Woman Ep 3

Faaaaark, ep 3 is so good. One thing that's been bothering me is how come there's always two doctors in the consulting room with Koharu everytime she goes to the hospital? I guess both doctors will figure heavily into Koharu's life in later episodes. I take back all criticisms I had of the pear thing because we finally find out what happened to Oguri Shun! Stop reading if you haven't watched it.

Oguri Shun is a chikan! I think Snoop said it showed up in a newspaper in ep 2. Mountaineering, nice dad touched up some high school girl (pretty obvious who it is), dropped the pears and may have been pushed. I kind of don't want them to disprove the chikan thing. Ties in with the theme of good people do bad things and bad people do good things.

Like the revelation that Koharu's dad physically abused his mom. He was violent towards his wife but he raised Koharu by himself for 10 years after that. Pretty sure he didn't abuse her unless Koharu repressed it that much. She probably repressed any memory that hinted her mom was abused.

Kobayashi Kaoru aka Shinya Shokudo is awesome as the step-father. Great source of humour, especially with the kids and you always need some humour with an ultra-serious dorama like this but earnest in his performance. Watching him act as the buffer between mother and daughter, I couldn't help but pity and laugh at him at the same time.

Speaking of the mother-daughter confrontation. That was some awesome slow building smorgasboard of hidden emotions and outbursts. This is the type of scene that any actor in Japan should sacrifice money and CM deals to do. I can just imagine the actors getting the script and thinking 'this is awesome and I'm going to be an emotional wreck after this'.

Nikaido Fumi who was in Sono Sion's Himizu is not bad but Mitsushima Hikari's facial reaction to what her step-sister said is what acting awards were created for. I was going to write about Hanzawa Naoki but furransu had just uploaded ep 3 and there was no stopping me. Good doramas make me happy. Didn't understand Shinya Shokudo's joke though. The 90s may be the golden age of trendy doramas but did they ever have emotionally gripping doramas like this?

Minna! Esper Dayo! eps 11+12

So it ends not with a bang or a whimper but with a WTF is Sono Sion trying to accomplish here?!

Besides creating the most fun to screencap dorama next to Jyouou, that is. Note to self, maybe its time to watch Jyouou 3.

The worst thing a dorama can do is tease you with its many directions but never really go anyway and that is Minna! Esper Dayo!

Its not a team esper dorama cause he didn't spend enough time on building them up as a team.

Nor is it a sankaku kankei dorama cause that story just comes and goes without going anywhere interesting. The Sae is an esper revelation should have been a big deal.

Try mapping out Kamogawa's journey that doesn't go anywhere.

This dorama can't possibly be about powers as an analogy for social outcast?

Minna! Esper Dayo does a bit of everything of the above but doesn't have a backbone unless you consider panchira.

I didn't really care about what was happening and didn't have a reason to with the non ending.

I was looking back at my reviews trying to figure out how many bad episodes out of 12 and the common thing I was writing was that I was waiting for it to go somewhere interesting.

By my count, eps 1-5 and 10 are good and the rest are crap.

I wish I knew what Sono Sion saw in the manga that made him want to adapt it.

Doctors: Saikyou no Meii 2 Ep 1

I really liked the dorama special but it raised the question of what's left for the series? Season 2 starts of teasing in going in the direction of Moriyama becoming the director of Dougami General hospital. Dougami is going to get a huge amount of money from a bank and Moriyama's aunt wants to retire, go on a cruise and leave Moriyama in charge.

Of course the nurses are in uproar and threatening to quit. Sagara of course has a plan. Looks like the Moriyama gang have gotten ahead of themselves and are not treating their patients properly. One of Moriyama's patients requests that Sagara become her doctor instead and he uses this chance to deal with the Moriyama becoming director problem. (Or is it the other way around)

So in the end everything is back to where it was in season 1. I would prefer episode 1 to set up the direction of season 2 but could we possibly be looking at a rehash of season 1 ala Yuusha Yoshihiko? Episode 1 really does feel like its going through the same motions. Does the writer have new and inventive ways for Sagara to trick Moriyama? Guess we'll find out in the next episode. Doubt Doctors will get subbed so hopefully someone will upload it to d-addicts or I'll just have to download from dailymotion.

Whoever cast her in this episode must have gotten a lot of under the table action in return. Her acting is just so bad.

On an unrelated note, someone's subbing Double Tone which I recommend. So far the 3 episodes are very solid. Could be the sleeper dorama of the season.

Woman ep 2

Why is no one hating on Oguri Shun dying over pears? It is pretty hard to not notice a train is incoming in Japan. There are:

1. Electronic signs telling you when the next train is coming.
2. Voice saying train approaching soon.
3. People lining up.

One could possibly have excused 1 and 2 if Oguri Shun were wearing earphones but yeah, its a bit of a sell. I'm happy to accept the premise because it lead to the awesome scene in ep 1 where Koharu finally found out why her husband had pears with him but showing it a bit too many times makes my mind start wondering about how he died. Unless of course there is something to be revealed about his death later.

Hottest MILFS in the world.

I love the flashbacks to ep 1. It was such an awesome episode that  I started wandering about how they could keep the momentum going. My biggest fear is that it would become Beautiful Rain aka Crying Porn.

While episode 2 is about the awwwww promise between Koharu and Nozomi, the execution is pretty good. I like that Nozomi is able to sell the feeling of guilt without saying stuff and crying. Hated/loved the way Koharu asked Nozomi whether she was lonely. I was screaming in my head, "Don't fucking do this guilt thing on your kids! Let them enjoy themselves ffs".

However character flaws are what makes characters interesting and real. Plus it ties in with what the welfare people told Koharu. Just happy that Nozomi's performance is not from the Ashida 'Look at me I'm so cute' Man school of acting. Love the above scene where the kids are stuck between wanting to have fun and guilt.

Got a bit excited with the above screencap cause it looks like Usuda Asami is wearing just a t-shirt. 

Episode 2 advances all the other plots a little bit. Big surprise welfare dude has problems at home. It ends nicely with Nikaido Fumi introducing herself which makes me more excited for ep 3. You hear that Koreeda? End your episodes with something exciting! Que Koreeda fans screaming blasphemy.

Suzuki Sensei movie

I've been waiting so long for this and its now available on the interwebs with Japanese subs! Suzuki sensei is to this 2K10 dorama era what Kinpachi sensei was to the 90s. Kinpachi sensei was an idealistic, preachy and moral look at various student and social issues while Suzuki sensei is smarter and looks at grey area issues. I'm not dissing Kinpachi sensei but Suzuki sensei is a more sophisticated dorama. Plus Kinpachi season 6 was the only time I thought Ueto Aya was a decent actress.

The movie is basically two episodes into which would have worked better separately; one is the high school council election and the second story is about two former students who are now 'rejects' of society. The student election story I enjoyed a lot more. Taruko sensei comes back and has the power to completely ignore Suzuki sensei's existence which becomes a running joke throughout the movie.

To combat spoiled votes, Takuro sensei changes the voting rules to require all ballots be signed. What follows is an interesting examination on right to not vote and its fun watching the students gear up for elections and having to give speeches. Good thing they didn't have to walk around the school with megaphones giving speeches about Japan.

The second story is about two ex-students who hang around at the park everyday with one of them being played by Mitsushima Hikari's brother from Soredemo Ikite Yuku. Those two are perceived as dangerous people and Suzuki sensei and Ogawa are the only two to treat them as normal. An incident happens in a park and suddenly the public ashtrays are removed and a sign erected saying be careful of suspicious people. Basically the two ex-graduates only place to hang out are taken from them.

One of them, having lost is hang out place ends up bashing his mom and Mitsushima Hikari's brother decides to go to school and make Ogawa his hostage. Suzuki sensei has always been about interesting arguments from both sides but hostage dude does not have an argument. I was excited about his casting cause of Soredemo but alas, there seems to be a law in Japan that every bad guy has to do the evil laugh.

The hostage situation is more to set up the payoff of Suzuki sensei's speech to the class about the merits of acting in real life and to the most wtf action scene in Suzuki sensei that had me in awe and laughing at the same time. The movie ends with the result of the hostage situation but the movie doesn't take time to appreciate the gravity and trauma of the hostage situation. Its as if it were just an everyday occurance.

Not the must watch movie I was hoping for but it doesn't suck either like the Gaiji Keisatsu movie which I'm trying to forget. I think the writer did what he could to make it work as a movie. I think its worth watching for fans of the show.

Here's some necessary vocabulary to watch to movie:

小川病 - sometime every guy in the movie has
公約 - public commitment
生徒会 - student council
選挙 - election
書記 - secretary
立候補 - announcing one's candidacy
記名投票 - registered ballot
無効投票 - invalid ballot
宣言 - declaration
立会演説 - campaign speech
規制 - regulation
不審者 - suspicious person

Double Tone ~Futari no Yumi~ ep 1

This season just keeps getting better and better. I was attracted to Double Tone's premise, two women named Yumi start to see each other lives in their dreams. We see what happens during on Yumi's day and then the other Yumi wakes up with that knowledge and so on and so forth. It makes for some interesting drama when they run into people the other Yumi interacts with in dreams.

During the first episode, I was thinking the two Yumis can't meet up right away. They need to milk this concept first before they get together and we get to the next phase of the story. The at the end of the episode, this huge reveal happens that changes everything.

What a great episode. Sell the high concept and then end with a twist that had me scrambling to pandora.tv and dailymotion for episode 2 to no avail. Gaaaaaahh, I want to see what happens!!!! Japanese subs for ep 2 have already been uploaded to jpsubber though and sadly Japanese subs for ep 1 are not available. Whoever decides to sub episode 1 is going to have to time it which is half the work.

Someone please sub this so furransu will upload ep 2. It'll hopefully show up on pandora.tv sooner or later. Hope NHK don't stuff Double Tone up cause they can do some great drama with the concept. Low level Japanese is sufficient for this except for some job talk. Jadefrost's synopsis should get you through it otherwise.

Woman ep 1

Faaaaaaaarrrrk. Woman is so effing good. Only in Japan can a dorama have a crappy name like Woman with  a uber photoshopped poster and still be awesome. Mitsushima Hikari absolutely kills it in the acting department and just absolutely becomes her character Aoyagi Koharu. Sakamoto Yuji was surprisingly quick in getting rid of Oguri Shun, lol. Don't worry ladies, he'll be in the flashbacks to come.

I was wondering how Sakamoto was going to pace this dorama and its by making Woman more than just a single mother hardship story. Looks like the tension is going to come from Koharu's strained relationship with her mother and her current family. Thank the jdorama gods that Koharu is a character rather than a bland single mother archetype. For a more soap opera story, there's the dude working at the welfare department who is married to Tanimura Mitsuki and Takahashi Issei (the dude from Gonzo who looks like he wants to cry all the time) as her colleague.

I'm getting strong affair vibes from that set up but I trust in Sakamoto Yuji. The rest of the cast is awesome. The mom from Mother is Koharu's mom and the master from Shinya Shukudo is her husband! Not to mention Usuda Asami (Suzuki sensei) as Koharu's colleague and we've got some of my favourite actors.

So many highlights in one episode. The heart stopping pram scene. The old welfare guy asking her if played pachinko. Can't blame him though, he's probably seen too many welfare cheats. Koharu asking money from the young welfare guy. The money scene with Koharu and her mom. OMFG, the tension and the gamut of emotions in that scene and the beautiful directing. Mitsushima Hikari just runs through Koharu's pride, anger and desperation all at the same time.

There's this shot when Koharu and her mom are talking where the camera is behind Koharu's mother and it loses focus on Koharu's face so we can concentrate on the side of the mom's face from behind. We can't see Koharu's mom's face but every twitch of her muscles convey more emotion than Fukada Kyoko ever can.

Woman is so Soredemo Ikite Yuku-like in the way it just holds my undivided attention. Realistic dialogue and characters and just mesmerising acting that made me feel like a fly on the wall. Why can't more doramas be like this? If you're not watching this, you shouldn't be watching jdoramas.

I love this shot.