Mano Erina 2012 calender

There was only one calender that I knew I had to get and it turns out to be one kick ass calender. The cover picture is awesome.

This one's ok. Sorry about the light reflection but I can confirm that she is wearing blue shorts in this picture. (Probably jean shorts)

Hhmm, I think Hello Project needs to do an equivalent to the AKB1/48 game and include in the Dream Momusu members. I would gladly pay $200 for a special edition of that.

Love her smile.

Almost bought a Kurashina Kana calender but the small preview pictures on the front of the calender don't look good. I've got also ordered a Nozomi Sasaki desktop calender for use at work but it hasn't been sent yet.

Suzuki Sensei ep 2

I just had to write about ep 2 after watching it. Problem is its hard to say why Suzuki sensei is such a good dorama besides great acting, writing etc. Its difficult to describe because while it is like your typical teacher dealing with school problems and students, its the execution that makes it interesting.

For the whole, complete 45 minutes, ep 2 had my complete attention. Even for something seemingly as mundane as something being taken off the lunch menu, I was hanging on every word, laughing at the appropriate moments and just being absorbed into the story. Even a teachers' meeting was very exciting.

Actually, if I had to come up with a description of Suzuki sensei, it would be a person narrative of a teacher, done in a way that is amusing and entertaining not because the teacher is a larger than life character or has personality quirks but because the writing allows you to get into his thought processes, it makes sense and you end up thinking along with him.

Examples of the humour in this dorama is when Suzuki sensei tries to convince himself of something but we know its not true, like when he runs into Ogawa Somi at school after his dream. The punchline is when he succumbs to her smell and he is sniffing the air like an idiot at the school gate. The joke continues during lunchtime when Suzuki sensei comments that he was glad it was curry because it would wipe out the shampoo smell. To me, its just hilarious and brilliantly funny.

Episode 2 had two storylines; the lunch menu story and the mystery of the disgusting behaviour. The execution of it was masterful. You get to see it from his point of view and share his stress as the time limit drew near. Its not a detective movie where you watch from afar as the detective declares he has solved the mystery and explains it at the end. The viewer stands in Suzuki sensei's shoes and tries to solve it along with him.

An anonymous commentator mentioned that the writer is Furusawa Ryoto who wrote Gaiji Keisatsu, probably the best police jdorama ever along with Gonzo. You can't click on his name on dramawiki and I had to go to the Japanese wiki to find his the list of his body of work. So he has done:

1) Always san chome movies which are pretty good feel good movies.

2) Aibou police series which I would occasionally see news of on Tokyohive, seems to be popular and has 9 seasons!

3) Gaiji Keisatsu.

4) Gonzo. Yes, he has written two of the best police jdoramas I have seen! I've never watched Aibo though.

5) Oishii gohan which is subbed and which I will definitely check out.

Can't read the rest of the list as my kanji is still shit but WTF??!! This guy is one of the gods of jdorama writing along with Nojima Shinji and Ozaki Masaya and he has no drama wiki entry? I am ashamed that I did not realise that the writer of Gaiji Keisatsu and Gonzo was the same person.

Hhmm, Vulcan 300 fansubs have subbed 2 eps of Aibou season but the last update was in March so its pretty much dead. Maybe I can find the HK English subbed dvds. JT also mentioned that the ratings are very bad, averaging about 2%. WTF???!! Its a 10pm dorama, not a midnight dorama! Has there ever been a non midnight dorama which was so good and has such horrible writing??!!!

AKB1/48: Idol to Guam to Koishitara First Print Limited Edition unboxed!

Everything came in this box about the size of an arcade stick.

AKB1/48 Idol to Koishitara is probably the best game for studying kanji. As mentioned in a previous post, learning kanji is a bitch. I don't have a patience to slowly work my way through a kanji book. So what makes AKB1/48 for PSP such a great game for studying Japanese?

Back of the box.

First, its all pure text gameplay like a dating sim and its fully voiced except for the words from the protagonist, which is the player. Second, it doesn't auto go the next line so you can take your time looking up the kanji dictionary. Third, its got the can look through all the lines of dialogue and play the voices again.This helps when I see a kanji character that I think I saw a few lines back and I go back and its voiced. If I don't know what the word means at least I know the pronunciation so I don't need to waddle my way through the kanji dictionary.

Game, card with download code for 48 PSP themes and blu ray of all the movies in the first game. I am happy to report that the blu ray is region free! If only Oz had the same blue ray region as Japan, I would be buying Japanese blue rays.

Lastly its basically basic spoken dialogue. I tried replaying this old SRPG Terra Phantastica and as it was a political middle ages type story, its was old Japanese and lots of kanji that I can't be stuff learning. Hhm, come to think of it, its a bishoujo game without sex. When I play, its in front of my pc with two tabs on tangorin.com, a tab for Denshi Jisho kanji dictionary and a tab for romanji to hiragana converter. I have a notebook that I write the kanji I look up. It doesn't help me as much as coming across certain words multiple times during gameplay which will hopefully reinforce it in my memory.

UMD of game and making of video. I've not even watched the making of UMD from the first game.

I wasn't planning on getting the first print limited edition but I thought my preorder of the special edition of another game, Ico/Shadow of Colossus Collection wasn't coming through because play-asia marked the game as sold out but my copy had not been sent and went in search of another source. The reason I wasn't sure was that the preorders had sold out long ago but one morning before work, I spotted a preorder button and made my order hoping that it was because someone canceled and not because of a glitch, which has happened. My search took me to HMV Japan, Ico was sold out but they still had AKB1/48 First Print. I was pissed off thinking I missed out on the Ico Collectors Edition and decided to get another special edition in its place.

Three making of DVDs for each of the 3 teams and a fashion collection DVD which I hope translates into cosplay. No idea what the team 4 special DVD is.

Anyway, because of the crazy drop of the Australian dollar and HMV Japan charging in yen, this has become a very painful purchase. Essentially, its the same game with a much better looking interface and ability to move the 'camera' during dialogue which just means that you can scroll down and look at their thighs/legs. The other addition to the sequel is the ability to choose whether you want to refer to yourself as boku, watashi or ore. Don't think this has any bearing on the game but to be more manly, I chose ore.

10 photos. I think I need to burn the one on the middle right cause that looks like a man.

I've gotta say one thing and its that AKB girls DO NOT looking good in swimsuits. Very few of them have womanly bodies. Akimoto Sayaka's body is like a dude's. Wide shoulders and straight hips. Kayo Police is 10 times for feminine than her. They should have been wearing one piece swimsuits.

Yup, you get 48 mini posters from the game.

Final note, I'm not a big fan of AKB48 despite spending almost $200 aud on a game. Started listening when they weren't famous and liked how explicit their lyrics were and now that they are famous, we will never hear songs like Sailor Fuku jama suru na again. They got big had nice songs but bloody mimed all the time. That's why I swore of Kpop many years ago. On the very very rare occasions that you get to hear someone from AKB48 sing live, let's just say I've heard a lot better at karaokes.

Super skinny Shinoda Mariko in 2 piece? Not a good look.

However, spending so much time on the first AKB1/48 game, the songs have ingrained themselves in my brain and I've gotten really fond of some of the girls in game character. No idea how they are like on tv since I don't have time to search. That's my excuse to keep what little dignity I have left.

At least we finally got some cleavage here. The rest of the mini posters are too horrible to be shown.

After I finish up this post, I'm going for the Yokoyama Yui ending because kansai-ben turns me on. You don't usually hear idols speak kansai-ben but when there are 48 of them, you gotta do something to be different. I wished someone had made a game like this for Morning Musume back in the day. Imagine Tsuji and Kago fighting over the player!

 My PSP screen.

Suzuki Sensei ep 1

In jdoramas, there are usually two types of teacher shows. First is the variation of the GTO theme which is larger than life teacher uses unorthodox techniques to help students. Examples of this type dorama which are pretty good are Dragon Zakura and Jyoou no Kyoushitsu. However there are plenty of such shows which fail because an actor who is either really good or has that screen presense like Sorimachi is necessary.

The second is the Kinpachi sensei variant. Normal teacher, lots of problem students and problem solving that is more conventional. An example of a good one would be School!! The other difference with the Kinpachi type of show is that it is more serious and less outrageous. However, both types are prone to the usual cliches like the sports teacher being a useless guy, scheming vice principal and the young hot female teacher being the supporting character.

Imagine my surprise when Suzuki sensei starts off with a group of middle school teachers trying to mix the students up before the start of school in order to balance the classes. Not only that, we get to hear the thoughts of Suzuki sensei (Hasegawa Hiroki) which was so different. For the first time ever, we have a dorama which really delves into the mind of a teacher and see his thought process.

The other thing about the usual teacher doramas is that the problems are pretty black and white. Its a question of how cool/entertaining/tear jerking the solution is. Suzuki sensei is presented with problems that are not so simple and hearing his thoughts makes things even more complicated. Like do you try to confront a student in class when he is accussed of something or do you wait til after but risk him being more unsettled because of the pressure? How would you investigate?

The main problem presented in ep 1 is truly WTF because it is handled in such a non sensationalistic and realistic way. It is also a source of a lot of comedic moments. I love it when a show manages to be funny by being serious. On the other hand the main problem makes me feel like a missed out on my childhood. :( The only thing I was thinking about at that age was Dragonball Z and Lynn Minmay. Are kids today really that smart and eloquent? I was just laughing and smiling my way through ep 1 because I had no idea what was going to happen next and Suzuki sensei went to places I was not prepared for. And that's an awesome thing.

The main story is that Suzuki sensei seems to have chosen the make up of his class specifically to run an experiment. We'll see how it works out but the first episode has the feel and vibe unlike any teacher dorama I have seen, except for the useless physical education teacher. Definitely check it out and I guarantee you'll be pleasantly surprised.

Don Quixote eps 4-11

There's this part at the end of Don Quixote that really pissed me off.

Yakuza about 50 meters away from Shirota and Sabashima and kids in the middle.

Little girl is left alone.

Sabashima to the rescue. Probably never occured to him or Shirota to move away so the kids won't be in the line of fire.

Sabashima crouches down, holding the kid, 25 meters away from yakuza with gun while Shirota is 50 meters away from yakuza. Note where gun is pointing.

Somehow Sabashima gets shot in the waist. I don't know about you but the yakuza would have to be pretty much pointing the gun at Shirota's feet to hit Sabashima. If the yakuza were a crap shot, recoil would have made his shot go higher, not lower. Who's the bloody dickhead who thought this would make sense?! Just because this is a comedy with yakuza playing a stupid card game to decide their leader doesn't give the director license to ignore the rules of physics.

Is this the same director who did the action scene at the end of Shiroi Haru that nearly killed the dorama? There are many ways to make this work better. Eg, kids run to the side and one stupid kid runs towards Sabashima and Shirota. Or kids were passing by our heroes and one falls down right in front. The set up that works best is Sabashima taking the bullet for Shirota.

Don Quixote which is pretty good for the first half tapers of (like most jdoramas) when they run out of new and different stuff of Sabashima to do. Actually, the main problem was they didn't give Shirota anything cool to do. Usually for body swap stories, both characters were used the respective skills and do things different. Shirota may be a chicken-shit but the writers never let him use his brains and tech savvy to solve yakuza problems.

If Sabashima can help kids by shouting and rushing headlong into problems, surely Shirota can solve problems not by violence but by cunning. The only character growth Shirota had was to learn to be a bit like Sabashima instead of realising and utilising his skills. Its still watchable but I'm disappointed that Don Quixote never fulfilled its potential. Its as if instead of looking at all the cliches of body swapping stories and thinking about how to make this the body swapping dorama to end all body swapping doramas, the makers decided to play safe and go for crowd pleasing mediocrity.

Mano Erina Concert Tour 2011 ~Hatachi no Otome 801 DAYS~

The dvd of the concert I went to 4 months ago is out! Well, not exactly the concert I went to since I went to the Osaka one and the dvd performance is from her Shibuya show. Its basically the same thing anyway so yeah, its another way for me to relive one of the highlights of my Japan trip and finally see what those old ojisan fans were seeing with their binoculars.

My favourite part of the concert besides her playing all her piano songs and Genki mono de ikou! was her performance of Daredemo Iwanai de. The lyrics combined with her dance was the ultimate combination of innocent and sexy. The sight of her doing all the gestures with the microphone stand got me all excited.

When I came back from my trip I tried to find any performances of her Daredemo Iwanai de but couldn't as it wasn't a single. IMHO, it should have been but now I get to watch it everyday. :) As mentioned in my post about the concert, the only negative thing was Sekai wa summer party was sung as part of a medley.

Also included in the dvd are the end rolls. At the end of the concert was a montage from of Mano Erina rehearsing for the particular show spliced with scenes of the fans lining up and getting into the venue. This was also shown at the end of the concert I went to which was a nice touch. The knowledge that I am somewhere in the crowd of a bonus clip of a Mano Erina dvd warms my heart.

I am somewhere on the bottom right on the screen.

Now I have an excuse to put on my Mano Erina t-shirt and wrist bands. :)

Yuusha Yoshihiko to Maou no Shiro eps 5-12

Fun. Lots of fun. That's probably the most apt word to describe this series. You can see on their faces as sometimes they don't bother keeping a straight face. Yuusha Yoshihiko is a collection of Dragon Quest inspired skits held together by your typical quest to destroy great evil storyline.

It sort of got less funny after the halfway point, specifically ep 7. Way too many running jokes that have lost their flavour and comedy that has absolute no connection with the fantasy setting. They recovered in ep 8 with a funny episode on changing character classes but I wasn't laughing as hard as in the first half of the series.

Danjo-san, don't sacrifice your sideburns!

It probably had to do with all the fights turning out to be gang fighting some inept villain all the time and there were not any cool fights to break up the monotony. I think the two episodes I found not so funny were episodes 7 and 9 where Yuusha and gang had to fight a succession of bad guys to reach the boss.

 Oguri Shun's costume is awesome.

Some of it had to do with me not understanding the jokes like the raccoon washing the gun or Jyaitan the shaman. The Oguri Shun cameo was funny as hell and you can just see it on their faces. There's basically two episodes over a total of 12 that weren't as funny as the first half of the series but on the whole Yuusha Yoshihiko has provided me with more laughs than any jdorama I can remember.

I've got to say, I really enjoyed the last two episodes. Yuusha and gang have got to go to Maou's castle to fight and since they have no budget and need to set the final battles in a strange place, they decided to set in the modern world which I think had a lot of hilarious results. I don't know why they never addressed how our heroes payed for everything though.

Some of my favourite bits of the series:

Ep 5 - Walking in a straight line and into people's homes to break pots and open drawers. One of the staples of Fantasy RPGs that people never question.

Ep 6 - Yoshihiko X Rien was so freaking funny. I need more Nakamura Shizuka but I can't remember how big a role she played in Mioka which I had dropped quickly. I just can't watch bad doramas just for eye candy.

The whole song sequence was just pure gold!
Ep 7 - Dying and going to a priest. Makes me feel like playing Shining Force.

Ep 8 - Yoshihiko becoming an idol. Actually every episode with Yoshihiko abandoning his quest is funny.

This has nothing to do with Yoshihiko becoming an idol but somehow I have taken too many screencaps of Nakamura Shizuka.


Ep 10 - Cloning skill. Nuff said.


Ep 11 - Yoshihiko and gang enjoying the trappings of modern life. The Murasaki confrontation was the highlight for me.

Murasaki's face after the 'sore wa sore, kore wa kore!' retort.

Ep 12 - They saved all their CG money for the final episode.

On the whole, Yuusha Yoshihiko has given me more laughs per minute than any other dorama I can think of. Its a homage to one of my favourite game genres and there's no reason why anyone would not enjoy this even if they don't play Japanese RPGs. I so hope they do the movie.