Death Note

So I went in to the new jdorama with no expectations. They start Light off as more of a regular guy instead of the proud asshole of a genius in the movies. The new dorama does not establish that he is a genius except the comment by his employer that he is very quick at calculations or something.

Changes I can take as long as they lead to something interesting. However the new L is, not interesting and seems more of an asshole compared to the original. The two things that really bugged me were that the Death Note dorama looks pretty 'cheap' and that scene where the police officer over explained Light's father's motivation. Seriously, why not let the audience put 2 and 2 together? Anytime I run into overt exposition, it tells me the writer is shit.

Anyway as I was watching the first two episodes of the series, the thought at the back of my mind was why am I watching this when I could be watching the movies. So I popped in the 2006 movie and oh boy, I never realised that Mitsushima Hikari was Light's sister.

I forgot how much I enjoyed watching this unapologetic bad guy as the main character.

I was too crazy about Toda Erika at that time to notice......

... but you can't really blame me, right?

The casting in the movies is so much superior,

and let's not forget Katase Nana (Ushijima-kun).

Why watch the dorama when you can rewatch the much better movies?

Renai Jidai Eps 1-2

Renai Jidai is a boring show about a divorced couple trying to set each other up with their next partner starring the anorexic nurse from Doctors and Mitsushima Hikari's brother. Yup, I never knew she had a brother until I looked up the wiki.

Renai Jidai is neither funny nor witty or entertaining. It just exists as a show where characters speak about ideals of love and marriage. Anyway, I stayed until the end of episode 2 because I wanted to see what the cause of the divorce was (ho-hum. Could have been good but I didn't care about the characters) and I was playing Fire Emblem If while watching.

Stay away. Don't even try it unless you have trouble sleeping.

18 HOURS TO GO ON SHENMUE KICKSTARTER

That music is still so good after so many years.

Approaching 5.5 million. Hopefully they get a crazy influx at the last minute. I've already pledged $175. Would love to be an NPC in the game but not at that cost. I can't believe its coming in 2 or 3 years. I just have to fix my Dreamcasts or get another one and replay both games before then.

Neko Zamurai 2 Eps 7-11

The movie was basically a poor rehash of the first season and the second season felt the same but I kept watching Neko Zamurai cause it was 20 minutes per episode.

The series really picked up for me in episode 7 with the story about the fencing dojo and episode 8 was the funniest with the body swap.

The last three episodes switch to a higher gear with Tamanojo being targeted and the mother in law visiting.

I hope this is the last we see of Madarame because there are only so many ways to skin a cat.

LUNCH NO AKKO-CHAN SUBBING

Looks like Lunch no Akko-chan is being subbed. Its a fun feel good life lesson series with Renbutsu Misako and Mano Erina. Don't go in expecting too much and you'll have a fun time. The only negative thing I can say is that potafu doesn't look delicious at all. On the other hand, the dry curry looks so good.

RIP IWATA SATORU

The video game industry lost another one of its giants. It was weird watching the last Nintendo direct before E3 without Iwata-san.



POWER RANKING FOR ACTORS

Check out jadefrost's report on actor rankings. 

Tenshi no Knife Eps 2-5

Ladies and gentlemen, we have our third must watch jdorama of the year after Kageri Yuki Natsu and Yami no Bansosha! Its sad that none have been subbed maybe Tenshi no Knife will be seeing as its got Nogizaka 46 girls although Yami no Bansosha deserves to be subbed the most. After episode 2 I could not stop watching because every episode ended with a goddamn exciting cliffhanger.

Let's get the elephant in the room out of the way; the acting is not very good. Koide Keisuke is no Koizumi Kotaro. Koide Keisuke does an ok job but there are some scenes that are just bad and I couldn't keep comparing his acting with Koizumi Kotaro's in Namonaki Doku because the roles are very similar. Koizumi Kotaro does a much better job showing  repressed frustration and fiery anger.

That being said, the story is effing awesome. Its a cross between Soredemo Ikite Yuku and Petero no Souretsu with your everyman trying to do the right thing caught in a unusual and complicated mystery suspense about juvenile crime and atonement. Do juveniles deserve to be treated less harshly than adults just because they can be reformed? Is protecting juveniles more important than keeping the victim's families from getting any closure? Tenshi no Knife asks explores a lot of questions but never gets too preachy.

Not is all bad in the acting front. Kurashina Kana does a great job, especially in the flashback scenes playing a 15 year old. Usually when an actor plays a much younger character they keep it short and don't try hard cause its not convincing but she really gave it her all in this. I guess she had to cause it such a long and pivotal flashback.

If the acting were really good, Tenshi no Knife could have been a Lady Joker. I hate to see idoru casting when supporting parts turn out to be very important. Surely WOWOW didn't have to do it to finance a dorama with a script this good? That said, I thoroughly enjoyed the story, maybe more than I should have and wouldn't mind rewatching it. Must watch. If you've got basic Japanese, give it a go. The most important word to know in Tenshi no Knife is kousei 更生 which means rehabilitation.

Tenshi no Knife Episode 1

One day, Cafe Manager's wife is killed at home with a knife but luckily baby was unharmed. Wife had multiple defensive wounds on her body trying to protect the baby.

Luckily the mother in law is hot. For some reason I got Mayumi Wakamura mixed up with the Neko Samurai lady and it took me until episode 3 to realise it.

Kurashina Kana turns up at the funeral as the deceased wife's old friend and somehow he hasn't heard of her. I'd say things are looking up for Cafe Manager.

Turns out the killers were 3 middle school kids so they can't be tried as adults. Cafe Manager's life becomes hell with press harassing him and random phone calls crazy people. The juvenile system is more about protecting the criminals and reforming them than about the victims, yada yada yada.

Cafe Manager then says he wants to kill the 3 kids which somehow makes people graffiti his coffee shop and throw eggs at him. Hello, the dude's wife was killed and the killers are kept hidden and will not be put in jail. Sometimes, things in Japanese doramas makes me wonder but there are always things in Japan that never make sense like Japanese not taking their coats off despite it being hot inside trains.

Four years later, Cafe Manager is enjoying life with hot mother in law and Kurashina Kana who works at the child car facility when they find out the identity of the killers. However, one of the killers ends up dead in a park near the cafe.

Cafe Manager goes to juvenile facility to learn more about dead killer. Finds out that the guy played basketball and teachers defend him cause he broke down when he was in charge of a new juvenile who's parents had tied when she was young.

Cafe Manager is one his way back when he is attacked by youths and the girlfriend of the dead killer turns up with a baseball bat to take revenge.

SUMMARY

Interesting first episode but I'm not feeling the acting. I'm glad no one is really overacting except maybe the creepy cop but something feels a bit off. Despite the heavy subject matter, there's no scene so far where the tension and pain is so real I can feel it through the screen ala Soredemo Ikite Yuku. Hope it gets better.

Parasyte: Part 1

I went into this with super low expectations. I had watched the anime some time ago and found it fun but not absolutely must watch. Kiseiju (Parastye) is basically your teenager gets super powers story except its darker, people die and it explores some interesting questions.

In the beginning of the movie, I wasn't really happy with it. It felt like they were rushing through the story beats from the anime. However I kept watching and I thought they did a pretty bang up job adapting the various action scenes from the anime with the budget that they had. Nothing looked too dodgy and I can't believe this is the same director who did the abomination Yamato.

This movie needed an extra 15 minutes to let the Shometani Shota and Hashimoto Ai's characters breath.   You got to make your audience care about the characters before you put them in danger. The movie introduced the art class scenes in order to expand on the main character's relationship with Hashimoto Ai and his mom but it just felt inadequate.

However, if the director and writer had no choice but to limit themselves to an hour and 45 minutes, then I don't think they could have done much better cause they had to fit so much in and there wasn't any action scenes they could get rid of or join together.

I'm actually quite eager to see how they did certain scenes in Part 2. I really like Fukatsu Eri as the teacher. She is the only person in the movie who the audience really gets to know slowly. Keep your expectations low and you might enjoy this movie.

Fire Emblem If special edition unboxing

Kitaaaaaｷﾀ━━━━(ﾟ∀ﾟ)━━━━!! It's finally arrived!

I had to pay double for the special edition since the bloody preorders sold out two months ago.

Only problem is I'm in the middle of playing Utawaremono which is taking longer than expected and Aruruu is the best fake JRPG daughter ever.

Fire Emblem cards. Meh.

Probably the scene where you have to choose which side.

The main reason I wanted the special edition is that I wanted both games in one catridge instead of having only one and having to download the other. The bad thing about Nintendo hardware is if my 3DS or WiiU dies, I lose my digital downloads unless I can get Nintendo Japan to fix it for me.

I'm not a Fire Emblem fan but this is the strategy RPG with the biggest budget and I'm a fan of the genre. Hope its better than Kakusei which I can't remember anything about except magic was too strong.

Why would anyone want to choose the Byakuya oukoku route first? Apparently its easier so I kind of have to play it first. At least I now know who I'm going to pair with during the second story.

The two imouto characters. Still prefer the anya oukoku designs.

Ore Monogatari 1-12

Imagine if Gori and Rukawa from Slam Dunk grew up as childhood friends and every girl that Gori liked fell for Rukawa instead. Imagine if Gori saved this cute girl from a chikan and fell in love with her. That is the premise of Ore Monogatari.

It is a very fun premise; your typical supporting character and main characters changing roles. Plus it reminds me of one of my favourite mangas, Angel Densetsu about a guy who looks like a devil but is an angel at heart. The mangaka of Angel Densetsu wrung as many jokes as he could from the concept and finished it right before it became stale.

Ore Monogatari is less funny and a lot more sweet. Which is ok until the end of the blue and red oni story is revealed and the girl, Yamato's secret is revealed. Then it becomes just another sweet shoujo anime.

The second half got stale for me cause the characters turned out to be one note and the story didn't have much else to go. Maybe the manga finishes great or maybe this holding pattern is due to its success. Ore monogatari just feels like the concept is not being fully utilised.

Great first half and meh second half equals ok anime that is slowly descending into boredom. They better end this quick or move the story forward by the next episode. Oh yeah, the animation looks very good unlike Arslan. :(