Shotenin Michiru no Mi no Uebanashi ep 1

Toda Erika plays Michiru, a bookstore employee in a small town. Her boyfriend is the son of a watch shop who gives her fishing rods for her birthday but Michuru is having an affair with a married publishing company employee from Tokyo, Toyomasu Kazuki.

Michuru fakes a toothache in order to skip work and sett Kazuki off at the bus stop but is given money to buy lottery tickets by three of her colleagues. We know from the beginning of the dorama that one of the tickets will win 200 million yen.

Michuru decides to go with Kazuki to Tokyo and is spotted by her gay childhood friend played by Kora Kengo and the episode ends with Michuru's phone ringing and her realising that she'll need to come up with a good excuse to explain her disappearance.

Way to early to say anything since the first two episodes will be set ups but I really like the whimsical feel of this dorama. The first episode is introducing all the characters surrounding Michuru and I just can't wait to see what happens when everyone finds out she's got a 200 million yen ticket.

Nemureru Mori no Jukujo eps 6-9

I kept waiting for this dorama to descend into mediocrity and every episode was a pleasant surprise at transplanting oujisama shoujo manga conventions into a housewife dorama can make things so fun to watch. If you want to make a fun dorama about a 50 year old lady and a 28 year old guy, its harder to imagine it being better than this.

Things move quickly in Nemureru Mori Jukujo and even when you get some prerequisite conventions such as all the obasans becoming friends and the typical ending, it doesn't linger too long as to make me hate them. I also really enjoyed Asakura Aki as the tsundere ojousan. I'm not a tsundere maniac but her tsundereness gets me excited. I think the biggest reason Nemureru Mori no Jukujo works is that it doesn't force the obasan and oujisama to fall in love. You could argue that they don't even actually do that. Its just two character interacting with each other in funny and entertaining ways.

Nemureru Mori no Jukujo has been a most pleasant surprise. It is the cream of the crop as for as housewife fantasy doramas and I can't believe its the same writer who did Kurosagi and Magma, two shows that had bad writing. Must watch for me and it took me a while to realise that the main actress was from Shall We Dansu?

Winter 2013 jdoramas that should be subbed.

1. Shotenin Michiru no Mi no Uebanashi 

 Toda Erika and Kora Kengo in a dorama set in a small town about what happens when someone has the winning 200 million yen lottery ticket. If this were not made by WOWOW or NHK, I would not be excited. Its also got a few other WOWOW regulars in it as well. Hopefully it'll end up being an interesting dark comedy.

2. Saikou no Rikon

Eita, Ono Machiko and Maki Yoko in a dorama written by Sakamoto Yuji? My expectations for this are sky high.

3. Dinner

Eguchi Yusuke once again playing a chef in an ensemble dorama with Santamaria Yusuke and Kurashina Kana. The writer, Kuroiwa Tsutomu adapted Liar Game and Strawberry Night (ugh). He also wrote Zettai Reido 2 which I will never watch. Gonna watch this more for casting.

4. Tonbi

Uchino Masaaki and Kenshin in a father son dorama. By the writer who brought us Mr Brain, thankfully Tonbi is an adaptation of a novel. The writer Morishita Yoshiko also wrote Ruri no Shima which was pretty good and would be close in tone to Tonbi.

5. Lady Joker

 When I look at the above picture, I'm hoping it will turn out to be Marks no Yama meets Hagetaka. Will definitely need subs to understand this.

6. Onna to Otokot no Nettai

Watabe Atsuro in a dark WOWOW dorama? There's your recipe for excitement! Not crazy about Fujiwara Norika but here's hoping she brings a lot of sexual tension.

7. Made in Japan

Seems to be about a Japanese company facing bankruptcy against the backdrop of the rise of China and Korea as manufacturing powers. Very relevant, definitely going to have lots of politics and I would be very lost without English subs. Someone sub this please.

In summary, I would have to say I shudder to think what the jdorama landscape would be like without WOWOW and NHK.

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.