Day 1 - I`m back baby, yeah!

Testing silent camera at Cairns. I can`t believe there`s no option to turn camera silent. I have to download silent camera app and the pictures are worse than the default camera.

The flight to Japan was horribly torturous. The only good thing was there were a lot of Japanese girls at Cairns airport. I think most of the tourists there are Japanese. There was a nice looking gaijin goth loli girl though. She is definitely headed for Harajuku. Next time I need to find a direct flight with no stupid stopover. The plan was only half full which was pretty nice.

Ryu ga gotoku of the End poster in front of Yodobashi. For the fifth time in the series, Haruka gets kidnapped again...

My flight left Melbourne about 6am and I arrived at the backpackers at 9.15pm. The bloody Narita express was delayed because of an `accident`. I was freaking tired but was determined that my first meal in Japan would be Kyushu Jangara Ramen. Put my bags down and back to Akiba I went. Oh yeah, forgot how horrible it is carrying luggage during peak hour train traffic with everyone muscling their way in. On the bright side, there is no way to avoid squishing oneself against females adjacent to you.

Gah, stupid shaky hands. Pretty sure you can make out all the nice juicy pork in the ramen.

After having my only proper meal of the day and I stopped by two kombinis to get soap and shampoo and guess what, they have all sorts of stupid hair products like gatsby and hair colouring but no freaking shampoo. Maybe they did but there were some products that could have been shampoo but I neglected to learn the kanji for it.

The newly renovated Akiba station electric town exit aka 2nd best smoking spot in Akiba. Notice Club Sega on the left side! It had two face to face SSF4AE machines but no card selling machine. gggrrr

My galaxy S gps is worthless. Stupid pieace of Korean tech. First thing tomorrow is to find a supermarket so I can have a proper bath. Tempted to walk into Yodobashi Akiba earlier and get my 3DS but right now I don`t want to add weight because I`ll be doing some travelling. On the other hand, getting a 3DS earlier means I can get more street pass stuff.

Yup, Gundam cafe is still going strong.

One more thing I want to say is I need Rei`s have a camera slung over shoulder and take ninja shot skills. The pretend to play phone while taking photo of cute girl is too difficult to do because you basically have to point your camera higher. I wish I could show the people who decided not to go what they`re missing out but I would need a pair of glasses that can take pictures by mind control. I guess the best way to see how hot girls are in Japan is to come here yourself.

Off to Japan again!

In a few hours, I will be on a plane to Japan or rather off to Cairns for a bloody 2 hour stop before going on a very long flight to Tokyo. This will be a trip one year in the making. I knew that I had to go back to Japan after last year's awesome trip. Unfortunately, this year I am going by myself which sort of ended up as a good thing as I had to change my flight twice to accommodate certain events.

The good thing about budget airlines is that if you check every so often, you can find cheap prices. The bad thing is that it costs money to change your flight and you end up having to pay the full fare. Needless to say, I could have gone for a regular airline with the price I am paying.

Oh well, sacrifices must be made. As no one is going with me, I've had to plan stuff to do in Japan. There's no fallback activity of yakiniku and drinking, unless I want to do the KDO solo yakiniku. It would be waste of time to end up playing my PSP in a small room when I can do that back home.

My Japanese has certainly improve from last year. I can play the AKB48 game on PSP and understand most of it but its not at a level that it could have been, especially conversation-wise. Just too lazy to hit the books on Japanese grammar. Learning to read by playing Japanese games has not taught me how to talk.

Since I don't have an official photographer and navigator this time, I bought a Samsung Galaxy S for this trip only to find out the GPS on the damn phone is FUBAR. I would have expected all the reviews that I read and watched would have stressed this point. Goes to show that most smartphone reviews are about specs and not putting a phone through its paces.

Very excited about this trip. Tried to sleep after work today but failed. The past year has been all about this holiday. I'm not really a picture taking person. 99% of my pics from the last trip were from Hellcar and Rei but we'll see how I go this time. I think without anyone to talk to I'll probably be doing a lot of blogging. I wonder whether I'll still get this strong feeling of I should have gone to Japan to study/ I should go teach English in Japan if only I've got some place to dump all my worldly possessions.

Jdorama ramblings 24/5/11

JIN eps 3-5

Come one Jin sensei, flimsy partitions are meant to be broken down!

We've got the conclusion of the Jin gets framed and sent to Guantanamo.. I mean prison. All the prison stuff is actually the same as the stories in Lone Wolf and Cub which was very fun for me. Sadly, episode 3 marks the writing out of Nokaze from the series which is sad. Jin finally proposes to Saki and she rejects him because he might disappear someday and she wants to devote her life to Jinyu-do. Without Nokaze, the writer has to resort to something else to keep them apart and its not as interesting.

Noooo, how can Nokaze marry a gaijin!!!!!


Ep 5 is more like a discourse about Jin sensei's purpose. In the beginning of the series is was about whether he should interfere with history. Now its about whether anything he does makes a difference because he is starting to think that he cannot change the hand of fate, ie save the lives of people who are supposed to die and is merely delaying their time of death. There's this father sun kabuki story arguing that quality of life is more important than length but this episode just really feels contrived and boring.

Will Ryoma save the series?

Is Jin the series finally losing its way? What is the heart of the series? Its no longer the Nokaze-Jin-Saki triangle. It feels like its less about Jin trying to be MacGuyer of surgeons. Perhaps that part of the series has run its course? Ep 5 just feels like a lame generic made for tv sob story. It seems like episode 6 will get back to the story that we have all been waiting for; can Jin actually save Sakamoto Ryoma. And who is the bandaged guy talking to? Seems to me like ep 5 is a mere abberation.

BARTENDER ep 1

After watching Shinya Shokudo, bartender feels 25 minutes too long. I've heard that the anime is pretty good and to me this type of stories should have a running time of 25 minutes. At 45~50 minutes, the first episode took too long and had to rely on too much fillers.

GOOD LIFE ep 1

WTF GTO would never carry a handbag!

When your dorama about a fatal disease kid has a lot of narration by the character who's only purpose is to make all the ladies go kawaii~~~~ then you know you're in for a shallow attempt at a tearjerker which actually works well as a sleep inducer. Come GTO, get Nojima Shinji or Ozaki Masaya to write you a dorama to star in or do a WOWOW dorama.

MAMORU NO OKITE ep 1

Aaww, how cute... not.

I like Abe Sadao and I want to see what else he can do but not a bloody kids show. Actually I don't mind the whole I am going to ruin my life taking responsibility for my high school sempai's kids because I can never understand the huge importance Japanese place on high school sports when one can continue to play sports even when working. If you like team camaraderie so much, why not continue playing?

Kids, I was much cooler when I had blonde hair and was always drunk or half sedated.

Its got the little girl from Mother but this show tries so bloody hard to be kawaii it sickens me. The talking dog is not Shikaotoko funny. Its bloody kids show funny. Someone explain to me why a kids show has a 9pm slot. Shouldn't they be in bed by then?

Akutou eps 7 aka Why I should be the Japanese minister of common sense.

The more I watch jdoramas, especially police shows, the more it seems like writers/action directors just lack common sense. Lets take a look at this action scene at the end of ep 7 of Akutou.

Scowling yakuza guys wearing black and driving black cars arrive at, where else but an abandoned warehouse!

Cops decide to drive into warehouse but not before magically turning the lights off. Note only 1 cop is smart enough to brandish a gun and use his teammates for cover. From years of watching cop shows, one would think the proper procedure would be to open car doors and use them as shields while telling yakuza to put down their weapons but maybe posing as a team is more important in Japanese police protocol.

Here we see at least two yakuza with guns and a most of them holding melee weapons. Unless my name were Rambo, I would be pretty scared without a gun and cover.

Togashi just walks up, purposely misses 4 shots and non of the dudes with guns fire back! You are a badass yakuza with a gun and some mofo is shooting at you and your run away in terror like a little girl? This just boggles my mind! The only explanation is that Togashi somehow knew the yakuza were carrying toy guns.

Togashi finally corners the boss and the boss as fired on him a few times. Guess what this grizzled veteran police officer does? Walks straight up to the yakuza boss with a kiai...

..while the boss somehow misses his last shot. I was hoping Togashi got shot to teach him a lesson about stupidity. The Prime Minister of Japan must hire me as Minister of common sense in order to avoid such affronts to logic.

Kodama Kiyoshi has passsed away.

That face look familiar? If you are a jdorama fan, you must have seen him at least twice, usually playing the calm old dude role. I was looking at his wiki and I was surprised that he has been in so little doramas in the past 10 years compared to someone like Kita Yoshio who is in everything. From what I can gather from his Japanese wiki, he is most famous for hosting this quiz show called Attack 25 which started in 1975. He did a crazy amount of movies in the 60s though.

While I've only seen Kodama Kiyoshi as a supporting actor, there are two shows that I will always remember him in. The first is Bijo ka Yajuu/Beauty of Beast where he plays this veteran newscaster that Matsushima Nanako wants to oust. His claim to fame is his legendary report on a bank robbery years ago which was finally revealed in a climatic payoff. One of the most memorable side stories in jdoramas I've seen.

His second memorable role was in Shikaotoko and I don't want to spoil the surprise but it was really fun watching him play something different from his usual character. RIP Kodama Kiyoshi and its a shame your last show had to be Code Blue 2. If you haven't seen the above mentioned doramas, I encourage you to do so because they are bloody good.

Jmovie review: Rinko 18

WARNING: The following review has screencaps containing nudity so there's no reason not to scroll down!

Notice the naked chick pressing against the van window, filming an AV.

Its been very slow on the jdorama front. The subs for show that I like are either very slow or have stopped halfway. The only thing for me to watch this season is Jin and shockingly I don't think anyone's uploaded Kazoku Hotei. I've got a huge backlog of J and K movies but I don't even know where to start.

Thank goodness for strategically placed cameras.

So I have recently been going to my third choice which is Pinku. If you've never heard of Pinku, its basically Japanese softcore movies. Think JAV with more story, simulated sex and the same amount of budget. Its like watching midnight doramas except the story is usually over in an hour. Funny thing is, a lot of Pinku are English hardsubbed. Not too sure whether Rinko 18 can be classified as Pinku since its more like a super low budget comedy with nudity, especially with the main actress not taking her clothes off.

The poster in the middle for Nanaumi Nana. Her last name is written as kanji as 7 seas. Don't ask me how I knows.

We've seen doramas and movies about almost every occupation in Japan from hostesses to telemarketing sales people. One industry that I have yet to see a story about is the AV industry. Many years ago, I remember watching this HK movie about the porn industry. I remember it had fun stuff like assistants rocking the bed during filming and this porn actor whose wife and child visited the set. There are lot of of interesting stories to be told about ordinary people working in porn.

Rinko being seeing for the first time what AV is about.

Rinko 18, which is apparently based on a manga is a less realistic but fun romp about an ojousan schoolgirl, Rinko who's parents ran away because of bad debts. She returns home to find everything gone and the house besieged by debt collectors. She ends up sleeping in a park and realises that she has to find work to survive. Rinko has no luck finding work until she find a job ad for an AV company.

She is of course mistaken for an actress and in a told to stand on top of an actor and piss on him to her horror. Luckily for her, the real actress turns up. The boss offers Rinko to live in the office the use of the costumes since Rinko's clothes are gone. What follows are funny scenes of this ojousan learning tricks of the JAV trade such as how to make fake semen using egg whites.

Funny scene with Rinko teaching the actress how to use a less rambo (violent) technique.

We have the final story of Rinko befriending the no.1 AV actress and we have an attempted rape scene. What Rinko 18 has going for it is the novelty of a movie about shooting AV. The storyline elements are pretty bad including the cliched ojousan learning to ride bicycle bit. Its not in the so bad its good category but I had plenty of laughs watching it. Rinko 18 is not subbed but most of it is easily understandable except for one sequence about keeping quiet during shooting.

He certainly puts a lot of effort into mixing the lotion.

Notice the shachou trying out the S&M device at the back, lol.

Rinko giving the actor the fake semen squirting device.

I want to run my own JAV production company when I grow up. :)

Kita no Kuni Kara 18-24

24 episodes is a lot and not once during the series did I think uh oh, this show is losing its way. Partly because its more of a character dorama rather than a story driven one. The only end goal that the audience is anticipating is Goro building the new house but even then its not done as a climax but matter-of-factly. Characters remain flawed, some improve but there's no generic I have become stronger generic speech stuff. I finished watching the last episode the day before and had a day to try to organise my thoughts on how to write this review but I have no idea how to structure it because there is so much to say and multiple ways to look at the series.

If this scene happened today, Goro would lose the kids for abusing them with his cigarette smoke.

Let's start by asking the question; who is the heart of the series? Is it Goro, the earnest hard working dad with communication problems and somehow manages to live for a year with his hot sister in law and not lay a hand on her? It is Hotaru, the daddy's girl who is in some ways the most mature one in the household or is it Jun, the annoying brat who keeps making stupid decisions but you just can't hate him because he's just being a kid? I think the answer is that the heart of Kita no Kuni Kara is the journey that this family takes over a year in Furano.

Goro connecting with his children and proving his woth to them the only way he knows how, by teaching his two city kids how to survive and thrive in Furano. Jun getting a different perspective on life which is most evident when he meets his former teacher at the end of the series and asks himself why he doesn't like his teacher anymore. That's because he has had lessons in life that cannot be gained from textbooks and going to cram school. And dear Hotaru, how touching was that scene in ep 23 when she finally confronts her hatred for her mother. When she tells her father she want to remember the bad because there are only good memories and that makes her sad. This little girl surviving on this hate for 23 episodes.

I've not seen Takeshita Keiko in any other doramas except for in Fukada Kyoko's horrible Friends which thankfully I remember nothing about.

One thing I really want to point out is while Kita no Kuni Kara masterfully juggles multiple storylines, it never milks the climaxes more than necessary which is surprising. A nice payoff happens, I go 'wow' and it quickly moves on to the next story. Its as if its saying 'life goes on, let's not dwell on the moment because there are more to be had'. Some of my favourite moments in the series are: (gotta start from the end cause it harder to recall the series from the beginning)

Ep 23 - Seikichi ojisan, the old dude from Golden Bowl giving those bitching mourners a piece of his mind with grace and humility. The courteous way he did it was better than any putdown the Rock could ever do.

Ep 24 - Goro finding out Kogomi was actually who his friends had told me she was. It was so funny and so sad because he had chosen to believe in her and not the rumours. All they needed to sell it was this 1 second look on his face when Goro saw Kogomi. That's it, 1 second WTF look instead of a overacting gestures of despair accompanied by an idoru pop song to close a sub story that had been building up the final quarter of the series.

Ep 20 - To me the purpose of the UFO storyline wasn't about the teacher or the UFOs. It was about Hotaru telling the truth to the whole country who laughed at her and Goro telling her as at the dinner that it didn't matter what other people said because the people that matter believe in her. On the other hand, what was the point of going through with the rest of the UFO story anyway?

Ep 19 - Ginza no koi no monogatari karaoke. Man, that was such a sad and depressing scene as befitting Goro's character. The fact that Kogomi is attracted to Goro type characters just makes it worse. Goro should have gone after Yukiko.

Someone call Mulder and Scully!

Special mention must be given to Sota for being the comedy relief/idiot of the dorama. He spends most of the series unable to make up his mind whether to go for Yukiko or stick with Tsurara. He tries Tsurara like shit, feels guilty about it but doesn't even have the balls to break up with her only with her to run away to work at a Turkish bath. After getting beat down in the worst boxing match ever, Sota decides that as penance, he will not see Yukiko for 2 years and 8 months, the length of time he was with Tsurara. Talk about a self induced tragic hero pretender! In fact, if I had to choose between Yukiko and Tsurara I would .... o for the one who was a better cook.

I don't really see Kita no Kuni Kara as a country values vs city values dorama but rather its about this family of 4 living in a place where the priorities are different Tokyo's. Where people are at the mercy of the weather. Where people actually depend on each other to survive. Where things actually had to be done by hand. Its the type of lifestyle that for a few minutes make urban dwellers like me think, 'wouldn't it be nice' and shamefully dismiss the notion because I'm too scared all the trappings of urban life.

However pitiful Goro is, at least he got some action unlike Jin sensei.

Good news is, looks like Chuks is translating the first special. There are nine SPs in total with the 1995 special already translated. Please do give this dorama a try and recommend it to any d-addict you know. A big thank you to Chuks and Phoenix for subbing 9-24 and xploring for eps 1-8. It is thanks to your efforts that dorama addicts like me could have watched such a classic.

24 episodes and they couldn't even devote some backstory for the dark skinned dude and his moustache friend?

Freeter Ie wo Kau eps 1-4

Decided to check out Freeter when JC Supercop recommended it. I knew only one or two subbed episodes were on d-addicts and to my surprise freeter_ohno subs had done 4 episodes but not seeded eps 2-4 on d-addicts. According to the fansub wiki, Stormy has already finished subbing the series and its probably available for members of their website. Freeter's got Nino, the one actor in Arashi who can actually act and by default the only Johnny I like and of course Karina and Igawa Haruka so there's no reason for me not to check it out.

Nino plays Seiji, your typical apathetic youth who claims to live a live of mediocrity or soko soko and always quits his job within 3 months. He's got no direction in life and he has this overbearing dad who a broken records who likes to proclaim how he is the breadwinner of his family and everyone owes him their souls. Seiji's got a seemingly perfect housewife mom who is constantly being taken for granted by father and son. Finally, Igawa Haruka is the sister who married a hospital director and has to deal with a busybody mother-in-law.

First two episodes plays like on of those indy dysfunctional family movies and it is awesome. From the foreboding rocking of Seiji's mom everytime she is shouted at to Seiji's dad's rantings perhaps hiding some deep troubles, Freeter was a breath of fresh air from the usual set in mangaland doramas. The heart and soul of the story is Seiji and when he does one of the stupidest things ever which is quit his job before finding a new one, he is stuck in freeter hell because of his employment record.

Seiji's father keeps ranting and raving about Seiji's nochalant attitude but frankly I have no empathy for both of them. His father should kick him out of the house if he wants him to pick things up cause nothing motivates more than survival. I've done my share of temp jobs, getting calls early in the morning after an all night gaming session but when you have to pay your own rent and bills, any job will do. At the end of the first episode, something happens to Seiji's mom and I can't wait for the episode 2.

Example of horrible lighting. The house is suppose to be dark but their is this mysterious light pointing directly at only Seiji's mom and the open dining room beside the living room is completely dark. Notice unrealistic fuzzy feel. If the light is supposed to be from a lamp then its suppose to be a soft light that would illuminate the dining area as well.

Episode 2 deal with the indifferent Seiji struggling to work in a road works company and something begins to feel very off. Its not because the road works part with Karina feels so generic. Its because I start to notice how fucking horrible the lighting is. A lot of scenes, especially at Seiji's workplace have this fuzzy glare usually used only for flashback scenes. Its like there are way too many sources of light and it just completely pulls down the more realistic and dramatic tone of the first episode. This is probably the first time ever a lighting in a jmovie/dorama really put me off. The worst lighting I can remember is the Sundome and that was more because it had no budget and it was all natural light. Whoever is responsible for the lighting should be fired and an amateur photographer hired instead.

What Seiji is actually asking: I thought you were a tough tomboy construction chick and you're walking in the riverside in the middle of the night showing off your nice slim legs for the sole purpose of .......?

End of ep 3, we get to the introduction of the main story which is Seiji vowing to build a house by working as a freeter. Temping jobs can pay as well as regular ones except you don't get holidays so I wonder how Seiji will manage to pull it off. So far I find freeter an interesting show but the lighting issue and some elements which pull the show from serious family drama to generic idoru dorama like Karina's dress code in the above screencap get on my nerves. Freeter is better than generic, promises to be a watchable dorama with so many interesting story threads and has good actors but execution will determine whether it rises from watchable to good.

Example two of horrible lighting. Its suppose to be very bright outside and and they've got at least 3 fucking light tubes TURNED ON in the room in the background and it looks like they have at least the same number on above the foreground and maybe a skylight. Is this some alternate reality where having 2 fucking light sources in a room is not enough?

Gotta mention that guy on the left cannot fucking act at all which means he must be a Johnny.

Cleanest looking construction workers in the world wearing very new clothes. Its pretty obvious that the costume department has no budget to for dirt and water to put some wrinkles to the clothes.