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My very bad attempt at translation. I can't actually find an English translation of this unfortunately...

Tsunagu (繋ぐ) - to be tied, to be fastened, to be connected

嵐 ~ つなぐ
誰だって　そう　探してるEveryday
彷徨い歩いて　幸せの場所まで
Why？　何か起きるサイン
矛盾も超えて　引き寄せたこの運命

強がってるフリをして　危うく揺れる
心配ならいらないよ　守りぬくから
何があっても

どんな暗い夜でも　あなただけを
奪い去るから　Oh！ Never let you go
遠慮なんかしないぜ　魅せられたら
音も立てずに　Don't wanna let you go
偽りだらけの浮世でも　この愛だけ信じていて
どこにあるか分からないけど　楽園を夢見た
消えないでLove

絡まって　もう　解(ほど)けないモノ
追うほど辛い　知らぬフリできない
そう　中途半端なまやかしの
人生はNo No　痛みも飲み込んで

無常に漂うMy life　教えてくれた
本当の優しさと　強さ求めて
行き着くまで

移ろいゆく世に　輝いては
心奪われ　Oh！ Never let you go
真っすぐな瞳に　導かれて
声にならない　Don't wanna let you go
巡り巡る時代の中で　かけがえない愛のため
たとえ別れが来たとしても　あの時誓った
約束はLove

'One day, One way. One time... どこまで'
'One day, One way. One time... 続くの'
'One day, One way. One time... 教えて'
振り向かずに　生きてくだけ

どんな暗い夜でも　あなただけを
奪い去るから　Oh！ Never let you go
遠慮なんかしないぜ　魅せられたら
音も立てずに　Don't wanna let you go
偽りだらけの浮世でも　この愛だけ信じていて
どこにあるか分からないけど　楽園を夢見た
消えないでLove

Arashi: Tsunagu
Everyone is the same, searching every day
Wandering and pacing, until that place of happiness
Why? There arises a sign
Overcoming troubles, luring you to this fate

Trying to put on a strong face, but it falters
There's no need to worry, because I'll protect you until the end
Whatever happens

No matter how dark the night, I will snatch just you away
Oh! Never let you go
No need for caution, if you've been enchanted, don't make a sound
Don't wanna let you go
In this uncertain world filled with lies, believing in only this love
I don't know where it is, that utopia I've dreamt of
Love, don't fade

Entangled, this thing that can't be untangled
Like a hard chase, I can't pretend to be something I don't know
That's right, a half-hearted pretence at life is No No, I accept the pain that comes with it

Constantly wandering, the impermanence of My Life has taught me
To look for true kindness and strength, and walk on until you reach it

In a world that continues to moves on, a heart shining brightly will be snatched away
Oh! Never let you go
Your honest eyes guide me, and I am unable to speak
Don't wanna let you go
In eras that come and go, for a love that is irreplaceable
Even if farewell is to come, a promise is made that day, that promise is Love

One day, one way, one time... where until
One day, one way, one time... will it continue on
One day, one way, one time... tell me
Don't turn back, just live on

No matter how dark the night, I will snatch just you away
Oh! Never let you go
No need for caution, if you've been enchanted, don't make a sound
Don't wanna let you go
In this uncertain world filled with lies, believing in only this love
I don't know where it is, that utopia I've dreamt of
Love, don't fade

Got awfully sick these last few days. The last time I felt so sick was in Taiwan - I mean I got colds and rhinitis all the time, but I had chills and myalgias and it was even hurting to breathe. I also realised recently that I've been getting sinusitis/rhinitis a lot less since I changed my work place and I'm convinced it was that mould that was proliferating on our ceiling...

Anyhow, while I had a cracking headache from the virus, I had an odd dream. It started off with a woman in her 40's (of coloured background...I'm not sure if Indian or South American...hard to remember her features now) who after being "touched" by some demon, gained the ability to fly. The only problem was, she was like a buoy without an anchor, she could only float in the air and it was hard for her to touch down to the ground, so she kept hiding herself in the shadows so people don't notice she's floating.

Then anyhow, it segued to a different dream, where some sorcerer realised she was touched by the main antagonist, who has like the "anti-matter" version of all the elements. Each element is controlled by a tribe (old trope I know), and there are 6 elements for some reason - I distinctly remember water and dark, and I think the other four were fire, air, wood and earth. The antagonist's control is the "anti" version of whatever element, though it's not clear what that meant.

Anyhow, the tribes are putting together people to prepare for the final war. The sorcerer (who for some reason I thought was the master sorcerer...*cough*) was giving a rallying speech and then sent a few of the sorcerers who've trained under him back to each of the tribes.

I just thought the visuals were cool though...when it talked about the anti-matter sorcerer (?) the elements came together to form a 6 piece colour wheel, then it flipped with him on the other side.

Had another bizarre dream that would make a really good story (LOL)

A young kitten (with black stripes on a grey coat and white belly) was adopted by a deity. He was very fond of the deity (in a child-like way) so he learned to become a human. Unfortunately, as an animal, he doesn't have a good grasp on good and evil, and he killed a lot of people, thinking he was helping the deity.

The deity was very disappointed in him and grew distant. Then the cat learned because of all the deaths he has caused, his life has been shortened and he will only live to 8 years of cat life. At this point he is about 1 cat-year old but his human form looks like a teenage boy. He became very sad and wished that if he was reborn, he could be a plain cat without trying to live as a human. Then he became even sadder because he knew the deity would live for thousands of years and he wondered if the deity would even remember him after he dies.

While he's moping in his room (in this strange building that had a central courtyard and all the steps to different levels were in the centre, and for some reason I distinctly remember the railings were metal with floral patterns), the deity is trying to find him....

I woke up and then felt sad for a whole solid day =/

Current Mood: morose

Actually it didn't start out a Kung Fu dream, but it ended as one.

It was kinda a zombie dream as well. There were these people who could kill others and then "re-animate" them for their cause, so they still retained the original skill set but their purpose would be to kill their target (none of that eating brains though). There was a wealthy family who became a target, though the wealthy family also had special power where they could scan for other people's vital signs (which comes out almost like a game panel showing their characteristics), and the zombies wouldn't have any so they could recognise who a zombie was. Otherwise, the zombies functioned very similarly to a normal person except when the kill switch kicks in.

The wealthy family was trying to get away from a venue during which the zombie had marked them out as targets. They got away from the venue but the cars that were suppose to rendez-vous with them were quite late, and they met them the next street up. There were 3 bodyguards in each and they were all covered in blood. They said on their way one of their partners turned on them and it was then they realised that the guy was a zombie.

One of the men in the family then quickly scanned the rest of the bodyguards upon hearing that, and before any one could react, shoots one of them. The other bodyguards were shocked but when he showed them the scan of the vitals (for some reason that stayed just long enough in the air for everyone to see) and they realised the guy's vitals were all 0.

They get in the car, one of which was a people mover, so most of the family members went there. The 2nd car contains bodyguards to bring up the rear. They then realise they were being followed, and they tried to go around the streets in circles to ascertain they are being followed and also to try and shake it off. When they got onto a busy street, however, the tailing car started driving erratic to take up all 3 lanes and stop other traffic from getting through.

The car behind them had a young blonde couple and a kid. They stopped their car and got out when they were shot at. Then one of the bodyguards got out and he was a zombie who had regained his self-control. He and the stalkers start fighting, and they seem to recall a bit of their past life but not enough for them to stop trying to kill the people in the first car.

Then the bodyguard's "shifu" gets out of the front car, and the bodyguard is devastated as he sees that his shifu has also become a zombie. He starts fighting against the shifu, who just dodges everything. He doesn't realise that the shifu actually regained his capacity ages ago and as he's fighting, he's crying "how could you do this" and "I spent so much effort looking after you" (likely cleaning up and washing up) and "who's going to look after you now" etc...

Then I woke up. What the heck was that.

The holiday season drought is finally over and the new year for J-dramas has begun!

Final Cut
(Kamenashi Kazuya, Kuriyama Chiaki etc) First episode 7.2%
The rumour is this was supposed to be the finally entry to Kusanagi Tsuyoshi’s revenge trilogy (Zeni no Sensou and Uso no Sensou being the first 2) and because of SMAP’s messy dissolution, Kame took over along with a different script-writer. I tried watching Uso no Sensou and had to fast-forward through the first episode…and this is exactly what I did here. The character’s special skill is supposed to be “parkour” but apart from a show-off sequence in the beginning, the parkour does not feature again, which just makes the isolated sequence rather imi-wakanai. I’m not an awfully big fan of Kusanagi’s acting (I think if you have to squint or twitch your eyebrows to show emotion, something’s not done right), but Kame just doesn’t bring the audience into this character. The climax in the first episode was so ludicrous it throws you out of the rhythm (despite it being Kame’s most eye-gripping appearance in the episode). The most appealing thing so far about the series is the two sisters, acted by Kuriyama Chiaki and Hashimoto Kanna. They’re so adorable I can watch them for another 9 episodes…but I really don’t think this drama is for me.

Unnatural
(Ishihara Satomi etc) First episode 12.7%
This is not Ishihara’s first time as a forensic pathologist, if anyone still remember the tonally mild but surprisingly reflective Voice (with Eita and Toma) before she went down the sexy route for a few years. The thought behind this series is that Japan has amongst the lowest referrals to Coroners in the developed world, and a fictional forensic pathology department is created to deal with unnatural deaths. Fortunately it’s fairly light on the visuals of the autopsies and is mostly about case-solving. Ishihara’s character appears to also be harbouring some sort of dark past. The first case, for the premiere episode, was rather unexciting but the pace was good and the characters are easy to relate to. It’s nice (and realistic) for it to show pathologists cracking inappropriate jokes instead of taking a morbid profession too seriously.

Momi Keshite Fuyu
(Yamada Ryosuke, Haru, etc) First episode 13.3%
There’s a lot to like about this drama but the overall direction leaves you scratching your head. At its surface it’s a comedy family drama, and Yama-chan takes to the role with aplomb. Haru and Ozawa Yukiyoshi are also great respectively as the mean sister and self-centered brother. The characters overall are quirky, cute and watchable, and characteristic of the scriptwriter who brought you Sekaiichi Muzukashii Koi. The plot is where it leaves me confused. As a family drama, you’d expect if it were to have a moral message, it would at least be a correct one - but the main character, who is looked down upon by his family for his earnestness, saves the family by doing something unethical and frankly illegal, and yet is rewarded for doing it? In the end it leaves you confused as to what the drama is trying to do or say, and it’s rather worrying when a lawyer successfully convinces a police officer that “family overrules the law”, and a doctor says that it’s okay to steal confidential medical information and use it to blackmail people. It seems like only the bullied main character is “good” but in the end he is forced to compromise on his goodness…it just does not make sense in a comedy.

99.9 Season 2
(Matsumoto Jun, Kagawa Teruyuki, Kimura Fumino, etc) First episode 15.1%
The first episode had the problem that many sequels have, and that’s trying to introduce everyone to new audiences, and trying to appease old audiences with familiar gags, and trying to suggest there are interesting subplots to keep watching for, while trying to fit in a whole story arc in between. There’s more dad jokes in this episode than there was in the whole first season, and they’ve got to pull the reins before it gets ridiculous. MatsuJun and Kagawa are now really comfortable in their roles and with each other, and their banter continues to be the highlight. I do like Kimura, but it feels like this scriptwriter isn’t very good at writing young female regulars - neither Eikura Nana’s role from last season nor Kimura’s this season was particularly interesting especially between 2 quirky men, and Kimura’s role doesn’t delineate from Nana’s role enough to really make you care for the change. Even the female paralegal was more interesting than her… One of the major loose ends last season was Miyama’s father’s story got brought up regularly throughout the show but was never resolved, and it looks likes this season (hopefully) it will get somewhere. Nevertheless, this is the top of my watch list for the season, if only for Kagawa-san trying to terrify MatsuJun in a pink grasshopper bodysuit.

It's been a while since I've had the chance to just sit back and watch dramas, so we caught up with a few family-friendly shows over Xmas.

Kagi no Kakatta Heya | 鍵のかかった部屋 Avg 16.0%
I remember watching half of the first episode when it first came out. I don't know what stopped me - it might be Toda Erika's fresh-eyed Aoto screeching "su~~~mi~~~ma~~~sennnnn" down the street. I mean, I liked Ohno from Maou, I adore Toda Erika and I'm fond of Satou Koichi, but Toda's look was really daggy (even coming from SPEC and Aoto's recklessness was unbearable after her turns as shrewd detectives in BOSS and SPEC.

Fortunately, after getting through the first 2 episodes, the series settles into its own pace and quirks, and becomes a light on the gore but heavy on the mysteries crime solver. Enomoto Kei requires very little acting from Ohno, who deadpans the whole way, but he takes care to vary his expressionlessness so that you still get a sense of emotional change. The deadpan is a waste of Ohno's incredible comical talent, but altogether the series feels well put together and is well worth the 16% it rated. Definitely worth watching if you like mysteries that are light on the gore, and tonally it is quite similar to MatsuJun's 99.9, another highly watchable and family-friendly mystery solving comedy.

Shitamachi Rocket | 下町ロケット Avg 18.5%
I didn't realise this was part of the Hanzawa Naoki phenomenon, though I don't think that affected my choice of watching it. It is...very much in the formula of Hanzawa Naoki, Chiisana Kyojin, Riku Ou, full of over-acted villains and main characters prone to making long teary rallying speeches. What, I think, marks it unique is Abe Hiroshi as the lead character. I've only seen Abe before in Shinzanmono, where he played a much more reserved and confident character. I don't think per se that the main character Tsukuda is difficult to play, but Abe plays him with an incredible warmth and such genuine faith that it makes you root for him even as you secretly acknowledge how fictional this person is.

Much of what's rated well in Japan in the last few years have been these dramas about underdogs taking on big authorities and winning against great odds. It is the sort of fantasy that, probably, makes Marvel so popular across the Pacific. This is not to say the story doesn't drag or that there isn't plot holes or that the deus ex machinas aren't obvious, but it's one of those feel good series you can watch safely with the whole family knowing that the good guys and humanity will win at the end of the day, a version of reality that is much more likable than our own.

I had been meaning to watch this for several years but never got around to it until now. I bought the original book recently with the intention to read it before watching the movie, but I ended up watching the movie before I finished the book.

Even as I read the book, I thought the text would make a much better series than a movie, and the movie confirmed that. There was simply not enough time to make the characters and subtext as interesting and memorable as they were in the book. I thought Ann was en pointe for Shiratori Risa but it was both a waste of her casting and of the character by how short her appearance was.

Without having finished the book - the original story looked at interesting Big Brother themes like government control of DNA profiling that can elicit an alarming amount of detail about a person’s physical, health and psychological attributes, as well as the potential for abuse of a system like that, whether it is through the exploitation of privacy or the use of power and money for cover-up. It also explored self and the definition of being - is it by genetics? Physical traits? Personality? And then there was a futuristic psychotropic addiction which I thought was fascinating, where people became addicted to a device that induced direct brainwave stimulation.

A lot of these were sacrificed to make the movie more like a thriller. There were lots of running and car chases and dangerous stunts that took away time from the story but added some suspense and gave the illusion of pace.

Kagura/Ryuu was always going to be a difficult casting - you’d have to find someone who can manage both Kagura’s arrogance and extreme rationality, as well as Ryuu’s incredible sentimentality and his belief in the intuitive. The Ryuu in the movie is a lot weaker than in the book, and that’s partly due to the way the story was changed. For much of the book it feels like Ryuu mocks Kagura for his narrow-minded dismissal of emotionality. In the movie, Ryuu was the innocent artistic shadow to Kagura’s shrewd logical mind.

In that sense, I thought Nino did an amazing job with the characters that were written for the movie. The segue between Kagura and Ryuu and back in his meeting with the detective and at the final confrontation were two of the most memorable scenes in the movie, and certainly reminds you of why a lot of directors gush about him.

I don’t have a lot to say about the other characters as most of them were pared down to quite thin version of themselves. Mizukami is changed to female, which is curious - and I’m glad Japan can do that without its netizens kicking up a furore like it happens in Hollywood *eyeroll* The relationship between Mizukami and Kagura works for the movie, but again takes something away from the original plot, which is that a lot of Kagura’s grief comes from the loss of his father and Mizukami becomes his father figure.

The choice to change the ending is not something I understand very well, and I wonder if it became that way because of how much plot they had to cut down.

**********SPOILERS AHEAD*************

In the original story, Kagura and Asama confront Mizukami together, and Mizukami was about to kill both of them when Ryuu appears and shoots Mizukami out of grief because of Saki’s death. In the movie, Kagura meets Mizukami alone and during the speech, Ryuu appears and kills her.

In a way I sort of like how that it gave Ryuu a purpose and allowed him to make a choice for the greater good. On the other hand, I think Ryuu (in the book) was someone who really did not care for the outside world, and is in reality a lot colder in his apathy than Kagura. Ironically, it is Kagura who is the more idealistic, and even if he has a God complex, he genuinely wants to make the world a better place.

Finally in the movie, I think the ending is left quite open and ends with an interlaced scene of Ryuu painting Saki and of Kagura being arrested, and it’s not clear which one happens (though it is suggested that Kagura disappears). In the book, it is Ryuu who disappears but Kagura is spared from punishment (in exchange for silence), and it is suggested that he picks up some of Ryuu’s hobbies and characteristics. Again it’s a change that doesn’t quite make sense, but in a way I liked how sweet and almost platonic Ryuu and Saki’s relationship was in the movie.

************************************

I feel like it’s a movie that managed to tell half the story, and I’m honestly not sure I would have understood as much if I didn’t read the book and I honestly think I would rate the movie lower if I hadn’t read the book beforehand. It tried its best to trim what was quite a complex, multi-layered plot about society and people and psychology into something much more straightforward, but that took away a lot of the enormity of the social issues that made this book so worrying. I think the actors did an amazing job with what they were given, but it could have been a much better story over 10 hours instead of 2.

PS: Yes, Nino is gorgeous in it.

Like 2016, Doctor X leads the crowd, presumably because audiences like familiar feel-good superheroics dressed in medical drama (just like the Marvel formula, really). 2016 at least had a breakout in 99.9, which averaged a respectable 17.15, followed by NigeHaji at 14.58. The rest of the top 10 in 2016 were rounded out by dramas rating around 11-12%, which does reflect the quality of the scripts.

2017 has a cluster of dramas that rate between 12-15%. Code Blue got by on nostalgia and A LIFE by its impressive line-up of A-list stars, because neither of the scripts deserved anything more than a 10%. Riku Ou and Chiisana Kyojin proves again that the feel-good superheroic shounen manga type drama might not engage the brain much but at least appeals to the child-like optimism in audiences.

1. Doctor X (Season 5) (October TV Asahi Thu 9pm slot)
Average 20.87%. Stars Yonekura Ryoko etc

2. Riku Ou (October TBS Sun 9pm slot)
Average 16.00%. Stars Yakusho Kouji, Yamazaki Kento etc

3. Code Blue (Season 3) (July Fuji TV Mon 9pm slot)
Average 14.78%. Stars Yamashita Tomohisa, Aragaki Yui, Toda Erika etc

4. A LIFE (January TBS Sun 9pm slot)
Average 14.55%. Stars Kimura Takuya, Asano Tadanobu, Takeuchi Yuko etc

5. Kinkyuu Torishirabeshitsu (Season 2) (April TV Asahi Thu 9pm slot)
Average 14.09%. Stars Amami Yuki etc

6. Chiisana Kyojin (April TBS Sun 9pm slot)
Average 13.60%. Stars Hasegawa Hiroki, Okada Masaki, Sasaki Nozomi etc

7. Okusama wa, Tori Atsukai Chui (October NTV Wed 10pm slot)
Average 12.65%. Stars Ayase Haruka, Nishijima Hidetoshi, Hirosue Ryoko

8. Kounodori (October TBS Fri 10pm slot)
Average 11.87%. Stars Ayano Gou, Hoshino Gen, Matsuoka Mayu.

9. Kahogo no Kahoko (July NTV Wed 10pm slot)
Average 11.47%. Stars Takahata Mitsuki, Kuroki Hitomi.

10. Kurokawa no Techo (July TV Asahi Thu 9pm slot)
Average 11.45%. Stars Takei Emi, Eguchi Yosuke.

It will be interesting to see how January 2018 will rate, and people have already started calling it the "Johnny's season" - Kimura Takuya, Matsumoto Jun, Kamenashi Kazuya, Takizawa Hideaki, Yamada Ryosuke, and 2 guys from Johnnys West all have their own dramas. The only scriptwriter whose works I like is writing for Kimura's BG, though as long as 99.9 keeps up its quality, it will be a good watch. It'll be interesting to see how the ratings swing after both Kimura and Matsumoto have been hit by scandals in the last year. There's also going to be a lot of awkward overlap - both Kimura and Yamada's will be about police, and along with Matsumoto's will be about investigating cases. Both Kamenashi and Takizawa's dramas are themed around revenge. Both Matsumoto and Takizawa are lawyers. In a turn of bad publicity, rumour says that Kamenashi's drama was intended for Kusanagi Tsuyoshi, who was swapped out after he left JE. Although I was never impressed with Kusanagi's acting in the "Sensou" series, it was iconic enough that I can't imagine fans of the series will accept a swap.

As someone who likes watching Japanese shows, it's hard not to draw comparisons between Kenneth Branagh's star-studded adaptation of Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express to FujiTV's 2015 adaptation. Both were full of big name stars in their respected countries: Kenneth Branagh, William Dafoe, Michelle Pfeiffer, Johnny Depp, Penelope Cruz, Daisy Ridley on one side, and Nomura Mansai, Tamaki Hiroshi, Fuji Sumiko, Ann, Ninomiya Kazunari, Kichise Michiko, and Sawamura Hiroki on the other. Both were led by actors who are well-respected in theatre (Branagh and Nomura Mansai). The Fox version is about 2 hours, and the FujiTV version screened as 2 SP's over 2 nights, as a total of 4 hours.

I watched the 2015 version when it came out, so the details are a bit fuzzy. Apart from the obvious difference in budget (although for a TV version it wasn't half bad at all), it is characteristically Japanese in its slower pace and greater focus on characterisation. It had the luxury of that extra 2 hours, too, so the way it chose to tell the story was to spend the first episode describing the crime and the interrogations, then the second episode told mostly through an extended flashback to build the characters and show how and why the murder came to be.

The gist of the plot is largely the same in both stories, but the Japanese one was missing the racial undertones that is probably reflective of Europe at the time (I haven't read the original). My main gripe with the Japanese version is Nomura Mansai's interpretation of the detective. I'm not sure why he chose to speak in such a fake squeaky voice and overdo the mannerisms. In that sense, Branagh's Poirot was more bearable, but not that memorable in the mob of mainstream sleuths that's come our way in the last few years.

I read somewhere that much of the point of the story is Poirot's growth, that justice and rightness isn't always the same thing, and the world isn't always black and white. Unfortunately, I didn't feel either the Japanese or the Hollywood version convinced me of that change in perspective - the Japanese due to Nomura Mansai's distracting showiness, and the Hollywood due to the limited time to build sympathy for the rest of the characters.

There's a few short chases and fights in the Hollywood version which I can't remember was in the Japanese version - I remember it was a much quieter and civilised affair, probably with too much talking and not enough doing. The actors for both versions were excellent and the Hollywood actors made the most of their brief moments on screen to define their characters. Unfortunately you don't quite get time to like them before the big reveal.

A fair adaption of the classic (and the music was gorgeous, and apart from some odd camera angles, so was the cinematography), but not something I can imagine watching a second time.

I'm aware it's just about to be released in the US so I'll try not to spoil any details.

Watched it on Tuesday in a full theatre, which was the best way to watch something like this. Is this the funniest Thor movie? By a long shot. Is this the best Marvel film yet? Not by my preference. Is this a flawed movie? Definitely. Is this an enjoyable movie? Also definitely.

If you've exposed yourself to any reviews at all, you'll know that this movie capitalises on the comical talents of its cast, so I don't think I'll comment much on that.

Other things that worked in its favour this time around is abandoning the incredibly hamfisted romance between Thor and Jane Foster. In her stead, there is one of the most charismatic female characters MCU has introduced - who is blessedly free of a romantic subplot. In a movie that juggled action and humour smartly, the Valkyrie and Loki fistfight was one of the highlights, and it was a shame there wasn't more action for either of these two characters (particularly Loki).

The relationship between Thor and Loki gets taken a slightly different way this time, and it's a shift that happens so naturally, you don't think about it. Loki has often stolen the show as the more complex and tragic shadow to Thor, but this time Thor is clearly the main character, and seems to have assumed the reins in their choppy relationship. Loki still toes that fine line between antihero and antagonist, but he is mostly "mischievous" here rather than villainous, and Thorki fans will probably be very happy with the ending...until Loki hightails it to Thanos' side in Infinity War, that is.

The pace and tone was riveting, so that 130 minutes later you feel like you've enjoyed the movie, but it's not something that bears thinking back on, because when you do, you'll realise how little actually happened.

The humour also undermines any gravity that should have been given to certain scenes. One of the (few..ahem) charms of the Thor series is the family dynamic in Odin's dysfunctional family, and it was probably what made the first two movies bearable. Without spoiling anything...let's just say that a few deaths in the movie should have been awarded with at least some time for Thor (and the audience) to feel a sense of loss and grief. As messy as Thor: the Dark World was, Frigga's send-off is still one of the more beautifully done farewells in the MCU.

The Thor franchise (and MCU in general) has always been blessed with thespians but has had a track record of under-utilising them. Cate Blanchett's Hela falls into that same trap. Don't get me wrong, Cate is amazing and commanding and full of I'm-too-fabulous-for-your-sh!t, but if you look past the menace the actress brought to the screen, there really isn't much substance to her character. To a certain degree, Cate has made her more understandable than some of the Marvel villains, but she's not given enough story for you to care.

It's not a perfect story (in fact, there's really not much of story), but it is a much needed tonal shift and the perfect entry into a sub-franchise where the main character had been plagued by poor character development. Think of this entire 130 minutes as a humourous character-building exercise. I had started the movie feeling uninvested, and ended the movie feeling like I would be genuinely sad if Thor were written out of the MCU in Infinity War.

The full name of this is "先に生まれただけの僕" (Saki ni Umareta dake no Boku), which translates awkwardly into "I, who just happened to be born earlier". There is one Chinese website which has translated this title nicely: "先生而為師". The kanji for "sensei" is literally "born earlier", and in Japanese as well as in older Chinese expression, it is the honorific for teachers. "I am your sensei, hence your teacher" and "I am born earlier, hence your teacher", not quite the same as the original phrase but certainly captures the pun in it.

I consider myself pretty objective when it comes to Jdorama reviews even with my favourites (I rip into Kame's dramas every year without fail), so you can stop reading now if you were after a gushing review.

I had high hopes for this drama. On paper, it appears they put a lot of effort into the staff and cast. The script comes from the same guy who adapted the popular Galileo series, as well as a number of reasonably well-received series for KimuTaku in his heyday. Sakurai Sho is supported by 2 girls (Tabe Mikako and Aoi Yuu) who are both more respected for being actresses than being celebrities. The rest of the cast is rounded out by comedy veterans or up and coming names.

How do I put it? It's...unexciting, and I suppose that's characteristic of the director, who just came from Yutori desu ga, nani ka? - a series that's critically acclaimed but had a mediocre rating of about 8-9%. It doesn't have the hot-blooded ludicrous hallmark of the Hanzawa Naoki team, who has successfully turned what should have been a boring bank setting into riveting melodrama. After succeeding in translating that across into the police setting earlier in the year, the production team is once again replicating it this season in Riku Ou - a drama that on paper sounds particularly snooze-inducing (a small company trying to make running shoes) yet still managing to pick up the highest rating thus far outside of NHK.

What the first episode of Saki Boku suffers from is how long it's taking to build up the story. To its credit, it never feels like it drags, but at the end of that one hour there is no clear direction as to where the series is going. I'm not saying the Hanzawa Naoki implausible high-strung emotionality is the right way to go, but ratings show that this is the sort of fast food entertainment that audiences lap up. Saki Boku demands its audiences to be patient without hinting that it's going to be worth it, and that's a hard ask of audiences who are not fans.

The central conflict is that between money and public service - in much of the developed world, public services (education, health, police, etc) is nominally free, but actually comes at a huge hidden cost. However, there is an inherent danger in running a service like a profit-making business, as it can create inequality and inequity in the community it's supposed to provide for. The school in question is a little bit different as it is a private school, but it comes with the same problem of trying to provide a self-sustaining service without compromising its principles and becoming a commercial enterprise purely catering to "clients".

The other interesting issue the first episode raises is that children, even teenagers, are not small adults. There is a lot of research out there to say that parts of the brain (in particular the executive function) does not mature until the mid-20s. Taking an adult approach to problem-solving can backfire, because it is not perceived in the same logical way that the adult thinks it goes.

Unfortunately, it is not in the series' character to make these things easy for the audience to pick up and reflect on. It is very much a slice of life, and it lets the audience pick their own version of the story. In the first episode, there is no good side or bad side, there is no right way or wrong way, and I suspect it's the easy black-and-whiteness that makes the Hanzawa Naoki formula so popular, and the lack thereof that makes these slice-of-life comedies struggle.

The first episode also doesn't quite make the characters memorable, through no fault of the actors. It's hard to say at this stage what Narumi is actually feeling about education as a whole. Sho's acting is considerably better than his previous outing in Kazoku Game (although I think the weirdness in Kazoku Game was mostly intentional or due to the direction). Aoi Yuu is in command from the first appearance and doesn't falter. Tabe Mikako is barely even seen and at this stage I can't imagine her having a big role in the story. Takashima Masanobu turns up the camp as usual, and while he brings a stifling terror to his scenes, the tone is so different to the rest of the series that it is at once jarring and difficult to believe.

It's not at all a bad story, but it takes patience and might be hard to stick with unless you're a fan.

A newly married wife starts getting tired of the stay-home life and puts her skills from her hidden past to good use to right the injustices around the neighbourhood.

To be honest, when I read that description, it totally didn't interest me at all until I found out the scriptwriter (Kaneshiro Kazuki) is the same person who wrote Border and Crisis, both incisive police dramas that painted a world of disappointing systemic fallacies. To do a romantic comedy seems to be a complete jump from Kaneshiro's comfort zone, but his experience in suspense-based dramas is right up my alley.

From the outset, it positions itself early in the episode to say this is not your usual rom-com, with the heroine starting out tied to a chair and ending the scene kicking every male ass in the room.

I haven't watched Border, but Crisis wasn't overly memorable in terms of its characterisation, and that was something that worried me.

Fortunately, Okusama does 2 things right - it casts Ayase Haruka, who is probably the only Japanese actress her age that I can think of who can pull off sweet and deadly with conviction. In several scenes, she doesn't even have to raise her voice or change her smile for you to feel a sense of threat.

The 2nd thing which I feel Kaneshiro deserves kudos for is that Isayama Nami remains fully her own heroine, without the need for any male knight in shining armour to do the hard work for her. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to be a feminazi here, but one of the persistent tropes with Japanese media (manga and drama) is that their women need saving, that even the best women aren't as good as the men or need a helping hand from men.

On the same note, the only disappointment of the first episode was how little Nishijima Hidetoshi featured, and it seems a bit of a waste of ~~his pretty face~~ an excellent cast member to relegate him to a role that consists only of walking through the door every evening. I'm hoping there's a big twist where he's more than he appears to be as well! Perhaps where Kaneshiro's shortcomings begin to show is the dearth of actual interaction between Ayase's and Nishijima's characters, and honestly Nishijima's body language around Ayase is so stiff they don't look like a married couple at all. He had wayyy more chemistry with Takeuchi Yuko in Strawberry Night.

Hirosue Ryoko is unsurprisingly comfortable as the "more experienced" of the 3 married women, and as usual Honda Tsubasa's acting leave much to be desired but at least she isn't as sour as she was in Jimi ni Sugoi.

A surprisingly watchable drama in a genre that usually bores me to tears, probably because it's written by a guy who usually writes the type of crime thrillers I like watching. For people who like easy rom-coms, some of the scenes might be too tense, but for everyone else who can put up with a bit of intensity (and blood), this is definitely worth trying!

It'll be interesting to see where the script takes the story to, because the first story was a bit too textbook in how it portrayed the domestic violence. If you ever had a quiz on DV, you'll find all the main points there, and that part of it did come across as a little contrived.

I thought I’d use the opportunity of their 18th anniversary to write something just as a marker in time.

I took the long way to becoming a fan of Arashi. I can’t say when I turned a fan. I got into the JE fandom via the ill-fated KAT-TUN, but I learned of Arashi at the same time. My first J-drama that I followed was Gokusen 2, so of course I knew MatsuJun was in Gokusen, Kimi wa Petto (possibly the first shoujo manga I can honestly say I liked the female protagonist), and Kindaichi Shounen Jikenbo, none of which I ever ended up watching…

I did watch HanaDan as it came out, and we laughed at how short the guys were compared to the Taiwanese version. But as with many stories, it is best told in the culture that brewed it, and I still think HanaDan is the best adaptation of the lot once you get used to the guys’ facial features.

I didn’t love HanaDan or Doumyouji enough to make me marathon MatsuJun’s dramas, but it did make me take note of Arashi. I then watched the flawed but riveting Maou, initially for Toma, but ended up being impressed by Ohno’s first starring role.

I’m someone who gravitates towards familiar faces when it comes to drama picks, so for the next decade, I’d always check out something that a member of Arashi is in. 99.9 I absoluteley adored. Ryuusei no Kizuna I sat through and ended up mysteriously disappointed. Quiz Show 2 and Kazoku Game I watched to their incoherent endings. Nazotoki wa dinner no ato de and Lucky 7 I got through at least half but never finished. Uta no Onii-san, Kaibutsu-kun, Kagi Heya, Sekaiichi Muzukashii Koi, Freeter, Yowakutemo Katemasu, Bambino, Smile, Yokoso, Wagaya he, Kizoku Tantei…I can remember trying most of them.

Might have been about 2 years ago when I started watching Arashi’s variety shows regularly. I must have been seeing VS Arashi on and off for years now, but like Gintama, Arashi has turned into my happy place. They’re my go-to place when the day’s gone to hell and you feel like you hate the world.

It’s only in the last few months that I’ve really paid attention to their personalities and interactions. Leader the quiet achiever, Sho who directs the flow of the program, Aiba full of weird ideas and unexpected sweetness, Nino the hidden atmosphere maker, and the perfectionist Jun who has a surprising comical streak.

Throughout the years, I’ve heard a little of their struggles before they suddenly hit the popularity pot in late 2000s, and I’ve come to appreciate how 5 intelligent, resilient and passionate people have created a brand that continues to last. They capitalise on their individual strengths and bring it to the group in a way that balances the team dynamic - there’s 2 smart people, there’s 2 “models”, there’s 2 tennens, there’s 2 do-S pranksters…I can’t think of any other group that knows how to play the variety game better than them.

Here’s to Arashi, for showing us that when strangers become colleagues, they can sometimes become friends and almost like family. Thank you for the warmth.

Very surprised but very happy this movie showed in my country!

As people may/may not already know, Gintama is doing well at the Japanese box office and is now leading the pack as the highest grossing Japanese-made movie in 2017 (10th grossing overall on the domestic charts for the year), and I believe it hasn't completed its run yet. According to Box Office Mojo, it's sitting around USD$28.2 million. For comparison's sake, manga-to-movie historical fictions Rurouni Kenshin (the first one) finished up with USD$36.8 million and last year's Nobunaga Concerto ended similarly with USD$36.1 million. That's nothing on last year's surprise hit Kimi no na wa, which grossed a whopping USD$235 million, but is still a respectable result.

DO NOT READ ON IF YOU DON'T KNOW THE BENIZAKURA ARC

Like Rurouni Kenshin before it, Gintama has the good fortune to have a director who understands and is comfortable with the tone of the series. The movie mirrors the original in how well it switched between cool and funny and tense and silly, with an excellent sense of comic timing. Where direction is concerned, the only letdown is towards the end - one of the main reasons Gintama is so popular is that apart from making you laugh at unexpected times, it can also make you cry when you least expect it coming. What should have been a touching moment between the Joui trio (Sakamoto is still sad he's left out of the picture) didn't quite string out the emotions, and what should have been a sad regretful moment of a man dying for his mistakes again didn't quite hit the note it managed in the anime.

In terms of visual presentation, I confess I didn't come in with a high expectation. There's a lot of cheap-looking CG littered around, but then again, this is Gintama, it fits with the series' endless complaints of being poor anyway. Sadaharu looked ridiculously fake but I think most fans are happy that it's even there. The fights were, unsurprisingly, less impressive than Rurouni Kenshin, but there's reasonable care in the choreography so that they still look tense.

In terms of the characters, I think most people would be pleased. I guess my disclaimer would be that I've seen most of the actors in heaps of other stuff, so I no longer think of the actors as "hot" or "not hot".

Oguri Shun (I'm proud to say as expected XD) is en pointe as Gintoki, getting the characters overt laziness and understated coolness just right. Suda Masaki and Hashimoto Kanna are both pleasant surprises - mainly because I've seen Suda Masaki over-act things, but his Shinpachi had amazing comic timing, and managed to be sweet and brave and ordinary all at once. Hashimoto's acting is a little bit green but you wouldn't notice it in most scenes, and she certainly takes to Kagura's tomboyish violence with panache. And the cuteness of a thousand-year-beauty is pretty damn cute, all you otaku boys hating on her being "fat" needs to STFU and look at yourselves. Nagasawa Masami owned it as Otae, and there was just enough of the character to make it memorable without her coming across as a crazy annoying violent banshee.

The Shinsengumi's function in this movie is pretty much fanservice and the story wouldn't have lost anything with their absence. Their brief appearances don't quite capture the fascinating dynamics between Kondo, Okita and Hijikata, nor does it really give the actors to do much with their roles. The Mitsuba Arc fares better - but because of how iconic that story is, and how memorable the voice actors' portrayals had been, it was hard to live up to. Hijikata is the embodiment of tsundere, and the reason the Mitsuba Arc (and Shinsengumi Douran) were so beautiful was all the suppressed emotions were obvious without being spoken aloud. Less would have been a lot more with Hijikata in the Mitsuba Arc, but overall the Mitsuba Arc was better than expected.

Katsura was also another pleasant surprise. Don't get me wrong, I adore Okada Masaki, but he doesn't always get it right with his acting. Fortunately, you only see Zura's straight-laced samurai side here, and Okada was in command of all the brief appearances, managing cool and impressive even with less than 20 minutes of screen time (alright, he also had the coolest introduction, so the director's been kind to him).

Takasugi was its weakest link, and I guess it always was going to be hard. The Benizakura arc was the first proper introduction of the complex relationship between the Joui 4 - the first time Takasugi makes a deep impression as a main antagonist, and the last time for about 400 chapters for Zura to be cool. I am completely neutral about Doumoto Tsuyoshi and about Takasugi as a character, so I'm saying this without any emotional investment. I like his voice better than Koyasu Takehito (sorry Koyasu-san...) and he pulled off the costume and appearance, which is no small feat for a purple robe with gold butterflies, but he just didn't hit the unpredictably lethal and unexpectedly sensual aura that Takasugi projects. In fact, as we were discussing after watching the movie, Yamada Takayuki, with a few weird characters under his belt, would probably have done better as Takasugi than Elizabeth. The other person I can sort of see as Takasugi would be Odagiri Joe - he was great in S~Saigo no Keikan as a cultured antagonist who came across as domineering and dangerous without raising his voice, and also oddly sexy without trying to be.

Because Takasugi never commanded much fear, as a result the climax was nowhere near as tense as the original Benizakura was. The talks about "nakama" (comrade) and "tomodachi" (friend) also didn't strike as resonant a note. I may be confusing this with later in the story, but the thing about the Takasugi-Gintoki-Katsura relationship is that they fought back to back years ago and they treasured each other as comrades and childhood friends. At this point you don't know about the mess between Gintoki and Shoyo, but it's supposed to make you wonder how good friends have turned on each other, and what's driven Takasugi to abandon his "nakama", including his cold-hearted dismissal of Okada Nizou.

The best way to think of this movie is that it's made by fans for fans, and it's achieved being loyal to Gintama's tone and story, and largely got the characters right. For that alone, I think the fans are a lot more forgiving about the flaws in its visual presentation and the weaknesses in its climatic scenes (to be fair, the climatic fight between Gintoki and Nizou was just fine). It doesn't quite get it perfect for the more moving parts of Gintama, of friendship and comradeship and reasons for living, but overall it's a respectable effort and hasn't ruined the series for me.

Maybe with that box office return, they can get a bigger budget to put together a sequel? XDD Wishful thinking.

The Code Blue series has always ranked amongst my favourite Japanese dramas, up there with Nodame Cantabile and BOSS, even back in the days when Yamapi and Gakki's acting frustrated me, and to this day I still think it's amongst the best Asian medical dramas I've watched (the ridiculously popular Doctor X is an absolute joke by comparison).

These days, both Gakki and Yamapi's acting is much more mature, and as a result, the emotionless Aizawa and overly-soft Shiraishi feel much more like flesh-and-blood people than avatars of a string of adjectives.

I read somewhere that while most of the Code Blue team has remained the same, the scriptwriter has changed, and that's perhaps the most obvious shift in tone. The good parts are still there - the tight-paced editing that gives a sense of speed, activity and urgency. What it's missing from the old format, especially in the first 2 extended episodes, is an emotional arc that holds the episode together. Some of Code Blue's best scenes were some great ethics questions that arose from patient-doctor interactions. There are still "emotional" scenes but they end up feeling shoehorned in and didn't have the fine touch of previous seasons.

There was a lot of concern about how the script was going to balance the 3 new doctors against the old team. Let's just say - the first 2 episodes show that those concerns are fully justified, and certainly feel like they've wasted 3 up-and-coming stars with Arioka Daiki, Narita Ryo and Araki Yuko by what they've done.

I'm going to take an aside and say I'm not familiar with the Japanese training or medical system. The system I'm familiar with has emergency medicine as a separate specialty, though I know in some countries the A&E is run by surgical and medical on-calls rather than specialised emergency doctors. Based on the skills set of the old cast, they appear most similar to dedicated "trauma doctors", essentially dual-trained in critical care and trauma/general surgery. The young doctors are called "fellows" in Japanese, which over here means they've completed their specialty training, but judging by their skill level at the beginning of Code Blue 1 and the new kids in Code Blue 3, they're at most fresh trainees/residency level.

Now, I know there are some useless residents out there, but the level of retard in these 3 new trainees is a whole new low. What Code Blue 1 did very well was show a bunch of new doctors who are being dropped in the deep end, and though they are terrified they're not useless, and it's as much a journey of growth as self-realisation of their strengths and weaknesses. Aizawa has amazing surgical skills but is a terrible team player. Shiraishi has great theoretical knowledge but not enough confidence or practical skills. Hiyama, while not being outstanding in any particular area, is well-balanced in terms of skills, knowledge and assertiveness, but can get bogged down with her emotions. Fujikawa's skills and knowledge aren't quite up to scratch, but he works hard and can handle being put down.

To be honest, 2 episodes in, I still have no idea what the 3 new doctors are like. The 2nd episode focused on Araki's Yokomine, and I flat out wanted to slap her when she burst into tears because Aizawa told her to put a chest drain. I mean yes, Aizawa's impersonal, "he's sedated so won't complain, so he's the perfect subject for you to practice" isn't exactly how you want to break the ice, but Yokomine's bawling, "OMG THAT IS SO MEAANNNN" is so primary school level I don't know even.... In fact, the 3 of them are so bloody incompetent they should be pulled from the floor - they're functioning like medical students that are only semi-interested and a bloody menace. I mean in episode 1 of season 1, Shiraishi was doing an arterial line - in episode 1 here, the kids "only understood half" of what the "massive transfusion protocol" (or equivalent) is. Hiyama even said, "Just do what you learned in JATEC" - which according to Wikipedia, is equivalent to the American ATLS, and that is absolutely NOT the level of skill these retards are functioning at.

I don't want to hate on the characters or the actors, so all I can do is call out the scripts for how stupid the 3 young doctors have been written to be in order to show the old cast as being wiser and more knowledgeable. It's rating well so far and I do enjoy it when the old cast is on, but the new characters have ruined the magic a bit for a series that has been reasonably realistic (compared to most other medical dramas out of Japan recently) in portraying the hospital environment.

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mayoraasei

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beyond the edge

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