Kurohryou 2: Ryu ga Gotoku Ashura Hen

I really liked the first series. Nearly must watch for me until the stupid ending that tried to be too complicated. Nevertheless, if you want an action dorama to watch, I recommend the first season. Its been two years since I saw the first season and I still haven't gotten around to playing the first game yet so no idea how faithful the story is to the game. I had a look around and what do you know, someone ripped the subs from the HK DVD and retimed it! Unfortunately that the Japanese subs were not retimed and I can't be stuffed doing it.

The bad news is Kurohryou 2 makes the first season look like a classic. The basic story is interesting, just that the execution is way too heavy handed and cheesy, similar to the ending of the first series. You've got this blind guy who can magically appear before our main characters in Tokyo and Osaka on the same day. The main character finds out  his good friend is being attacked because the irritating kid who sounds like a girl just happens to know for no reason. Simple gaps in logic that can be easily fixed.

The fighting is just not as fun. For someone who's supposed to be a pro-boxer, Ukyo Tatsuya throws a lot of wild punches. Tatsuya's fight with the fourth heavenly king is just stupid in that he gets beat up a lot and doesn't even make a proper comeback but all of a sudden his opponent is equally damaged. They've got this muscle dude supporting character who can't act at all and looks so awkward in the fight scenes. Avoid this and just watch the first season.

Kurohyou 2 has also got one of the most stupid action cliches of all time; the someone is about the get stabbed and this idiot jumps into the path of the knife instead of attacking the person with the knife. I have no idea why jdoramas continue to use this. If they want to make a main character get stabbed protecting another, it doesn't have to be in the same action. It can be something as simple as grabbing the person with the knife's arms, they struggle and that character gets stabbed. It just pisses me off how Shiroi Haru was nearly perfect except for how the knife thing was choreographed and now I see the exact problem again in this dorama.

The subbing of the first season was not completed but Blue Disk Subs has the auto subs that should work on the d-addicts raws. I just hope the story for the second game is a lot better than the dorama. Avoid unless you are a fan of the series and/or an Okamoto Rei fan. I have to say if you take this as a comedy, there is an element of its so bad its watchable.