9 reasons to watch Unmei ni, Nita Koi

I haven't enjoyed a Kitagawa Eriko dorama since One Million Stars. For those who don't know, she's the writer responsible for many of the shows during the so called golden era of jdoramas such as Long Vacation and Beautiful Life. Then she did crap like Tatta Hitotsu no Koi and the overrated Orange Days I thought she was a one trick pony.

Recently she did Tsuki ni Inoru Pierrot which I liked and we have Unmei ni Nita Koi, which is definitely one of her best works in terms of writing. I can now say, Kitagawa Eriko is not a one trick pony and she can do good shit when not burderned with idorus and talentos.

Unimei ni, Nita Koi starts off like your typical middle age woman wish fulfillment dorama, especially the first episode and gets more interesting in the second episode when Kasumi starts to talk about her past. There are so many things I like about Unmei ni , Nita Koi that its easier to do it in point form so I present to you 10 reasons you should watch it:

1) It is very pretty.

NHK and WOWOW shows usually look prettier than the rest but Unmei ni, Nita Koi also uses some nice camera movements cause most of the time, jdoramas are limited to static shots. There's a scene where the main guy, Yuri is walking out the door. The camera follows him and he says something at the doorway and then it moves back to the main girl, Kasumi's face to show her reaction.

There's also a scene when Kasumi is running up some stairs and the camera tracks her movement from outside to building up to up the stairs from a side viewpoint. Its small things like this where the director is more about shooting talking heads that I appreciate.

2) Kasumi is not a woe is me heroine and doesn't feel like your typical generic character for women to project themselves onto. 

This ties into point 3 which is:

3) Yamaguchi Sakura's Maho is a great villain.

Firstly its because she's not a 'how can you know what I feel?' villain. Secondly its that her hate towards Kasumi feels like a commentary on so many woe is me heroines of this genre and Kasumi gives her a great answer.

I just enjoy watching Yamaguchi Sakura chewing the scenary.

4) The humour is very effective.

There's not a lot of humour but when its there is funny including some puns. I thought the stalker girl subplot would be annoying but it was a good comedy respite from the serious story.

5) Ohgo Suzuka as Riri.

6) You can see the twists coming a mile away but what makes them work is that the reasons are interesting.

7) Dialogue does not feel cliched.

This is hard to explain but one of my most hated phrases is 'to face yourself or the problem'. (Jibun wo mukiau) Its been used in way too many things and there are plenty of cliched phrases when that just get used all the time. Those Dr Phil moments when a character somehow has to spell out the obvious thing.

There are quite a few Dr Phil moments when I think to myself, 'I've never heard it delivered that way before' or that it felt like the character talking. There are so many lines that I liked like the one above about artists and bosoms. :)

8) 8 episodes means that the pacing is perfect. 

None of that 10-12 episode trendy dorama format. 

9) Acting is good.

There is scene from the above screencap when Yamaguchi Sakura realises something and her face goes from sneering smile to horror.

While Unmei ni, Nita Koi does everything right, I just can't give it a must watch because the chemistry just isn't at that level. I am not saying there is none but it just needed a bit more magic in the casting.

I enjoyed the hell out of Unmei ni, Nita Koi and watched the 8 episode in one shot. Unmei ni , nita Koi is almost a must watch and its rare to find such a well done older woman romance jdorama.

Cold Case : Shinjitsu no Tobira Eps 3+4

I liked episode 3 but the pacing was just a tad too fast with so many revelations. An extra 5 to 10 minutes would have have helped settled things down and perhaps a bit more world building with Amagasaki which I wanted to see more of. Amagasaki sounds like an interesting blue collar town.

That said, the English music selection is just wrong. I love Bon Jovi's Always but it did not fit the ending of the episode. I know they are playing hit music from the year that the crimes were committed but at least choose a Japanese song.

Episode 4 is the first episode of the series that I liked. Luckily Kawaguchi Kyougo's Sakura become the important song of the episode and not some English song. Fukuda Mayuko even in a bit part is a good thing. :)

The star of the episode is Santamaria Yusuke who played a great foil for our heroes. Someone needs to reedit the episodes and replace the ending English songs with Japanese ones. I vote that Always be swapped with Mr Children's Tomorrow Never Knows or Spitz's Robinson.

Cold Case is still finding its feet for me. I'll watch until the end but it seems doing a direct adaptation might not be such a good idea.

I am a Hero movie review

I had heard good things about the movie and manga so I was pretty excited to watch I am a Hero. The last zombie movie I had watched was the massively overhyped Train to Busan so I kept my expectations low on this one.

I came into this movie from the perspective of a long time Japanese movie fan. 99% of the time, it is shit. There's always no sense of geography,they try to hard to look cool etc. My passing criteria was that as long as there was nothing to complain about with the action, I was ok with it.

The story takes a while to get going since it wants to introduce our main character is this very normal person but when the we finally get to see the zombies as our hero runs away from his workplace, there is this glorious 5 minute action scene that totally makes the movie (according to Japanese standards).

Storyline wise, I am a Hero doesn't stray from the usual zombie tropes nor should it. Nagasawa Masami's character is so underwritten but the star of the movie is director Sato Shinsuke who did Princess Blade and criminally underrated Gantz movies. If there is one Japanese director who knows how to do more with less, its him. Put any other director in his place and I am a Hero would not be as good.

The ending is awesome and I really want to see part two. I've started reading the manga and had a quick look at the synopsis and it seems they changed some major things for the movie. I wonder whether fans like the changes?

On the whole, its a very solid zombie movie. Very watchable.

If Cats disappeared from the World

I will accept any premise as long as what flows from that premise makes some sort of logical sense. The premise of If Cats disappeared from the World is that Kenshin is going to die and the devil appears before him offering to extend his life in exchange for something.

That exchange turns out to be deleting phones from existence, and then wiping out movies until finally making cats disappear from this world. What the devil meant by wiping this things is that they never ever existed in history. These things that the devil wipes out provides Kenshin with a connection with the important people in his life and changes his relationship with them.

Problem with the premise is that wiping out phones from history not only means Alexander Graham Bell never invented the phone, humanity somehow cannot create this device and history is changed forever. We're talking a world without internet, television, computers and video recorders. Yet somehow Kenshin's world stays the same except for non existence of phones instead of being a completely different world. We've seen many stories about changing one point in history that can make huge changes to the present. The premise of this movie is about erasing things that have been used throughout human history. Its as if Kenshin were living in a time bubble.

Now this can be all explained away by the revelation of the devil's true identity but it just makes Kenshin look fucking stupid anyway, especially for someone who has watched so many movie. If Cats disappeared from the World is a house built on dodgy foundations. At least its not crying porn but I just could not enjoy the movie with the shadow of the premise hanging over the story.

I'm currently replaying Ryu ga Gotoku 5 and Ando Sakura's dad is in it playing a cop and it was weird watching him play this quiet watchfixer in this movie.

The writer could have easily fixed this with the devil being more specific with his trade such as this phone at this certain date in Kenshin's past will not work or the movie metropolis will never be made or that the cat Lettuce will never exist in his life.

'If Cats disappeared from the World doesn't sound' as good as 'If my cat disappeared from the World' but it would have solved this movie's achilles' heel. Don't waste your time with this unless you enjoy turning off your brain in pursuit of sad movies.

Shizumanu Taiyo Eps 9-20 : WOWOW this is good

The second half of Shizumanu Taiyo is a bit too long. Its basically about the planecrash, the outcry, Kunimi becoming the President of NAL and our main character Onchi slowly discovering how deep the corruption was in JAL oops I mean NAL.

There's no Hanzawa Naoki super turnabout here. Its about people trying to do the right thing in a system that is corrupt and not necessarily having a fairytale ending though I just wished they had chopped off two episodes. Its not so fun when our hero uncovers corruption but can't do much about it though.

However at this point WOWOW had already built up Onchi so well in the first half that I was willing to see his story to the end. The character that most interested me in the second half was Gyoten played by Watabe Atsuro.

Gyoten is the character who walked the same road as Onchi but then took another path up the company ranks. He is not one those moustache twirling and sneering villains but neither is he willing to help Onchi out.

Throughout the series Gyoten is presented with the chance to do the right thing but because of ambition and self preservation never does so.

Gyoten is also more fun to watch because of his mistress.

I watched the scene where the wife finally met the mistress with bated breath and it did not disappoint.

I must say Kamikawa Takaya's English is not bad especially when compared with Watanabe Ken's no cadence English and Ishihara Satomi's indecipherable English from Shin Gojira. He takes his time and does not rush his words. Bravo to whoever was in charge of his English. Disappointed that Mimura's role was so small but then if I were an actor in Japan I would want to be involved with Shizumanu Taiyo no matter how small the role.

While I found the pacing of the second half too slow, when combined with the excellent first half, I still have to rate Shizumanu Taiyo a must watch. I still think Fumo Chitai is better though. Unfortunately, there is no English sub for Shizumanu Taiyo. It was difficult to watch with all the formal Japanese especially in the second half and I had to constantly use my dictionary.

Suna no Tou Eps 1~3 : Tonally flat

Suna no Tou is an amalgam of two genres; the suburban houswife everyone has a secret genre ala Saitou-san or Scandal and a suburban serial killer ala Kakogari. Problem for me is that tonally it doesn't work.

The housewife part which represents most of the first three episodes is very generic and uninspired and the serial child killer part is not exciting. There is a lack of the sense of dread. Suna no Tou is like a thriller wannabe dressed in overacting housewife clothes. The target audience might eat this up but I just couldn't help thinking about better shows that I mentioned above.

The one thing to look forward to is Matsushima Nanako's bad guy with her super plastic face and how they are going to explain how she is not actually the killer. Does anyone really think she's playing a bad guy? Her agent is doing a great job with getting her roles where she doesn't have to show much emotions with Suna no Tou and Kaseifu no Mita. I think she's completely lost the ability to frown.

As excited as I am to see Kanno Miho, once again she has chosen to star in generic mainstream crap. I would love to see what she can do in a serious WOWOW show.

Cold Case : Shinjitsu no Tobira Eps 1+2

I can't believe it. Its really happening. Japan has made a cop show without all the usual baggage. No jurisdiction crap. No incompetent police force. No angry bosses with a perpetual scowl. No 19 year old looking actors pretending to be an idealistic newbie who somehow went straight from police academy to detective. No forced aw shucks endings. No trying so hard to be cool or having 20 police officers pull their guns against one suspect.

Just a pure, straightforward police procedural about people who are good at their job. They get their case, search for clues, interview lots of people and reach the truth in the end. The officers have their own stories but they are slowly revealed throughout the course of the investigation without drawing attention away from the main case.

However, the first two episodes didn't really impress me. They were solid and I like Naka Riisa's acting on the second episode but I'm waiting for the OMFG this is so good feeling episode. Actually, the second episode came close. Even if it never comes, I'm very certain Cold Case will at least be a very solid and watchable police show which is more than I can say for most jdorama police shows.

Root Letter review

Just finished the happy ending for Root Letter. Root Letter is a visual novel game for the PS4 and PS3. You play an adult who 15 years ago had a pen pal when you where in high school and you wrote ten letters. One day, you find a mysterious 11th letter where the girl Fumino Aya says that she has killed someone.

You go to her hometown in Shimane-ken and try to find out what happened and the identities of her 6 friends; monkey, glasses, bitch, skinny, fatty, shorty and best friend. The most surprising thing is that Root Letter turns out to be a Phoenix Wright clone!

That wright! You collect evidence and need to choose your answers correctly to make the people confess. There's no OBJECTION!!! and there's a stupid Max mode but its still fun.

On my first playthrough I got the horrible cursed ending which left me with a wtf feeling although I liked the revelation of why they all conspired to keep the secret. Getting a different ending is not about making different choices in the game but about making different replies to the letters you sent 15 years ago.

Good thing there is a skip chapter option and most of the letter replies are done at the beginning of the chapter so you can skip all the way to chapter eight. It was unexpectedly fun with my second playthrough because I could see all the clues now and there were new dialogues and events.

However, there is one thing I don't like about Root Letter is that the two different endings are not about what if you made a different choice in the game have two entirely different plot twists which sucks. Its like each story is set in a parallel world instead of each story is about a fork in the road. From what I read, the remaining three endings are the same. The gist of the story stays the same but the reasons for certain actions are different.

I don't recommend the Japanese version for beginners but the Japanese is not too difficult. I was quite happy it didn't have much descriptive first person thoughts like so many PS Vita visual novels.
 
The biggest reason to recommend Root Letter is that its not a harem story and I really grew found of the characters. There are not many games for older gamers coming out of Japan and most of them are low budget fan service ones so I'm happy to support any publisher that is willing to do more mature games. Thanks to Kodokawa for for taking a chance on Root Letter and I can't wait for God Wars next year.

The EU version of Root Letter just came out. Its a decent game that I would recommend to fans of mystery stories.

Nigeru wa Haji da ga Yaku ni Tatsu Eps 1-3

I try to avoid Aragaki Yui shows as best as I can but Mano Erina, Hoshino Gen (Blindly in Love), Ishida Yuriko and Tomita Yasuko (Suzuki sensei) are in it so it can't be that bad, right?

Unfortunately, NigeHaji is like a very bland version of Hasegawa Hiroki and Ann's comedic jdorama, Date. Like Date, two people do a marriage contract of convenience except the two people are boring as anything and have no chemistry. Not saying every character has to have a quirky personality but there's just something missing. Its the element of I'm happy to watch these two characters do anything. I'm starting to think Kaho carried Hoshino Gen in Blindly in Love.

Anyway, Ishida Yuriko's spinster aunt has more personality than the two main characters combined and no amount of cute end music dancing can save this show.

End of the day I don't give a crap about the characters and I can't believe any man would cheat on Mano Erina. The WTF development at the end of episode 3 had me yawning. NigeHaji doesn't really suck but its just boring. There are better shows out there and I would rather rewatch Date with all the koutouyuumin shinanigens. Meh.