Warau Matryoshka Episode 2 spoilers

Don't read on if you have not seen episode 2 of Warau Matryoshka! 

Just want to say the new annoying staple of jdoramas is the youtuber harassing people. I guess it is the same thing as what the media and scoop magazines do in jdoramas but being youtubers just makes it worst.

In episode 1, Michiura figured out that Suzuki was the brains behind the operation and that Seike had the ability to absorb and be whatever Suzuki needed him to be. In episode 2 we finally get to see their partnership in action and it is entertaining. I love the flashbacks to Seiki running for student president cut with scenes of his media speech. 

The question is what is behind the fake smiling face? Is Seike truly a person without will and does whatever Suzuki wants? Michiura believes he is asking for her help by sending her his thesis and wants to escape from Suzuki's control. Jdorama watchers know that the first supposition is always false.

Then the question is what does Seike hope to achieve by giving Michiura access? It is then that Michiura discovers that Seike is able to achive his dream at 27 because of a car accident and her father's death was also from a car accident. 

She tries to warn Seike about Suzuki but we cannot discern anything from his face. Is he really sending Michiura an SOS or is Seike playing her like a fiddle?

I want to say, so happy to see Watanabe Dai in this show. He better have a big role and I suspect he does later in the series.

Bloody exciting finding out the identity of the mystery woman. I love how Michiura pieces together her clues with information from Seike's autobiography. It reminds me of Yami no Bansosha where Furuta Arata and Matsushita Nao try to solve a mystery from clues in a manga. I need to rewatch it someday because it is one of my absolute favourites. Anything with manga in it, I love.

I am excited for the revelation of the 3rd party. The whole dying the same age as Hanussen's is brilliant. I thought Suzuki was going to be a scary character, Takaoka Saki (Kenja no Ai) is going to be even better. After two excellent episodes, I have to give Warau Matryoshka a must watch. As soon as episode 3 hits nyaa, I am watching straight away. Sooner or later we are going to run out of revelations and how good the show will be will depend on what the characters do. Warau Matroyshka does not smell like your typical TBS show, so fingers crossed!

Story of the Gameboy Advance Perfect Catalogue

This book is called the Gameboy Advance Perfect Catalogue. It came out on 28 May 2019 for only 2,547 yen. It is a catalogue of all Japanese GBA games with pictures and descriptions of the games edited by Maeda Hiroyuki.

This is my collection of the Perfect Catalogue books. As a retrogamer, they are an amazing resource and are fun to read.

On my last trip I was looking for the GBA Perfect Catalogue but could not find it. No big deal, I thought. I can just order it when I get back. When I got back I realised the price had jumped over 10,000 yen. More than 4 times the original price. Every other Perfect Catalogue I could find but not the GBA one. Either the publisher G-Walk super underestimated the demand or there are a lot more GBA fans out there compared to the other consoles.

I managed the find the last copy on yesasia and I think it was around $100 including shipping by I could not pull the trigger. $100 for a book is crazy. I managed to find a pdf scan and decided to be happy with that. Not long after, someone bought the last copy from yesasia.

But I kept an eye on the book and the price shot up like crazy. It went over 20, 000 yen. More than 8 times the price. Absolute bonkers.

Then one day while browsing mercari Japan, I saw this person selling one for 2000 yen. I thought it must be a mistake but had to click. The seller wrote that there is a new version (増補新版) coming in June and they were doing it as a public service announcement and not to click on buy. I should have taken a screenshot of that one because it was going after a while, maybe a few weeks.

I googled for the new version of the guide and could not see any news but had no reason to doubt the person. Lo and behold a few months later and the new version appeared for preorder on Amazon Japan for 3,700 yen and I could not click buy fast enough. Really grateful to the person. I was never close to buying the original version but I appreciate a retrogamer looking after fellow gamers. I could see the scalpers trying to offload their stock on yahoo auctions and mercari as they realised what was coming. The funny thing is that while the original version has dropped price, it is still not that cheap at 7,200 yen.

Finally I have the book which I will devour slowly! So what is new? The new version has nearly double the pages at 384 and I think the biggest change was adding the overseas game. The moral of the story is supply and demand determines price and if you see something you might want in Japan, just buy it before the price goes up! Can't wait for the 3DS perfect catalogue!

Warau Matryoshka Episode 1

By the jdorama gods, I have just watched one of the best first episodes I can remember in a while. From the car crash scene in the beginning, the first episode of Warau Matryoshka wastes no time in setting up its interesting plot.

Mizukawa Asami is a reporter Michiura who is looking into his politician Seike, played by Sakurai Sho. Seike, is a popular young politician who might be Japan's future prime minister and has a very capable secretary named Suzuki played by Tamayama Tetsuji.

As Seiki just published a best selling book about his past, Michiura was just visiting his old school, finding out Seiki and Suzuki were best friends and wondering why Suzuki was not mentioned in the book at all. Michiura receives a call that her dad has passed away in a car accident that we see in the beginning of the episode. Side note, only TBS has the money to show an actual car crash. Most of the time, it is a fade to black.

At this point I am thinking is this a version of Sanctuary, where two people aim for one goal which is Prime Minister of Japan but in this case instead of politician and yakuza, one guy is a good cop and the other does all the evil things necessary?

Michiura finds some fishy things about Suzuki's past which is tied to her dad's past and by the time she receives the thesis in the mail, I am thinking this is one of the most interesting plot set ups I have ever seen! Political intrigue with some history, philosophy and manipulation is right up my alley! The only thing keeping me from proclaiming this as must watch is that this is a TBS show.

However, I did notice that Warau Matryoshka looks a lot better than your usual TBS stuff like Kurosagi and Atom no Ko. The director did WOWOW's Ame ni Kieta Himawari which I liked and legendary jdorama show Shimokita Glory Days! 

I am cautiously optimistic because this is a book adaptation and the first episode is just perfect. I don't think I have ever seen a Sakurai Sho dorama but he is good as the politician who might be empty inside. (Sorry, have to get in my Johnny dig) So many revelations in episode 1, hopefully they have plenty more for the rest of the series. Can't wait for episode 2 and huge thanks to Monchi for subbing. Very, very watchable.

Double Cheat: Itsuwari no Keikan Episodes 4~8

Double Cheat starts off as a Kurosagi clone but starts to get better as the scams get more interesting and Mukai Osamu's past gets revealed. 

Double Cheat is a Kurosagi for an older audience and I enjoyed the personal nature of Mukai Osamu's revenge plan against Yamagami especially with Matsumoto Wakana from Fukushu no Miboujin playing his ex.

I don't think Uchida Rio can ever make a convincing detective and sometimes she looks like she's still doing her character from Raise de Chanto Shimasu.

Decent ending with the twist being that there will be a second season on WOWOW! The whole WOWOW/Tv Tokyo joint production should have been a giveaway.

New bad for Mukai Osamu to go after but no Matsumoto Wakana. Let's see what the writers can do for season 2 because Double Cheat would not have been compelling for me without Matsumoto Wakana's part in the story making our main character a tragic hero. It gave our main character pathos otherwise it's just a generic scam jdorama.

Fingers crossed WOWOW can make a decent followup. Watchable first season for me but not so confident for second season though Ichijara Hayato is good casting for the villain.

Hanasaki Mai ga Damattenai 2024 Eps 5~10

 

The first season of Hanasaki Mai ga Damattenai is finished and it was pretty decent. The original 2014 series had 2 seasons and if the ratings were decent, I suspect we will get a sequel next year. 

I enjoyed the cast and the feel good element of uncovering corruption and Hanasaki Mai telling people off. As I have said before, Hanasaki Mai is a less grating version of Hanzawa Naoki. Maybe I just prefer Imada Mio's anime eyes instead of the kabuki overacting in Hanzawa.

Watchable feel good show with no flaws. I definitely wanted to see the bad people get theirs and Kaname Jun is good as the bad guy but I would not say Hanasaki Mai is particularly memorable.

On a side note, I was looking up the writer Ikeido Jun. He did Hanzawa Naoki of course but he also did Soratobu Taiya, Tetsu no Hone, Nanatsu no Kaigi and Hayabusa Shobodan. That is 5 of my favourite jdoramas there with 4 of them on WOWOW. I want to try Kabuka Bouraku which is a WOWOW show with Oda Yuji. Jpsubbers unfortunately does not have the Jp subs but looking at the Jp subs list, I realised Jigoku Sensei Nube came out around the same time and I should give it a shot since I am familiar with the manga. I would definitely give it a go if they had the manga fan service!

Game no Na wa Yukai Episode 1

 

The last time Kame was in a WOWOW jdorama, it was the very excellent Shoutai which should that he could actually act. Now he is an another WOWOW show called the name of the game is kidnapping. Kame plays an advertising planner who is working on a large project for a car company when his plan is shut down by the vice president played by Watabe Atsuro.

Kame is not going to take this lying down and helps Watabe Atsuro's daughter escape from her home. They both decide to stage a fake kidnapping in other for both of them to get their revenge on Watabe Atsuro.

I think my favourite things about Game no Na wa Yukai is that Kame's main character is not a nice guy. He is a womaniser, is ambitious and thinks he is the smartest guy in the room. Not all main characters have to be underdogs to make the audience support them, they just have to be interesting.

Watabe Atsuro makes a great foil if you have watched him in the classic Gaiji Keisatsu. He is perfect casting as the guy you do not watch to match wits with for our fake kidnappers to go against. Episode 1 is mostly the set up with hints of potential twists so let's see what happens in the next episode.

Colour me intrigued and I need to find out who this person is. She better show up in episode 2!

Kagero no Tsuji Seasons 1+2

Now that Nuve has started subbing season 3, I feel I should write something about Kagero no Tsuji. the Yamamoto Koji jidaigeki. He plays the main character Sakazaki Iwane, a poor ronin in exile in Edo because of a clan conspiracy, leaving behind his fiance Nao.

Kagero no Tsuji is about your basic great humble swordsman living among the peasants and banishing evil every episode like your town policeman. It is feel good bad guys will get their just deserts at the end show and the fights are decent and over as soon as Sakazaki's music ends.

The hear of the show is the relationship between Sakazaki and O-kon played by Nakagoshi Noriko. Sakazaki has an ex-fiance and later we learn where she is so there are plenty of obstacles for our main couple but after all the ups and downs they finally get together at the end of season 2, paying off 2 seasons of build ups.

Kagero no Tsuji is not my favourite jidaigeki (that title still belongs to Yoshiwara Uradoshin) but I think it does its job well. Sometimes after work, you just want to see justice being served and Kage no Tsuji knows how to give the audience what they want. Watchable for jidaigeki fans.

Mondays: See you this week! jmovie review

I have been watching a lot of time travel shows recently with Tokyo Girl, Summer Time Machine Blues and Toki wo Kakeruna, Koibitotachi so I felt compelled to watch Mondays when anonymous recommended it in the comments section. What compelled me was that Mondays was a time loop movie set in an office.

Wan Marui who was also in Toki wo Kakeruna, Koibitotachi is the main character Yoshikawa who is unaware that she is stuck in a time loop that goes from Monday to Sunday and back again starting with a pigeon crashing into the window of the office. However, two of her colleagues have become aware of the time loop and it takes considerable effort for them to convince Yoshikawa of this.

Mondays has a lot of the tropes of the time loop genre such as learning new skills, continuing to fail until succeeding and generally becoming a better person. The thing is Mondays does everything very well. Once the story starts going, it is very funny watching our main characters try to convince people of the time loop and to ultimately stop it.

Time loop stories are easy to shoot because you mostly only need one major set that you can reuse for the majority of the movie, so you can spend your budget and make it look like a real office. I thought that the office setting was refreshing for a science fiction story though I wish they had the budget to do the dance sequence and the mystery of who or what is responsible for trapping them in the time loop. I thought it was very Japanese-like for the people stuck in the time loop to still feel the need to do the work in case their week did not loop. I guess there is no such thing as calling sick for the week in Japan.

Mondays: See you this week! is a wholesome and feel good time loop movie without any flaws and a lot of heart. It kind of reminds me of Kisaragi, another movie set in one location except without the time travel. The question is do I give it a must watch like Kisaragi? It is certainly the best time travel jmovie I have ever seen and I think that deserves a must watch. I think the director managed to squeeze every drop of blood from the stone for this low budget movie. I am also a sucker because the final part of the movie is about a storytelling medium that I love very much. Flawless, with a lot of heart. My one regret is that I wish I had seen it at JFF 2023. 

On a related note, the Japanese Film Festival Online is going on now until 31 July. Looks like you can watch it from anywhere in the world. Support Japanese movies without paying a cent! I definitely recommend Anime Supremacy if you have not seen it. I need to activate my Netflix soon to watch Godzilla Minus 1 but I just don't have time for Netflix on top of my usual stuff. Thanks to anon for the recommendation!

Yakusoku Episodes 3~10

Yakusoku is finally finished and it is not a good show. The writing is not polished, the two main characters wear all black working in the countryside and the show doesn't even try to show the beauty of inaka. The police do too many things that make me scratch my head. The acting is nothing special, Nakamura Anne doesn't emote much and the guy just pouts throughout the series.

However, everytime an episode appeared on dramahd, I could not help myself and would download and watch the next episode straight away. Why? Because there is nothing about the show that I hate. It does not do anything good, but it does not do anything wrong either. It is not as bad as Triangle and it does not try to do too many twists like certain mainstream serial killer jdoramas.

In the end, Yakusoku gave me enough entertainment  for 10 episode but I have to delete because it is not worth keeping at 2GB per episode. Meh quality show which I surprisingly enjoyed and has not answered the question can Nakamura Anne act?

Looking for jidaigeki movies

Inspired by It's a Summer Film, I was feeling like a jidaigeki (samurai) movie today. I think I had Sword of Desperation on my list for a long time but could not find it in my movie portable HD. I checked my external HD and the movie was not there which was odd. I searched my blog and lo and behold, I had actually watched and reviewed in 2012!

This hit me with 2 thoughts: Firstly I have watched so many jmovies/jdoramas that I have forgotten so many of them and secondly, what other movies have I lost? I looked for The Last Ronin and it was also missing from both my HDs and I also watched it in 2012. Maybe something happened to one of my HDs in 2012 that I don't remember anymore.

The other thing I noticed while looking for Sword of Desperation and The Last Ronin is that I have so many old jmovies in dvd aka 480 format with cd1 and cd2 folders lol. I have rewatched Twilight Samurai many times but I definitely need to find at least a 1080p for that classic movie and definitely GS Wonderland. Even if I had not lost the above mentioned movies, they would have been 480p anyways. Time to update my jmovies and make sure I do not lose any this time.