minna! Esper Dayo!) plays his student. The acting is really good but I feel slightly let down by the directing/cinematography. Its not just the above mentioned classroom scene. Instead of feeling like a fly on the wall, sometimes I feel like I'm peering at the characters from outside. I'm not saying the camera work is atrocious, just that it could have been a lot better and less distant.

I'd like to give it a must watch but I can't. The first half could have been tighter and the camera work much better but the script and acting more than make up for it. Despite its slight flaws, its a dark movie with a soul and its guaranteed to stay with you after watching. If you're looking for a serious jmovie about youth and bullying, you can't go wrong with Fourteen.

Mierino Kashiwagi eps 1+2

Took a look at Mierino Kashiwagi cause Jung recommended it. Its about 3 people who work at a cafe and help people to break up. First of, I really like the look of this dorama. Its more realistic, people talk normally and its got a subdued sense of humour. The good thing about 30 minute doramas is that there is usually no fat. It has to introduce characters and tell a story efficiently.

Just when things where looking up, Kashiwagi gets a phone call and meets up with Kyabakura 48 producer Akimoto for some boring fourth-wall breaking talk. All of a sudden Mierino Kashiwagi is pointing out that its existence is to pimp this kyabajo, I mean idoru. Everything else about the dorama is interesting.

The Akimoto hogging the screen part I cannot stand. His talks with Kashiwagi are sort of related to the story but I hate how they try to relate the relationship stories to this 'junsui' idoru. This is a dorama that's stuck between telling interesting stories and serving an idoru. Only for fans.