Nagi no Oitoma Episode 1

In Nagi no Oitama, Kuroki Haru aka the girl from Juhan Shutai plays Oshima Nagi, a girl who reads the atmosphere too much and tries way to hard to please people including her boyfriend played by Takahashi Issey by doing things such as spending one hour a day straightening her natural curls.

One night at work she overhears Takahashi talking bad about her and saying he was only with her for the sex. Shocked, Nagi quits her job and moves to a cheap apartment where she meets a lot of interesting people as she tries to restart her life.

I was ready to dislike the Nagi character because she just overthought things and let herself be abused by everyone but I appreciated her earnesty in trying to change herself or rather trying to accept herself for who she is. We all need positive shows that don't get too preachy.

My problem is with Takashi Issey's creepy ex boyfriend and all his fakeness.

The twist at the end of the episode was that Takashi actually loves Nagi or at least claims to love her. Is there a sob story good enough to exonerate him or will it be interesting enough to make him interesting? I guess I'll have to watch the series to find out.

I like the tone of the story and Kuroki Haru is good so watchable first episode plus its got a couple of recommendations in the comments.

Saka no Tochuu no Ie

WOWOW has done it again. Not only have they once again produced a better than average jdorama, they have produced a very good jdorama where for the first time ever, I found that Shibasaki Kou gave a very good performance.

Shibasaki Kou is one of the actresses that I always felt did not deserve her starring roles. It did not help that her character in the Galileo series felt unnecessary to me. The last time I said something good about her acting was in Hundred Million Stars from the Sky.

Anyways, Saka no Tochuu no Ie has Shibasaki Kou playing the mother of a young daughter who is selected to a spare jury member for a case where a mother played by Mizuno Miki is accussed of abusing and murdering her child.

As the case goes on, elements of the case start to seep into Shibasaki Kou's life and she starts confusing between the two. The case also effects two other jurors and the Judge's assistant as each of them also grapple with issues of child rearing.

First off as a thriller, Sakano Tochuu no Ie build tension really well. The tension between Shibasaki Kou's fears and being unsure whether or not the world is against her or she is just unstable. It also creates doubt on Mizuno Miki's crime and whether she is to be blamed.

The other thing is does really well is show how difficult and maybe dangerous it is raising a child especially in an age where any physical discipline can be easily be seen as abuse and how a parent who is under so much stress cannot slip up even once.

The second thing that Saka no Tochuu no Ie does really well is that it explores parenthood from multiple sides. From Ito Ayumi's character who cannot have kids to useless juror who blames everything on his wife to the judge's assistant to has to decide between work, child and husband.

The key to making characters emphatic and relatable is to make their problems real and their reactions honest to their characters and this jdorama does that really well and without any preaching, I might add. Except for the Shibasaki Kou speech at the end.

The script for Saka no Tochuu no Ie is so good, I could not believe it did not fall into the usual pitfalls. Congrates to WOWOW and everyone involved because they really did justice to the script. Thanks to HPriest for subbing and Robert for recommending it! Must watch!

Voice Episodes 1-4

Voice reminds me a lot of Signal and not just because both are remake of kdramas. Both have a science fiction premise, it Signal it was the ability to communicate through time and in Voice, its someone with a superhuman sense of hearing working at an emergency control room.

However, both also feel like the shows are trying way too hard to be touching and exciting. I will accept any premise as long as it leads me down an interesting path but the path that Voice makes doesn't feel well made.

Too many jumps in logic and the police looking incompetent, something that happens a lot in jdoramas. Most of all, it feels like certain crimes are happening in certain ways in order for Maki Yoko to use her super powers. Plus everyone knows that most calls to emergency lines are about domestic disputes.

I really wanted to like Voice because I am a fan of Karasawa Toshiaki and Maki Yoko but I just could not buy what Voice was trying to sell me. Sometimes the lines feel like they are badly translated from Korean.

If you liked Signal, Voice should be right up your alley. If you didn't like Signal like me, its not worth giving Voice a try. Its a real shame because I really like the cast in both shows. Voice with available with English subs. Meh.

Soshite Ikiru Episode 2

So in episode 1, it seemed like Soshite Ikiru was going to be about two people who met at the scene of a great disaster who also happened to orphans who feel a great debt to their adopted family.

Everything was great, acting was great and the only thing that gave me pause was Arimura Kasumi playing this jimoto idoru wanting to be an actress.

That kind of role is usually reserved for female idorus when they act in jdoramas for various reasons. For male idorus its usually dancer.

I kept wondering why the writer chose this dream for Arimura Kasumi's character because any another job would be ok.

The the twist happens and we find out not only will Arimura Kasumi's character sacrifice her dream, she will not tell the dad who she barely dated.

Right now, I am not particularly invested in her character or her predicament because of her choice.

I guess there would be no story if she aborted but I don't feel the desire to continue especially with their relationship which hardly started. Maybe it gets better in episode 3 but meh.

Mada Kekkon Dekinai Otoko pictures are out!

To be honest, I don't really want to watch KDO2. I refuse to believe that Kuwano and Hayasaka sensei did not get a happy end. If Kuwano Shinsuke could not find happiness with Hayasaka sensei, then what hope do the rest of us have?

Yoshida Yo and Inamori Izumi are good actors but are they going to have the chemistry with Abe Hiroshi?

No idea who this Fukagawa Ai is but she's playing the new neighbout. Can she be the new Kuninaka Ryoko?

The brother in law is back.

And most importantly the pug.

I'm keeping my expectations low and getting ready to wipe Mada Kekkon Dekinai Otoko from my memory if it sucks. I am counting on the great Ozaki Masaya to do his magic one more time. Mada Kekkon Dekinai Otoko starts in October.

Akutou - Kagaisha Tsuiseki Chousa

WOWOW has done it again! Yes, ladies and gentlemen, they have created yet another reall good jdorama in Akutou - Kagaisha Tsuiseki Chousa. I think its the remake of a 2012 one shot starring Takizawa Hideaki.

Akutou is a hard boiled jdorama about a former policeman turned private detective Saeki who works in an agency specialising in chasing down villians or perpetrators of crimes after they have served their time which is also what the title of the show is.

In the first episode Saeki is tasked with find the killer of a couple's child who was sent to juvenile prison for a short time but is now free. The old couple asks Saeki to find information on whether or not they should forgive the killer.

We've all seen shows about when the punishment handed down does not seem to fit the crime. To the victim's families have the right to take the law into their own hands? Does someone who has paid his or her debt to socity have not have the right to live their life?

Higashide Masahiro does a decent job as the brooding Saeki. While Shinkawa Yua is nice to look at she just could not project that inner sadness that her character needed. Not that she did a bad job.

My favourite characters were Aoyagi Sho as the villain from episode one and Renbutsu Misako as the girlfriend. They are the most interesting characters to me because it is not a black and white relationship at all and a lot of the relationship is inferred throughout the series.

A enjoyed Akutou very much. Dark and brooding is right up my alley. Akutou unfortunately is not subbed as far as I know though it should be. Not quite must watch but goddamn its very good. Where would jdoramas be without WOWOW?

Parasite Kmovie review

Its been a while since I've seen a Kmovie. When I heard that Bong Joon-Ho's Parasite had won the Palm d'Or which Shoplifters won last wear, I was very excited to watch it. I was disappointed with the overhyped Okja and I wanted to see the director who had done The Host, Snowpiercer and Mother back at the top of his powers.

Parasite is a movie about this poor, down on their luck family whose son becomes the tutor for the daughter of a very wealthy family. The son then gets his sister a tutoring job with the wealthy family and then his whole family is leeching of the wealthy one.

From the beginning, Parasite felt very off for me. The characters did not feel sympathetic at all. It wasn't like shoplifters where the family did not know any other way to survive. The Parasite family is smart and they did not feel downtrodden enough to be underdogs.

I'm guessing the director does not want empathy towards the Parasite family but I did not really care about anyone. I didn't find the antics funny or moving at all and there was not really anything to contrast the Parasite and rich families. Even the dark comedy parts after the reveal left me bored and can anyone tell me what was the point of the little boy doing the morse codes in the tent?

99% of the reviews for Parasite praise it very well about its analogies to class divide but all I saw was an unfunny comedy wannabe where I could not figure the point of the story. Meh.

The Naked Director

The Naked Director is an 8 episode Netflix series starring Yamada Takayuki as an English encyclopedia salesman who ends up being a porn director. The most obvious comparison would be Mosaic Japan written by the legend himself Sakamoto Yuji which was en examination of the good, bad, weird and funny things about JAV.

The Naked Director is history lesson into the business side of Japanese porn with the story of a bunch of underdogs trying to go against the establishment. One thing it does better than Mosaic Japan is that its a lot more visual and sensual. The best thing about Netflix is that there are no censorship rules, unless you live in one of those countries.

While I enjoyed the series and finished it in two days, I just felt the writing was not as strong as it could have been. I think The Naked Director to me as an underdog story felt undercooked, especially the supporting characters. I liked all the characters in the end but for the time I spent with them I felt I should have known them more.

The story is also really slow in the beginning and its not until that Morita Misato who plays Kuroki Kaoru gets involved in the main story that things get heated. I have no idea who Morita Misato is but she is good. When she's on the screen with Yamada Takayuki, that's when you feel the electricty.

Things happen in the final episode too quickly and I just wonder maybe it should have been better as a movie? Despite my various complaints, I had fun not just because of the sex and nudity but I love shows set in the Showa era and I enjoyed the history lesson. Watchable jdorama that could have been more. If you are not on Netflix, you can use the free one month trial to watch The Naked Director like I did.

If you are interested in more JAV shows, I recommend Mosaic Japan and Make Up Room.

Soushite, Ikiru Episode 1

Just when I thought there's nothing for me to watch this season, I saw HPriest was subbing WOWOW dorama Soushite, Ikiru and I knew there was still hope for this season.

First of, like I saw with 90% of WOWOW shows, the production values is better than your typical jdorama. Even the car crash at the beginning of the episode was better than what you usually see in your every jdorama.

Soushite, Ikiru has 'it girl' Arimura Kasumi play an orphan who was raised by her uncle is sort of a countryside idol wanting to try to make it in Tokyo.

Before she could go to the audition, the great Tohoku earthquake hits finds herself doing volunteer work in Kesennuma where she meets Sakaguchi Kentaro.

Very good solemn and moving first episode. I was glued to the screen from beginning to the end and I got attacked by onion ninjas during the bonfire scene.

I like the revelation in the end from Sakaguchi's character. Not sure how this show will proceed from here or what the gimmick is but Soushite, Ikiru has the potential to be must watch show. I'm guessing Soushite, Ikiru about people who on the outside should be happy but have a deep profound sadness.

Very promising first episode and I encourage everyone to check it out.