Tsugunai The Unforgiven Blu Ray

Tsugunai is near the top of my list for jdoramas that I like a lot more than I should. I love the cast with Tanihara Shosuke who now does morning tv, Kimura Tae and the late Ashina Sei. The story of this homeless doctor solving a murder mystery was a fun 3 episode show and unfortunately, there is no 720 copy of the show. Not in Avista, jptv or nyaa. So my only option was to buy a bluray copy.

I have always wanted to support jdoramas and I am glad I can do that buy watching them on Amazon Prime, Disney + and Netflix but the cost of a bluray set is around 20, 000 yen. The minimum wage in Tokyo is 1,113 yen. Two days worth of wages will not even buy a jdorama set, even at used price.

Since this is only a 3 episode show, the price is nowhere near that expensive. The full retail price for Tsugunai is 9000 yen but I got it second hand for about half the price. Yes, I am aware that the market for jdoramas is limited to Japan and they have to make their money back but average person can't afford this. Same with the price of anime in Japan. The average person can't afford 20, 000 yen on a tv show when it can buy a lot of meals.

If I ever buy another bluray jdorama series, it will either be a series that I really love or something I am unable to find online. 

Bloody wished NHK had done a sequel to this.

Stepfather Step Episodes 1~5

When I found out that jptv.club was closing, I went on a crazy download spree. No need to keep a good ratio anymore, it was time to leech like crazy and get some shows I had never seen before. I was looking around thinking what Konishi Manami jdoramas I have not seen before and I saw Stepfather Step. I remember hearing the name before and since it has Kamikaya Takaya (Iryu Sosa) and Hirayama Aya I decided to give it a go.

Stepfather Step is about an expert robber called Kaitou (phantom thief) King played by Kaimikaya Takaya and his calling card is leaving a King of Clubs at a crime scene. Hirayama Aya is his colleague who is a scam artist but she only scams bad people and they both work for his lawyer.

Kaitou King losses his footing one day, falls down a hill and is knocked out but is rescued by twin brothers. Both parents of the twins happened to elope with their lovers at the same time so the twins are in need of a father and decided that our Kaitou King is the man for the job.

Stepfather Step is a super kid friendly dorama. It is more about a thief becoming a suburban dad, taking out the trash and dealing with nosy neighbours including a cop. Stepfather Step  is more about creating touching moments like a mother who gave her daughter away or kids covering up for their classmate being accused of stealing. 

There's nothing wrong with that, it is just that the writing feels very primitive compared to something like Shiroi Haru which was a funny and nuanced jdorama about an ex-con playing dad to a girl whereas Stepfather Step feels so generic and uninspired

It is a show that completely ignores the fact that teacher played by Konishi Manami spends so much time with the twins instead of the students in her class. The twins always speaking in unison is also annoying. It is a common anime trope where twins must say the same sentence all the time but it happens all the time and rather than finding it cute, I find it annoyingly fake and trying too hard to be cute. Not to mention zero attraction storyline between fake father and fake mother. Stepfather Step is too much of a squeaky clean kids show. 

I really wanted to like Stepfather Step because of the cast but no amount of acting can save a generic script. I don't feel like finishing it at all because watching is a chore. The files from jptv are in ts format which means uncompressed files at about 4gb each! I am not going to delete them because they don't exist in nyaa, jptvts or avista. Maybe someday I'll upload them somewhere.

Speaking of jptv, one series I really wanted to download was a Uchino Masaaki series called Hadachi: Uma no Hone. No one was seeding it and I can't find it anywhere. Should have downloaded more from jptv. In summary, Stepfather Step is a very generic TBS show about a thief playing dad and a teacher playing mom to twin boys. You are better off watching Shiroi Haru. Meh.

Gannibal S2 Episodes 1+2

 

Season 2 of Gannibal is here! The first season ended at a very exciting cliffhanger when I thought the show was close to finishing. Our main character Agawa  had discovered the secret and was close to pulling off a rescue. Surely there wasn't much story left to tell right?

Turns out there is much to tell and we find out this Gotou family has another secret that is equally as bad if not worse than cannibalism. It explains why everyone in this family is weird and scary.

Especially this new character who is going to be a challenge for Keisuke.

The most important thing I learned from the first 2 episodes is that Kita Kana has a nice buck tooth sleeping face.

I don't understand how any sane man would not run away from his family for Kita Kana.

Especially a family like this.

Am I the only one who really wants to this Toyohara Kosuke prequel series? I am guessing he is going to be in flashbacks.

The grandmother is one piece of work. She is the worst person in the whole thing.

I have just activated my Disney+ to support Gannibal. Normal jdorama budget would not have allowed the violence in this show.

Can't believe Disney does not have limits on violence in Gannibal.

Can't wait to see the rest of the 6 episodes. Won't give S2 of Gannibal a must watch yet because it is too early. My only worry is that while Agawa is a badass and can hold his own against the monster, it is a bit of a stretch when he has to face a fully armed family. 

I love how they did the monster. He looks like scary and doesn't look real but they have mixed in practical effects with the CG. Very watchable. I subscribed 4K but I can't really tell the difference from the 1080 rips. 

64 / Rokuyon jdorama review

64 is an 2015 NHK show about an unsolved case where a little girl was kidnapped for ransom and was found dead after the money was delivered. The 64 in the title refers to the year when the crime happened, 1989 or Showa 64, the last year of Showa era before Heisei began.

Pierre Taki who has has cancelled in Jdoramas, only appearing in Netflix shows plays the main character Mikami, a former detective who was involved with the 64 case and now works as the head of public relations in D prefecture. So nice to see Pierre Taki in a leading role because he is usually a supporting actor. So sad he got cancelled in Judge Eyes. I have a digital copy of the PS4 original and I have a feeling if I start it up, it will update and remove him from the game so if I want to play it again, I have to do it offline.

Mikami is haunted by the case, which happened 14 years ago but he has bigger worries as his daughter has run away from home and his wife sits at home waiting for silent cause from his daughter. Furthermore, as head of PR for the police he is constantly butting heads with the media over issues such as not releasing names of suspects. 

As the head of PR, Mikami is also tasked with convincing the father of the victim to accept the visit of the Director of Police before the statute of limitations runs out on the case. Mikami is a person under a lot of stress and he is trying to juggle it all so he has my full attention.

In the beginning, 64 seems so familiar. I have seen so many unsolved cases jdoramas before. What makes 64 stand out is showing the relationship between police and media and PR team who get no information from actual detectives and the media constantly crying for blood because they feel the police are stonewalling them. Most of the times in jdoramas, media are usually presented as just printing out the police's press release instead of doing investigations so this part is refreshing. 

However, it is very dangerous to give too much information to the media especially before an investigation is finished. We have seen it time and time again media jumping to the wrong conclusions in Australia. Media fight to be the first to report something and get the scoop and they play a role in keeping police honest but at the same time, everything is not so black and white.

The one thing I do not like is the direction of 64. The director Inoue Tsuyoshi did one of my favourite shows ever Hagetaka but there is a kind of weirdness to the direction. There is always a high pitched noise between scenes and sometimes the angles are weird. I don't know how to explain it but the style of the show seems wrong. I feel like a more traditional WOWOW style would have been better.

That being said, I feel like I have to watch the 2 part movie now because the story is pretty good and I like the way that the real killer's identity is discovered because it ties everything up beautifully. Watchable 5 episodes which should have been 4.

Apollo no Uta Eps 1~3

Apollo no Uta is about a guy called Shogo who becomes becomes a gigolo because of his childhood trauma seeing his mother sleep with many different men. 

He goes through life without care except for his childhood friend Hiromi who has a thing for him but he brushes it away.

At the end of episode one, something horrible happens and Shogo has done something he cannot take back. However he wakes up in a world where there is a different Hiromi who is a singer and is no longer Shogo's childhood friend. Shogo's mom is different and I was thinking is this a fix your mistake in another timeline story.

At the end of episode 3, Shogo goes to a different timeline/world this time with robots/artifical humans and it seems like this series is about him running into Hiromi in different worlds. This is a very low budget show and visually there is nothing special and I don't find there is much chemistry between the characters to keep me interested.

Apollo no Uta is based on a work by Tezuka Osamu, the god of manga so the story should be good but I am not compelled to watch episode 4 and there are too many things to watch. Meh.

Lies of P : Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery

 

Once upon a time, a genius by the name of Miyazaki Hidetaka made the Souls series of games starting from Demons Souls to Dark Souls 1~3. They started out not being mainstream popular but had a hardcore fanbase. Watching videos, I did not understand why they were popular but the fact that they were difficult games peaked my curiosity. When I watched videos of gameplay, it just seemed like a slow action game with lots of rolling.

I bought Bloodborne and my life changed forever. I finally understood the appeal of Miyazaki and From Software's genius. The best thing about the games were that they had 1 difficulty and the game was designed around that difficulty. 

You had a fixed amount of healing items from one save point to the next and it was up to you to learn how to get there. It was about learning from your mistakes and not caring about losing your experience points when you die because learning how to overcome obstacles is more important than experience points. Soulsborne game are about telling the story through weapon descriptions and notes instead of spelling everything out for the audience. Actually without youtube, I would not be able to tell you the story of the Souls games except for Sekiro.

Bloodborne led me to Dark Souls which led to me the greatest action game of all time Sekiro to Demon's Souls and of course Elden Ring. Sidenote, I can play Sekiro every year because the game is just that good and not many games make you want to fight a boss again after dying 50 times because the boss fights are so fun. Soulsborne games became a genre in itself as everyone tried to copy From Software's formula of bonfires and collecting souls. I really wanted to like Nioh and gave it 2 chances but the randomly generated loot system was too annoying. 

Soulsborne games are the opposite of randomly generated loot. They are about items being placed at certain areas for certain reasons; usually as bait for traps but you are not overwhelmed with randomly generated loot. Rise of the Ronin aka Ancient Kyoto Simulator was ok but did not tempt me to try any more Koei Tecmo games.

Then I heard about this Pinocchio Soulsborne game made by an unknown Korean developer. I downloaded the demo, forgot about it until it went on sale recently and OMFG Lies of P is the perfect marriage of Bloodborne and Sekiro.

I would buy a system for Bloodborne 2 and Sekiro 2 just like I got a Wii U for Bayonetta 2. I also got a Switch for Bayonetta 3 and that turned out to be such a bad game. While Miyazaki is making some multiplayer Elden Ring game, some unknown company have made the spiritual sequel to his two masterpieces that everyone wants sequels to.

It is amazing how much Lies of P is a homage to all of Miyazaki's games. From the traps to weapons to bosses, this game is new but so familiar. It is a From Software greatest hits wrapped up in one beautiful package. I have not played much imitators but feel of the game from the weight of the weapons to the hitboxes just work. 

Lies of P is an amazing must play game. I am going through New Game + to solo all the bosses. Don't use the summons because they make the game too easy. Can't wait for the DLC to and the inevitable sequel. As a gamer, it is amazing when you get what you want, I just did not expect to get it from an imitation.

Jiken jdorama 2023 review

 

I was looking through the jdrama fansub map thinking what other 2023 shows I should watch when I noticed this WOWOW show Jiken. I had downloaded the first 2 episodes from dramahd before it closed and decided to give the first two episodes a go.

At the start of Jiken, we see that Kita Kana has died, stabbed in her stomach with a knife and removing my motivation to continue watching. A university student Hiroshi has been caught for the murder and is Kita Kana's childhood friend. I didn't care about his character because he plays the role in a detached way because the audience does not know whether is lying. Hiroshi initially plead guilty and then changes his mind.

Shiina Kippei (The Forest of Love) plays a judge turned lawyer haunted by a case where the person he found guilty commited suicide.  He always plays dodgy characters so it is a change to see him play a straightforward good guy.

The first two episodes were meh for me. If this is a show about an innocent man being set up, I would rather watch Shoutai. There are some revelations about Kita Kana's character who moved to Tokyo and ran her own bar but she is dead. I did not care about the suspect who continued to show no emotion throughout the trial and the killer was either him or the dodgy boyfriend who was was behaving in court as if he wanted to be a suspect.  I thought I should just drop the show because there was no character to root for.

I was trying to download episodes 3 and 4 from nyaa but no one was seeding for a week when suddenly some kind hearted soul seeded episode 3 for me. I was watching episode 3 and getting more interested as the story get deeper into Kita Kana's past and then this freaking scene at the episode 3 happened. Before I knew it, I was shouting at my screen. I could not believe it.

I had to watch episode 4. I had to know the ending of this WOWOW show. Unfortunately, episode 4 was stuck at 64.9% and avistaz did not have a copy. I searched and found it on jptv.club. It was in 4K and was 10.9GB and I had to see the ending! 

On a side note jtv.club is closing in 5 days which makes me sad. Another private tracker bits the dust and there are so many shows on jtv.club that are not on avistaz! I am furiously leeching what I can before the files are gone!

The ending of Jiken is dark and depressing. It is kind of convoluted in a sense why didn't the main character do something else but it does make no sense in a way.  I think the story would have worked better as a movie which it was but Kita Kana's acting will haunt you after it has finished. Watchable, especially for Kita Kana's fans.