Nemureru Mori Jukujo eps 1-5

Nemureru Mori Jukujo is a surprisingly fun dorama about a jukujo going through a divorce and the young and rich hotel manager, nicknamed the prince who comes from one of those shojou manga aristocratic like family complete with butler. For one thing, it rises above mediocre jukujo fantasies by exploring the characters instead of making them cutboard cutouts.

The premise of Nemureru Mori Jukujo is that the hotel prince was forced to offer the jukujo a job in his hotel when encountering the drunken jukujo one night at the hotel bar as to save face. However, our jukujo is unable to remember said event and her employment benefactor wishes to stay anonymous. So we have basically the jukujo writing letters to her mysterious benefactor the prince who responds to her as well.

Now the prince while acting all perfect like is actually ill tempered and calculating. Our jukujo stumbles upon this fact and our prince is able to act like himself in front of her while they continue to trade letters. Hhmm, sounds more like a shoujo manga than a dorama aimed at hitozumas. That's probably what makes it different.

So far, the first five episodes have been an interesting. The acting is so so and some of the dialogue can be very straightfoward like a shoujo way but it never hammers point across more than necessary. How good this dorama can be depends on what happens in the second half when things get into more familiar territory. So far, very watchable. Only the first episode has been hardsubbed so far but the simplicity of the dialogue makes it easy to watch.

Yuusha Yoshihiko to Akuryou no Kagi 7-11

EPISODE 7 Yoshihiko joins the dark side.

Yoshihiko and gang meet their doppelgangers who are actually better than them. Very funny episode with Yoshihiko joining the look alikes. Most important of all, its something that isn't a rehash from season 1.

Oh yes, nothing is funnier than a Yoshihiko putdown on Murasaki. His honesty is a a great source of comedy.

 

EPISODE 8 Yoshihiko loves hitozumas.

The musical episode. Sort of a repeat of the one in season 1. Still equally as fun with another great Yoshihiko and Murasaki argument. I just love how he keeps repeating hitozuma over and over.

Danjo's facial expressions are gold!

Poor Murasaki, lol.

I really hate the erase Yoshihiko's mind plot device. Its lazy and its more fun for Yoshihiko to remember what he did. After all, he is a simple and pure minded hero, pretty easy to write a stupid argument to set him back on the right path.

EPISODE 9 (meh)

Basically a collection of encounters and killer hamster joke that as gone stale. The encounters should have replaced some of the more boring ones. Waste of an episode and they should have gotten their armour from the previous ep.

EPISODE 10 Beach Boys spoof. Not bad.

Can't remember anything from Beach Boys except wondering what the big deal was. Its the 2nd last episode and its not even building up to the end.

Once again the Yoshihiko mind wipe is used. Boring. Let him remember so the others' can tease him about it, ffs!

Yoshihiko and gang encounter a bunch of dodgy looking pirates.

EPISODE 11 Final battle for the sake of having one. Meh.

Like the first season, they really spent money on the last one. Unfortunately, plot-wise it feels like an after thought.

CONCLUSION

Too many repeating jokes that don't even have a new twist on them. They obviously had a lot of fun doing this but half the time it feels like I've seen this before. This series is still watchable comedic gold, just that it feels a bit stale at times.

Going My Home

Going my Home turned out the way I was expecting it to; basically 10 episodes of Still Walking instead of a 2 hour movie. Everything about Going My Home is great except its the usual Koreeda nothing really happens or takes too long to happen. I enjoyed watching it and last episode was great but there were times I was thinking why couldn't this have been 6 episodes instead of 10? My favourite bits of the whole series were the Abe conversations with his mother and sister. I could watch them argue for an hour.

Having seen Koreeda's movies, Going My Home's lack of pace was pretty much expected. Sadly, I can't call it a must watch but it is definitely watchable. I would be interested to know whether Koreeda thought he needed 10 episodes to tell his story or whether it was a network mandated length.

Yuusha Yoshihiko to Akuryou no Kagi 4-6

Wanted to write a short review of this spoof series basically saying that there are funny parts it felt a bit repetitive  especially with no main story this time around. While taking screencaps I realised that there are too many funny bits for me to gloss over in a few paragraphs so prepare for screencap spam!

EPISODE 4 : Horror movie spoof (pretty funny)

Fun episode. Its also when I started too think they be running out of RPG stuff to make fun off.

The best comedic moments are between Yoshihiko and Murasaki...

.. when the righteous Yoshihiko succumbs to human frailty yet still acts like a hero.

EPISODE 5 : Kinpachi sensei spoof. (funny)

If you've watched Kinpachi sensei before, this is hilarious.

EPISODE 6 : Tournament Episode (meh)

At this point it was obvious that there's no main story and its just going to be spoofing whatever. Not that Maou no Shiro had a great story but it felt more cohesive with most of the jokes about RPGs and in this episode its Crows Zero and Dragonball..... and pubic hair. Had some laughs but this episode felt tired.

Danjo saying stupid stuff with an exaggerated serious face never fails to make me laugh.

Shinozaki Ai 2003 Calender

I got this months ago along with the Mano Erina calender but never got around to posting about it. Now that 2013 is nearly here, I better get this over with. I'm not really familiar with Shinozaki Ai, only that she can actually sing better than everyone in AKB48.

The first time I actually heard about her was when Akiman, godly Street Fighter artist said she would make the perfect Chun Li and based on the picture below, if Chun Li looked like that everyone would just let her win the tournament.

Pretty boring calender. Looks so tacky and generic. Its as if the photographer is thinking with her physical gifts he can just shoot anything and she will look good. Disappointing. Should have gotten the Kurashina Kana calender.

Hitori Shizuka ep 6

It has been a long while since a WOWOW dorama that did not end as well as it started. Well, not counting double face. Actually Shokuzai had a good last episode. Let me rephrase that, its been a while since a consistantly good WOWOW dorama. Even the great Marks no Yama dragged a bit at the end. Happy to say that episode 6 of Hitori Shizuka is beautiful in its simplicity and haunting in its beauty.

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD!

Hitori Shizuka is basically piecing together Shizuka through the eyes of others. We see her through other characters but she never exposes herself to the audience. The end of episode 5 is the closest that we see of an outburst from her. The fun part is figuring out her motivations. The murders and the all incidents are part of putting together this jigsaw puzzle that is Shizuka.

Shizuka was fathered by a violent yakuza who her mother left before Shizuka was born only for the mother to enter into another abusive relationship. Shizuka sees her mother attracted to the power of strong men and along with it the circle of abuse and vows not to be like her mother. After finally disposing of her mother's second abuser and getting away with it, Shizuka sets off to find herself.

Somehow she works her way to getting into her father's inner circle and sets off an event that leads her to killing her father. Revenge for Shizuka's mother or maybe Shizuka herself. Maybe revenge for ever being born. There is a sense there is no meaning to her life. Shizuka has seen the worst that people can be from a young age and she had planned to kill herself after committing patricide.

However, Shizuka stopped because of her stepsister. Something changed her mind. It could be that she didn't want to expose her stepsister to one more act of violence or perhaps it was her one redemption? Maybe by being with her sister, she could find purpose and meaning to her life. Is Shizuka doing it for love of her only relative who she feels kinship with? Is it to make sure her stepsister never comes like her? I think its just Shizuka find someone who needed her help just like her mother.

The only one complaint I have for episode 6 is that they should have spent a bit more money to make Kaho look older. During that scene with the stepsister on the swing talking to Shizuka, I got confused thinking is she really talking to Shizuka or a hallucination cause Shizuka still looks the same? I also got a bit lost when the time jump happened because one would expect an X number of years sign. Minor quibbles aside, Hitori Shizuka has been for me the best dorama of 2012. Still have to watch Makete Katsu. Went to my local Asian dvd store and their Makete Katsu does not have any subs. :(