Don't start slitting your wrists, Shige.

This week starts this month’s story of Room 0. This is going to be short, so forgive me.

Karin is a young girl with a terminal illness and Yazaki (Shige) is her doctor. With the hope of being “healed”, Karin is pretty optimistic while on the other hand Yazaki struggles with the fact that she has an illness he can’t heal and that he’s not as “perfect” as how everyone sees him to be. So after being selected to go spend a night in the infamous Room 0, Karin makes Yazaki score himself to reveal a near perfect score of 98 points. Karin then goes to take her own score which reveals….

Comapred to the last story, the pacing in this one seems to flow a lot better than the other two. Rather than simply focus on drama and conflict in the first two episodes and shove a ” This is why ” and ” Happy Ending! “, episode 1 of The Perfect Man interchanges between the past and Yazaki’s conflict seen through the eyes of his nurse and now which settles you in early rather than later.

Shige’s performance has been so far safe, but he doesn’t do much in the first episode to garner any brownie points in that department. He’s mostly smiled, say a few nice things, cry to himself, and look uncertain but nothing extraordinary. Majority of the acting is carried on by Karin and the girl who played the flute in Buzzer Beat that I totally forgot her name.

I’ve been so busy in my personal life that I totally forgot this episode aired. I’m also extremely behind on all my other dramas that I planned on watching. Room 0 seems easier to watch, only 10 minutes, compared to the others which are a full 45. Gyah.

In the final two episodes of the second story of Room 0, we learn to find out that Osamu and Atsushi are two talentless individuals. While Atsushi knows this fact and tries to make best of his comedy, Osamu has taken fame to his head and forgotten who got him in that spot and why he’s in the situation he’s in now. After their fruitless fight of seeing who’s better, Atsushi reminds Osamu of the days when they were just coming up and struggling and how a certain individual cultured them to be able to win the Japan Manzai King Competition.

Osamu is reluctant, at first, to accept the fact that his selfishness and impatient personality destroyed the relationship between himself and the man that made him who he was today — but soon comes to accept reality. He doesn’t have the “talent” he yearns for because without that man he would be another faceless “comedian” from Osaka trying to make it big. His inflated ego burned many bridges and Triple Dynamite’s lack of success since that competition was their punishment for it.

But, when the Hotel Proprietor lets Atsushi know its ten minutes till check out — He slips in a little hint about “forgetting something”, triggering in Atsushi’s head to call up the man that was the third piece to Triple Dynamite, the man who made them win the competition, the man they had abandoned and turned against — Tokitou.

Apologizes are said and then they finally realize that in some way, in their own right, they have talent. They just need to polish it up themselves than depend on others to do the work for them. They leave Room 0 happily with both recieving an equal score of 60, together = 120.

I felt that this weeks episode rushed past within a blink of an eye. Twenty mintues were dedicated to building up tension and reaching a climax to rush to a ‘ happily ever after ‘ conclusion that came off choppy and too quick. While Story 1 ended smoothly, Story 2 ended in a way that seemed like the episode writer had less than 5 minutes to come up with an ending to an already complicated storyline. Panning to Yoko to do his humanity observation report and then cutting to a scene of just scores without showing the two men was pretty bad in my opinion. The only way you figure out the fate of the two is when they introduce the third story, Shige of NEWS part of Room 0 series of short stories.

I feel like they needed an extra episode to put it all together. It just ended sourly and I don’t like that. Let’s hope Story 3 doesn’t pull the same mess.

Why's you gotta be such a dumbass?

In this week’s Room 0 a new story begins telling the story of a Manzai duo that just can’t stand each other and barely hanging together by a thread. Maru plays Osamu, the egotistical self involved tsukkomi who believes that he is the embodiment of talent while Yasu plays Atsushi, the boke who is lesser serious of the two and always has a joke up his sleeve but is stomped on by Osamu for being stupid.

So, Osamu drags Atsushi to Hotel Point to find a justification in his career as a comedian. After winning the Japan Manzai King Competition three years ago, they’ve fallen out of the spotlight for the last two years and Osamu feels as if his talent is being wasted with Atsushi. He flaunts his stardom status in front of the Hotel Proprietor who isn’t phased by the celebrity status and then orders Atsushi around like his lap dog as he rails on him about how much his jokes suck and that he just won’t get a higher score than him.

Atsushi on the other hand grumbles and mumbles but does what Osamu says until the scores come back. When its revealed that Atsushi is just one point higher than Osamu in their personal scores, Atsushi suddenly has the courage to basically tell Osamu to go fuck himself and get him a juice from the fridge. Osamu gives at Atsushi a WTF face and cues to credits.

This week’s Room 0 pretty much follows the last story in the same storyline -> Overconfident character A brings lesser confident/clueless character B to Hotel Point, exploits why they’re so great, then get a rude awakening to find out they suck comparative to character B and thus have a mental breakdown.

I’m soooooooooooooooo blown away with Maru, ahahah! You see, Maru is my #1 favorite member of K8 along with Yoko…. and I’m so used to his ” boke ” and ” happy go lucky ” character that seeing him play an asshole was like ” OMG WHAT’S WRONG WITH MY BOO? ” Ahahaha, it was a bit hard to get used to.

They broke the 4th wall in this episode which was very hilarious and featured Ryo as another ” high score of Room 0 ” with a total point score of 90.

I wonder what next week has in store? What really did happen at that competition? Why has Osamu become so self involved with himself? And why have their relationship deteriorated to one of no respect?

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.