So, if you didn’t figure this shit out when you watched the actual SP that aired back in October, NTV just announced that The Left Eyed Detective… Eye (review here) will be receiving a full episode drama series for Winter 2010 drama season. This means that the cheesy stupid plotline of the SP will be carried on for additional 9 – 10 episodes, filled with annoying dumb bitches and detectives.

Also, returning will be Yoko and the dumb bitch teacher. Yamada has lead as the boy genius with the magic eye.

I’ll probably end up watching it for the lulz if not anything else. The SP was a true bore and disbelievingly mindbogglingly stupid until the last 10 minutes with the TWEEEEEEST that caught my attention. I can already see it now; Yamada has to chase Yoko around Tokyo solving mysteries, Yoko will then have his evil plans foiled and curses Yamada into the next episode until the final two eps where they face off in an anti-climatic battle of wits where probably either Yoko dies or turns himself into the police.

Gyah….

Only people really excited for this is Yokoyama’s newly found fanbase that all of sudden appeared from the woodworks after Quiz Show. I just want Yoko to go back to eating twinkies, having terrible hair styles, and being absolutely completely obnoxious talking about how much he’d want to motorboat some gravure model’s breasts. Because, then, when that happens all his new fans run away back to Ryo/Yamapi/Sho land where there’s a never ending supply of skinny boys and half baked abs.

New skinny as a twig Yoko isn’t appealing to me anymore. If this is the resulting factor then please stick me in a time machine so I can go right back to 2007 — The year everyone hated Yokoyama Yuu.

You and me both, Yamada. You and me both.

Tomoya must have really fucked up to make his ex-wife this paranoid

I’ve pretty much dropped the ball on My Girl, forgetting that its still airing and catching it in bits and pieces here and there. But I recently saw episode 4 and downloaded 5 and 6 with plans of watching them sometime this week.

Episode 4 pretty much fleshes out Hina’s character in the drama. Mr. Tomoya isn’t a douchebag on purpose to Masamune, he’s only doing it because he sees him as a reflection of himself five years ago. So he’s hard on him — To the point of scolding him in front of a parent, stating that he will never acknowledge him as a father. Well, eventually, Tomoya gets a wake up call and cools off; slowly growing to a compromise with Masamune and his ongoing struggle with being a single father. On the flipside, Tomoya has to live with the mistake he made and the loss of a son he could have had.

My Girl, from the previews of ep 5, seems to be heading in an episodic route. Now that Masaume and Koharu are in check, its now time to explore everyone else and their screwed up family life problems. We’ve now found out what’s eating his mom in episode 3, found out what’s pissing off Tomoya in episode 4, and now we get to see what’s crawling up his boss’ ass in episode 5. I’m also starting to loose interest in this drama, its not as engaging as I hope it would have been.

This episode tackled the issue of divorce and custody, albeit lightly. It made me think about custody rights over there in Japan and how fucked up it is. There’s no such thing as 50/50 child custody once a divorce is final. One parent gets the child and that’s that; parental rights is gone for the loser in the divorce proceedings. This means the spouse can get up and leave with your kid and you have not a single say in the issue. Its a cruel and sad way of doing things and a lot of parents on the short end of the stick really suffer with it.

I don’t feel as if people like Tomoya’s character should be punished for the mistakes they made that lead up to the divorce. If they’re willing to compromise and make change, why make the child suffer? When his son, Yusuke, stated that he didn’t have a father it really bothered me. Yet, its a justifiable situation in Japan. Like being a father only matters if its documented on paper not by blood. Hopefully that simply won’t be the end to Tomoya’s story, but I have a feeling it will be.

There needs to be something engaging in this drama to happen. Its getting stale and fast too.

Like a boss

This week marked the final episode for the first story of 0 Gou shitsu no Kyaku. In a nutshell, Hiro tries to kill his ex-fiance and boss but his cell phone rings, distracting him and making him run away as if he wasn’t trying to stab them. He gets a text message from Miyuki and decides to wander around Tokyo aimlessly. Miyuki, on the other hand, spends the rest of the night at Room 0 reflecting on her relationship with Hiro.

At the end, the two realize that even though they’re not similar in social status or intellect, they’re similar in their plight: Two individuals constantly bullied for who they are. They patch up their relationship, Hiro really now appreciating his relationship with Miyuki rather than using it as an excuse to justify himself and the two leave Room 0 hand in hand.

While, on the other side of town, Miyuki sends a text to Sachi who turns out to be the girlfriend of the lead of our next story. She tells him that Miyuki spent the night with some guy, and he tells her he’s not going home tonight because he has to make up some jokes for his manzai act. At first she accuses him of doing something behind her back (ie: cheating) but then he explains to her about how crucial the punchline of a joke is. So Sachi mentions to him that he should just do it at home with his partner, but…

” Nah, I found a better place “

And pulls out a ticket for Room 0.

The only weakness Room 0 has is it’s pacing. While the first episode builds up the drama perfectly, it gets lost between eps 2 and 3 to rush an ending with the final ep. The story of Hiro and Miyuki was a very deep and complicated issue that tried to tell itself in 4 ten minute episodes. Essentially the depth of the story got lost and the rushed ending seemed a bit unsatisfying and predictable. All and all, it was a great entertaining watch — But tried to tell a complicated story in under 40 minutes.

Next week starts the second story in which Maru and Yasu of Kanjani8 take over as a struggling manzai duo that can’t come up with good jokes anymore. I am really excited for this episode because Kanjani8 takes the entire lead for the next four weeks (Maru, Yoko, and Yasu). Friday needs to be here already

I did enjoy the tie in of the two stories, I thought that was nice.

 

 

In the second to last installment of The Pitiful Life of Hiroyuki Matsuda, we finally learn the reason why Hiro is in the mental state he’s in today. He has no confidence, his boss hates him, his co-workers mock him, and his fiance left him. With this all toppling over on him, he pours himself out to Miyuki in which in return Miyuki tells him to suck it up, that she’s had it way worst than him; that she was mocked as a child for being fat and having pimples.

” I wouldn’t think to kill someone because my crappy boss and shitty fiance betrayed me! You’re weak! That’s why your score is 38 points! “

Miyuki yelled at Hiro. So in a rage, she orders room service and stuffs her face with a turkey leg while Hiro attempts to rate himself again now figuring out his fault. To find out he’s worst off than he was when he arrived, a score of 31 points.

” Sir, where are you going? “

The hotel proprietor askes Hiroyuki, but he soundlessly leaves the hotel.

Next week is the climax and it looks like Hiro is going to try and kill his boss for stealing his fiance.

This episode has to be the best out of the three that have aired. But, what’s good is that Room 0 continues to get better.

 

Two days marked the release of Kyu*Jyou*Show (A pun on Kyujyoushou, meaning a sudden rise) and much like the release for Musekinin Hero last year (I can’t believe Musekinin Hero was last year) we had a three version release; a regular edition and two limited edition releases that feature a DVD. The packaging for the LE’s are similar to the ones for Musekinin Hero last year, except we don’t get a snazzy little plastic cover case for the CDs. Those were traded off for actual CD booklets.

In this episode, Hiro blows up because the dumb bitch who can’t read ” The Pros and Cons ” off of a newspaper got a higher score than him as a human. So he takes it out on the mysterious hotel proprietor who then asks him if a score is really worth more than the girl. Hiro storms back into Room 0, bitching up a storm, which causes Miyuki to reevaluate her situation and come to her “senses”.

Miyuki goes off on Hiro, throws him to the ground, and Hiro has a mental breakdown; remembering all the abuse he gets from his own job. He goes into his jacket and pulls out a knife.

In the mean time, the hotel proprietor speaks of “es”, the german word for experiment and goes into detail about a cracked out experiment between 20 normal people, where they split them into two groups: prisoners and guards…. Which, at the end, the guards killed the prisoners.

Room 0 has become a lot more bizarre than I thought it would be.

The acting wasn’t spectacular in this, but with how bizarre this show is and how short each episode is…. It’s to be expected. I did lol at the fact Matsujun and an Iron Chef have visited Room 0 and had exceptional scores.

I’m betting that this Yagikuni Hiko, the creator of the Room 0 system, is in fact the hotel proprietor himself. In the flash backs, the one who had ran that experiment was Yoko himself. Now why would he be running a bizarre experiment like that?

This is the only good thing about ROMES

Romes has a severe problem of a dragging storyline, unconvincing scenes, and bland characters. So whoever thinks this is the greatest drama of the Fall 09 season should jump off a bridge and save us from their inane, tasteless, opinions; because ROMES is a pretty shitty drama. A shitty drama with failed promise.

I think that’s my problem when Japanese dramas try to take on the suspense/crime route: They’re never as believable as the American counterparts. I can never get into them.

I dout ep 3 is goig to get any better. Ohkura’s acting hasn’t.

So the Guests of Room 0 have premiered and… I just wanted to say….

FINALLY A DRAMA THIS SEASON THAT I’VE ACTUALLY WATCHED THE FIRST EPISODE MORE THAN ONCE.

It’s totally along the same style as the Engimono series of dramas, in which its a series of four episodes per story with a different Johnny every month in their own unique plight. The one thing I do like about this, its all within one consistent scenario: A hotel, it’s owner, and the guests that revolve through its doors. I was quite shocked to actually see Joshima appear right in episode 1 — especially since his story isn’t until next year.

I think the one thing I’m in love of the most in this series is the ending sequence. I think I actually love how Yoko’s character of the hotel proprietor and story teller has a magical, elusive, mysterious feel to him. Its like whoever planned this series bit off of Tim Burton’s Willy Wonka remake big time and threw in some magic. It also does help that this premieres the week BEFORE Halloween.

I also enjoy the fact that the setting of the hotel is definitely Victorian. For some reason I just kept thinking Edgar Allan Poe or something… Alice in Wonderland… I dunno.

He welcomes you to his chocolate factory... I mean, hotel.

In ep 2 Aiba realizes that if you be a shitty dad to your daughter who will do anything not to be an inconvenience to you and your life, it’d only make your life even harder. So the goal of this episode was baiscally to get Kazama to finally accept and admit that he was a father, not just to himself, but to everyone else. He still was embarrassed and/or ashamed to admit that he was indeed the father to an adorable 5 year old girl.

There was nothing signifigantly outstanding that stood out in this episode. Hina had a bit more screen time, but I can see his character only being the voice of reason for Aiba. Its still weird seeing him be gentle when he’s such an aggressive person in Kanjani8 — Or we can simply say, the character Shingo Murakami plays in Kanjani8 is an hot temper-abusive character (because we obviously don’t know what Hina is like in real life).

The acting wasn’t autrociously bad, which was good. Aiba knows how to get the tears out, so that’s a plus. I still haven’t seen Aiba do anything bad like many have said. So far he’s been pulling through without me wanting to run into a wall or rant (ahem romes). The little girl, Koharu, is still adorable. I think she’s the only reason why I am really watching it.

There hasn’t been any major conflict that has happened yet, unless you consider Kazama’s idiocy to be an element of conflict. Next week it seems that his mother, who was against his relationship with Yoko, isn’t too happy with the knowledge that she’s now a grandmother and her son is now a father.  I don’t think its going to be the central plot though. Meh. My Girl is playing it safe.

Sorry for the lack of episode summary. I’m already a week late on it and I’m really busy IRL, so I couldn’t write much of one anyway.

Damn cute girl

Unfortunately, I’ll still be watching it.