Big Money eps 1-8

Its nice to see Nagase Tomoyo not have to overact in a dorama. It only works with well written and well cast shows like Mukodono and Tiger & Dragon. With shows that are not paced well, his act can get irritating quickly. I'd always wanted to see what he can do with a more serious role. IMO, Masahiro Matsuoka, the drummer from TOKIO is the better actor based on Heaven Cannot Wait.

Hasegawa Kyoko in another boring role. Her character has the best chance to spice up the series, especially the conflict between job and ethics part but alas....

Big Money starts off as a dorama about stock trading. If you've watched as much jdorama as I have, you'll probably expect that the script will oversimplify everything, and it does. Big Money shows the basic stuff that people do to in stock trading but doesn't get deeper than that. While I am not really disappointed at its simplicity, it does pose a problem for the show.

Yes, this show is worth watching for Maki-Michuru!

The main character for a show needs to be a certain type of character in order to arouse empathy. He either has to be the poor underdog character or a gifted character who has to beat unsurmountable odds to learn the game. Tomoyo Nagase's character Shirato is neither. His characters just lucked into getting chosen to be Kozuka-san's apprentice and the stuff that he is taught is so rudimentary that there is no excitement, no challenge. He just walks around in a daze following Kosaka's orders. He does not go through hellfire and brimstone. In order words, character wise, he has not paid his dues to deserve the audience's support. Its like Tommy Dreamer getting the singapore cane back in ECW. A character has the earn the audience's support.

Okamoto Aya is so underused, its a crime. Loved her in Metro ni Notte.

Like the end of ep 7 where he just walks in and issues an empty challenge to Yamazaki. He comes across as naive and stupid because he does not have a plan and it establishes nothing. Basically he does nothing to fight Matsuba ginko. WTF is the mountain the main protagonist is suppose to climb. Yes, we know his final destination but why hasn't Shirato started his ascent? He has only set up his base camp and is just wandering around.

Finally, I get to see Manabe Kaori in a dorama! She's ok as long as she's in a supporting role. :)

That said, I still enjoy this show, primarily because of the Maki-Michiru side story. The part in ep 7 where he follows her is poor gold. She leaves the house and he's standing on the balcony stoicly like a statue. And the side shot under the bridge as he tails her just stands out so much from the pedestrian camera work of the series, evoking a melancholy Koi ga Shitai feel.


Forgot to mention Shirato basically abondoning Michiru as well. It would OK if he were busy doing something or it was really dangerous for her to be involved. But all the moping around just makes him look like an idiot. The two pitfalls of main characters are too idealistic or not empathic enough. I'm not sure which one I'd rather suffer through.

Feel so tempted to get Samba de Amigo for my DC.....

What makes this show watchable is the rest of the characters. Kozuka has the motivation and Yamazaki is a fun villain. Yamazaki's not exactly operating outside the boundaries of the law and he's not making life difficult or Shirato. Every hero needs a great villain. In Big Money's case, the interesting villain needs a hero. Just because Shirato issued an empty challenge does not make him one.

Tokumei Kakarichou Tadano Hitoshi season3 ep1

Turtleae86 recommended this show to me and from his description, it sounded like it was my type of show. No johnnys who can't act, lots of chicks with nudity and a bit of action. Managed to find season 3 with crappy HK english subs and decided to take the plunge and buy it. And it was worth the money!

Miura Reiko plays a reporter who Tadano Hitoshi's gf.

Notice the pose of the chick in the background, mmmmmmm

Salaryman Kintaro is one of my fabourite series ever and here Takahashi Katsunori plays Tadano Hitoshi, a seemingly blumbling Clark Kent at work but at night he's real identity is some investigator who does special jobs for the CEO of the company. Yes, its a superhero salaryman dorama! Its got what guys want from jdroamas, cool main character and lots of hot chicks!

Note to self, look for Nagasawa Tsugumi JAVS.


With a face and body like that, she is more than welcome to swindle my money. :)

I can't stress how much fun I had watching the first episode. Tadano Hitoshi follows this IT guy who is being swindled by a girl played by gravure idol turned AV actress Nagasawa Tsugumi. The IT dude has sensitive information and him getting into debt over girl might endanger the company. Its just so freaking refreshing to see a darker jdorama after a year of too many shows that try to cater to everyone and end up doing nothing well. This show knows its audience, knows what they want and does it well.

Ebihara Yuri plays an OL who's in love with Tadano Hitoshi's Clark Kent persona. :)


Hhhmm, me like OLs.

Unlike many midnight doramas, its surprisingly very well written and the acting is decent. Credit goes to the script which moves very fast without boring and pretentious dialogue. If the standard of the rest of series is as good as the 1st episode of the 3rd season, Tadano Hitoshi might be even better than Kintaro. Seriously, they should cast more gravure and JAV actresses in jdoramas. No one can act as badly as Fukada Kyoko and Ito Misaki.

So that's how you get upskirt pics. :)

For all you sukebes out there, this show has tons of eye candy. I started blogging straight away after the 1st episode cause there's just so many lovely screencaps I wanted to take. I'll need to watch the rest of the series before I can be certain this is a good series but based on one episode I'd recommend that ppl get it. Yes, the english subs which are horribly translated from chinese are bad but that's better than no subs at all.

OMFG, its Maria Ozawa!!!!! If there is a jdorama god, please put Takako Kitahara into a dorama as well!

Her JAV acting doesn't really turn me on, but that doesn't mean I can't enjoy the view. :)

If you're in Melbourne, you can get it from the asian DVD shop opposite hungry jacks near the corner of Russell and Bourke. Why did I have to start watching this show on a Sunday night? I have half a mind to marathon the series until morning but I'll be dead at work. Sigh.

Koori no Sekai/ Ice World

Its unfortunate they don't make mystery doramas any more. I really enjoyed One Million Stars, Midnight Rain and Sleeping Forest so I was looking forward to this one. I think I watched an old vhs rip of this show before but wasn't able to finish it cause I couldn't find the rest of the series on streamload or something.


Its kinda hard to talk about mystery doramas without spoiling stuff so I'll try to be vague. Basically, mystery doramas boil down to two things, pacing of red herrings and ending. The basis of mystery shows is to slowly reveal some important information every episode that will hopefully make the audience rethink who the villain actually is. At the beginning everyone will have their own suspect.

What this show really needed were leggy shots of Uchida Yuki in her uniform. :)

Personally, I don't try to think too much during doramas cause flaws in logic diminish my enjoyment, unless of course the flaw is too big to ignore. The biggest pitfall for writers of mystery doramas to avoid are too many red herrings that don't provide clues to the identity of the villain and characters spending too much time looking for stuff the audience already knows.


I like the way the series stars, showing what people are willing to do to get insurance money and how difficult Eiki's (Takenouchi Yukata) job is. Matsushima Nanako plays the part of the mysterious Egi Toko to perfection. This stoic, serial black widow who attracts any man who comes into contact with her. I can see why Eiki is drawn to her despite this aura of danger around her.

Unfortunately, the show gets pretty slow in the middle. I was hoping they would avoid what they did with KimuTaku in sleeping forest. The fun is keeping the audience guessing on the motivations of an enigmatic character. Once the cloud of mystery is dispelled, there is only the revelation to look forward to which took quite a while and the revelation was kind of meh. The fact that there are no clues as to the identity of the villain just brings apathy. Actually, there was one clue but it was more of a why a certain character who had no more of a role to play was still there.


As Midnight Rain showed, the truth doesn't need to be some twisty and turning story from left field. It can be something simple. The important thing is how the clues are presented. When you have the villain doing a 30 minute monologue in order to link it with the mystery, you know you're in trouble. When the villain is revealed the audience should be already piecing everything together and thinking 'oh, so this is what happened'. Instead we have a villain who could have been any random character. Matsushima Nanako's performance makes it watchable but Koori no Sekai cannot match the three shows I mentioned in the first paragraph.

Chocolate trailer

Chocolate is a new Thai movie coming out this year by the director of Ong Bak/Tom Yum Goong. Best thing about it is Abe Hiroshi as a yakuza! I'm really looking forward to see Abe Hiroshi in a kick ass fight scene. Fingers crossed that he's not the villain who just stands back and lets his henchmen fight.




Probably the selling point for the movie is that the main character is a chick. I was watching her doing all those Ong Bak stunts thinking the mopy hair makes it easy for a stuntman to hide his face until the trailer showed some horrific accidents that happened in shooting. They really wanted to show that it was here doing all those stunts.




While the Bourne Ultimatum has changed the way I view action movies, I'm sold on a chick who puts her body on the line to do real painful fight scenes. Plus Abe Hiroshi! Can't wait! You can watch the trailer here.

Toda Erika - Note

Had this sitting on my HD for a long time but didn't notice. Its a DVD that came out in May last year but its more documentary rather than a gravure vid. Basically Note follows Toda Erika as she goes around promoting Death Note and doing photoshoots. The DVD has a running time of 53 minutes and unfortunately is not in widescreen.

OMG, who is this normal looking girl on my screen?! Masaka?

Yatta! The impostor has disappeared and Toda Erika is back! Kawaii~~~~!

IMO, she looks good with glasses.

Erika doing the Nacchi pout. :)

Gaaahhh! Toda Erika without makeup! My eyes are burning! Seriously, someone needs to do a series on which idol looks best without makeup.

Iryu season 2 eps 5-7

Fujiyoshi Sensei: I see yama!

The mark of a truly great jdorama is one where it makes you watch the next episode without subs. If only it were not a medical dorama and understanding the medical stuff truly important to enjoyment of the series I would watch the raws all the way. The last time I watched the raws as soon as they came out as KDO. That's how fucking good Iryu 2 is.

Uchida Yuki, please bear my children!

Ep 5 marks the climax of the diet member storyline and what a fucking climax it is. Doing an operation without enough blood. You know Asada is going to work his miracles but its just so gripping how they constantly come up with new challenges and how well they present it. Its freaking edge of your seat stuff. Not even the early years of ER is as exciting.

Super doctor? WTF? What does he do for little girls I can't do?

Ep 6 takes a look at Toyoma, the irritating, stuck up doctor. I thought they episode was heading for trouble when they too easily gave an excuse for his behaviour. Nothing pisses me off then when everything is too simplified. Somehow, they've managed to show him as a messed up character with his phone call to his dad and make the audience cut him some slack when he took responsibility for his mistake.

Hellooooooo doc!

Still, I hope that he keeps that cocky attitude of his. Its not fun when a character becomes a completely good guy like Arase. What ever happened to the bar chick from the 1st season? Its was one of the most memorable episodes because it just made Arase such an intriguing character. I guess the writers decided his character has run its course and he's reduced to plot device.

What's up doc? Nothing, only a kabe!

And the ending for ep 6. OMFG. That is superb writing. I love how the conversations slowly led up to the fucking awesome 'super doctor' cliffhanger. I just had to watch ep 7 straight after and ep 7 has an even better cliffhanger! Its like watching Angel when they somehow always managed a mini cliffhanger for every commercial break. You must fucking marvel at how the writers did it.

warning: EP 7 SPOILERS



I loved the confrontation between the Hikuyou director, Zenda sensei and Noguchi sensei. There's a sense that he might raise the white flag and sell out but the moment he declared war was so fucking cool. I truly have to give special props to the director/cinematographer. The way the camera pans round to behind the fish tank was too fucking cool. And the scene where Arase confronts Kodaka. Love how there's no clear shot of her face. As if all Arase's words don't reach her. Its like her umbrella shielding her from the rain.


Can't wait to see an episode about Kitou sensei's decision to sleep with the devil for the greater good. Its an interesting concept to explore and sounds damn good in theory except when the sacrifices become too great. Looking forward to cheering Uchida Yuki's character. IMO, she's doing a superb job as the enigmatic Kataoka Kazumi. I'm going to marathon both seasons when this series finishes. :)

Nagasawa Masami 2008 calender

Yataa! Two calenders I ordered from jlist arrived today! After deciding for some time, I decided to get Nagasawa Masami's and Matsuura Aya's. Unfortunately, jlist didn't have Nacchi's or Isoyama Sayaka's. The calenders came in really sturdy cardboard boxes but unfortunately they didn't fit in my bag so I had to drag it around the city while buying dinner. The Nagasawa Masami calender is beautifully shot and I couldn't be happier with it as can be seen from the following pics.








Unfortunately, the Matsuura Aya is crap. Only two shots are pretty good, which are below. The rest are boring. I guess they deviated too much from the typical Ayaya look that it doesn't really look like her. Ayaya + black + trying to look retro sophisticated = not a good thing. Avoid it even if you are a hardcore Ayaya fan. They should have done a GAM calender with lots of yuri innuendo. :)




Shoulda gone for the Toda Erika/Nacchi calenders from yesasia. Oh well, at least I've still got my old Ayaya poster from Weekly Comic many years ago. Maybe I should try to get an old school momusu poster after this. :)

Galileo eps 1-7

In the tradition of the Trick series, comes a new jdorama starring Fukuyama Masaharu and Shibasaki Kou. My brother has been pushing me to watch this show but I just never got around to it. I'm not really a big fan of Shibasaki Kou and her one dimensional ice queen act so I wasn't really expecting much from this show.


Shibasaki Kou plays Utsumi Kaoru, a rookie who enlists the aid of Galileo, a physics professor played by Fukuyama Masaharu to solve mysterious crimes. Its not dissimilar to Trick where there's always a trick to a crime except in Galileo its more from a scientific perspective. Of course, Galileo is the cold, logically driven person while Kaoru is more hot headed. The fun is watching the bickering that occurs between them.

Hirosue Ryoko!!!!!!!

Its not as good as the chemistry between Abe Hiroshi and Nakama Yukie in Trick but its still pretty damn entertaining. The quality of the stories vary from episode so it is important that the characters be enough to draw the audience in. So far its been entertaining and I like how Kaoru is aware of Galileo's catchphrases.

Kaoru giving Galileo a verbal low blow...

Galileo is based on a series of novels but I particularly like some of the visual trademarks of the show such as Galileo's hand on face thinking pose and the whole writing on anything when he gets his final clue, as stupid as it may be. WTF would be need to write F=MA for some of the 'mysteries'? Oh well, just shut off your brain and enjoy the coolness of Galileo vandalising private property.

Sexy Voice & Galileo! Is this the beginning of a spin off show? And twisted joshi kousei sounds appealing....

Another big appeal of this show is the guest stars. I was so fucking happy when I saw Hirosue Ryoko in ep 3. Though she had probably 15 minutes of screen time, it was great to see her on the small screen again. Ep 4 sees Sora Aoi in a 10 second cameo, ep 5 has Ohgo Suzuka (Sexy Voice) and ep 7 Fukada Kyoko. While I think that Fukada Kyoko has the acting ability of a broom, it was interesting to see her act as a villain. I spent the episode just watching her sometimes dropping her uber fake 'kawaii' persona. Seriously she should either completely drop her irritating facade or get lessons from Ogura Yuko. Its just so nice to see her speaking in a more 'real' tone of voice at the end of ep 7.

Finally Fukada Kyoko shows her true colours...

So far, Galileo has been a fun ride. Mystery doramas are hard to judge because they isn't really a main story to follow. Its more a collection of mysteries and how good a show is, is based on how well one remembers the stories after watching.