Itsuka Kono Koi wo Omoidashite Kitto Naite Shimau Episodes 1-4

Itsuka Kono Koi wo Omoidashite Kitto Naite Shimau is the first dorama of the season on my check it out list because its got the great Sakamoto Yuji, current 'it' girl Arimura Kasumi (Biri Gyaru) and of course Kora Kengo.

This must be the first Kora Kengo dorama where is not playing a serial killer but there's still plenty of episodes left to fix that.

The gist of the dorama is Arimura Kasumi is the poor Cinderalla, adopted after mother passed away and being forced to marry Mano Erina's dad from Minna! Esper Dayo!

Kora Kengo is the knight in a shining truck who comes to her rescue but unfortunately they are separated at the end of episode one and have no way to contact each other.

Kora Kengo's character is a simpleton who is popular with the ladies, though not as popular as his best friend.

Yu from Love Exposure is in it as the rich kid who becomes Arimura Kasumi's colleague. He is the character I care the least about and I kept expecting him to start taking upskirt pictures.

The girl from Enka Gold Rush is Kora Kengo's current girlfriend and every character keeps saying how he doesn't really love her which confirms this is the Arimura Kasumi show.

So far, its been pretty good. The thing is, this is all killing time until Kora Kengo and Arimura Kasumi get together so Sakamoto Yuji better have something up his sleeve to make it exciting or else I will be severely tempted to fast forward the next episodes.

As with any anime/dorama with very long titles, its guaranteed to have some sad ending, as if the title wasn't explicit enough.

Anyway, I believe in Sakamoto Yuji because the gentleman knows how to write and IMO, he's got the highest strike rate among jdorama writers.

If there is anyone who can work within the confines of a 'lets try to keep the couple apart from each other as much as we can until the sob ending' jdorama and make it good, its him. Watchable so far and Arimura Kasumi has one of the best smiles in jdoramaland, but not as good as Kurashina Kana's.

Jdorama review: She

She is a surprisingly decent high school angst cum mystery show.

One day girl with seemingy perfect life disappears and her friends have to figure out the reason for her disappearance.

Of course, everyone has secrets and everyone's true face/intentions come to the surface while they try to figure out their missing friend's.

First off, I love how easy it is to watch. Just 5 episodes at 20 minutes each. I'm finding the usual 10 episode doramas generally too long and a lot of shows can't avoid repetition or wasting time.

The story moves at a brisk pace and there is a kind of energy to it that makes it easy to watch.

The mystery is surprisingly decent with plenty of twists and turns and a satisfying ending and generally I have no complaints. Watchable.

Gonin no Junko

I completely forgot about Gonin no Junko. Thanks to Cyberwave for reminding me about it.

As the name suggests, its a show about 5 women named Junko: Serial killer Junko, personal assistant Junko, call centre Junko, deceased Junko and housewife Junko.

This made for confusing watching at times because I had to stop to make sure which Junko someone was talking about.

My one problem was that the twist could be seen coming from the very beginning.

That's not really the problem but rather I didn't really care about two of the five Junkos: the deceased mother and the apartment housewife.

The show is about how the various Junkos effected each other but I was more concerned with the Matsuyuki Yasuko, Mimura and Koike Eiko story.

I like the idea behind Matsuyuki Yasuko's (playing the assistant of the writer) ending but it reminded me too much of the Suspect X ending.

The personal assistant Junko is the most interesting Junko of the bunch because her motivation is implied throughout the series and we finally see the lengths that she would go for in the end.

As for the super foreseeable twist, we get a twist on that after the credits but it doesn't really have any impact on the story for me.

Gonin no Junko just didn't work for me. In the beginning, Matsuyuki Yasuko says a line about the butterfly effect but I just didn't feel the any of the effects were particularly interesting.

Gonin no Junko is an OK show where I just feel indifferent about the characters but I could stare into Kobayashi Ryoko's eyes all day.

HAMSAPSUKEBE 2015 JDORAMA AWARDS

WTF AWARDS

WTF is Oguri Shun doing the Nobunaga Concerto movie and Ouroboros instead of the sequel Border?

WTF is Densha in so many shows. Is he becoming the new Kita Yoshio?

WTF does Risk no Kamisama have nothing to do with risk assessment/prevention?

WTF can't jdoramas do action scenes properly without insulting intelligence. I'm looking at you Siren/Angel Heart/Ouroboros.

WTF did anyone think that Death Note needed remaking?

WTF do season 3 of Doctors just to rehash the same thing?

WTF hasn't anyone uploaded Panic In?

The one show I want to watch in Shingari but the lack of Japanese subs makes its very difficult to follow all the bloody business terms.

BEST DORAMA SPECIAL

KAMOSHIRENAI JOYUUTACHI

I don't normally watch dorama specials because most of them are idol pushing someone has fatal disease stories but I can't imagine anything more entertaining than this.


BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

KURASHINA KANA - TENSHI NO KNIFE

Honourable mention to Kikuchi Rinko and Kaho in Yume o Ataeru.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

KOBAYASHI KAORU - GODAN

Shout out to Takito Kenichi for Zainin no Uso, the first time I've never seen him overact.

BEST ACTRESS

AIBU SAKI - GARASU NO ASHI

I normally don't think of Aibu Saki as a good actress (though I really like her in Angel Heart) but this was the role of her career and she absolutely owned the character.

Honourable mentions to Kimura Tae for Boku no Tsuma to Kekkon shite kudasai and Suzuki Kyoka for Dakara Koya.

BEST ACTOR

FURUTA ARATA- YAMI NO BANSOSHA

Yami no Bansosha wouldn't have been as fun without him.

Honourable mention to Ito Hideaki for Zainin no Uso.


BEST JDORAMAS OF 2015

OKASHI NO IE 

Best slow, feel good show of the year. The ending to episode 9 is so heartwrenchingly good.


KAGERI YUKU NATSU

I love how every episode ends in a cliffhanger with great music. WOWOW are the masters of suspense doramas.

TENSHI NO KNIFE

Inconsistent acting does not prevent Tenshi no Knife from being a must watch show cause the script and Kurashina Kana are so good.

ZAININ NO USO

Ito Hideaki's best work.

YAMI NO BANSOSHA

GARASU NO ASHI

2015 was truly the year of WOWOW shows and they have shown that tightly scripted 5-6 episode doramas are better unless the material actually requires 10 episodes. WOWOW has truly stepped up their game and they are so much better than everyone else. If only Japanese subs for their shows were available.

Real Onigokko / Tag

Real Onigokko is Sono Sion's fourth movie of 2015 after Tokyo Tribe, Shinjuku Swan and Love & Peace and is surprisingly his best of the lot.

Its a low budget one and a half hour chase sequence starring Triendl Reina, Shinoda Mariko and Mano Erina as the same character.

Real Onigokko feels like Sono Sion at his best after he seemed to have lost his way with Tokyo Tribe and trying to be family family friendly with Love & Peace.

And I'm not saying that just because upskirts are back.

Real Onigokko is a chase movie where a lot of weird stuff happens and it never slowed down for me to think too much.

Triendl Reina does a decent job of looking scared and screaming throughout the movie.

If there's one flaw for Real Onigokko, its the artistic ending.

Watching this whole chase sequence of a movie, at the back of my mind I was thinking that all these clues will lead to some mind blowing ending.

It was more like a WTF is the purpose of this movie ending.

But after a while, I started thinking about Real Onigokko metaphorically/symbolically it started to make sense. Hint: Last boss represents patriarchal society.

Once I started from there, everything in the movie fell into place including some of the really weird wtf stuff.

You might be looking at the picture thinking this doesn't look like a chase movie! I assure you, its a pretty exciting chase movie.

One of Sono Sion's better works IMO. I don't think there is anyone who will not like most of the movie but I don't think everyone will get the ending and what the movie is about.

Highly recommended but its not for everyone. The raw is available at nyaa and English subbed version at avista under the English title Tag.

Forgot to mention the music is really good. Best Sono Sion soundtrack since Love Exposure.