House of the Owl Episodes 1+2

 

Disney Plus' House of the Owl has a lot in common with Netflix House of Ninjas. Instead of a family of Ninjas, the head of the house is the fixer of Japan played known as the Owl by Tanaka Min. The Owl operates in the shadows, covering up scandals and influencing the corridors of power and despite having loads of money, basically has one assistant similar to Karasawa Toshiaki's Fixer. 

Like House of Ninjas, House of the Owl is about the Owl's family who are all freaking idiots and disfunctional, especially the useless oldest son and looks like Mackenyu is going to be the other main character but there is nothing interesting about his character besides that he studied in the US and is working for an NPO in Japan.

I am glad that Tanaka Min is the main actor for this show because I doubt it would have happen for a jdorama made by Japanese. They would have cast for ratings. However, there is something about House of the Owl that I cannot stand: It has so much cringey and unnatural dialogue, even with the English dialogue especially the Mackenyu scenes.

It feels like the the dialogue might have been translated from English to Japanese and some of the English subs I do not agree with. House of the Owl feels very much like a Japanese show made for people for do not watch jdorama. I think most of the all, the writer is not good.

I really wanted to like House of the Owl but I can't. I get 2nd hand embarrassment from the god awful dialogue. I am physically unable to continue to the 3rd episode after the 2nd episode. The bad guy is supposed to be charming but creepy but the Hasegawa Kyoko's character just comes off as being obliviously stupid.

I don't hate House of the Owl like Amazon's Ryu ga Gotoku. It is just a shame that it is not very decent. You are better of watching Karasawa Toshiaki's Fixer. Do not watch.

Look Disney, if you want a good jdrama make me your producer and I will get Nojima Shinji or Sakamoto Yuji or Ozaki Masaya to do the script and throw lots of money at Mitsushima Hikari.

Shiroi Kyoto 2019 jdorama review

I wrote about the first episode of the 2019 remake a long time ago. I think I might have watched episode 2 but I never finished the series for some reason. Recently I have been thinking I need to revisit the 2003 series because I think watched the original show from HK dvd rips where they combined 2 episodes together into 1 dvd and I should download and rewatch in 1080.

Shiroi Kyoto or White Castle refers to climbing to the top of the university hospital hierarchy. Being the professor of the surgery department means that every morning you can lead a stupid procession and look at the charts of every patient without looking them in the face.

Our main character is super ambitious super surgeon, Zaizen Goro played by Okada Junichi. The lucky bastard married into the Zaizen family with Kaho as his wife and for some reason he spends all his time with his mistress played by Sawajiri Erika. 

I understand that no man can resist Erika-sama but at the expense of Kaho? And Kaho who plays the wife is hardly in the first half of the 5 episode series. The 2003 Fuji TV show is 22 episodes so TV Asashi has gone the opposite route and made a lean 5 episodes cutting a lot of the fat but it is the fat that makes a steak taste good.

On the other side of the coin is Zaizen's friend Satomi who is a doctor dedicated to his patients and his research. As Erika-sama aptly puts it, Zaizen saves lives to further his ambitions and Satomi saves lives because he cares for his patients. FYI Japanese fans refer to Sawajiri as Erika-sama. lol

Iitoyo Marie plays the daughter of Professor Azuma, the once mentor to Zaizen and Satomi who has a thing for Satomi. The casting of this remake is excellent and not to mention Mimura in a small role as a nurse.

The most entertaining role for me is Kobayashi Kaoru as Zaizen Mataichi, Goro's super rich father in law who wants a professor as a son-in-law and will use his wealth and connections to get Goro to the top of the white tower.

Shiroi Kyo has been remade many times because the story is excellent. It is hard to compare with the 2003 series because it has been ages since I have seen it but my sense 2019 remake is not as good. Not enough episodes to show the friendship between Zaizen and Satomi.

Not enough Kaho until the second half and maybe too much Erika-sama? Hard to fit everything into 5 episodes. I enjoyed it but non the the episodes gave me a must watch feeling. It felt like Zaizen got to the top really quickly and the fall in the 2nd half was a bit slow in pacing and had a tad too much overacting.

Still enjoyed this version of Shiroi Kyoto. Makes me want to rewatch the 2003 version so I can make comparisons. Maybe I won't like the 2003 as much after all these years?

If you have not seen Shiroi Kyoto, watch the 2003 one first unless 22 episodes is too much for you or you are a fan of Erika-sama. Very watchable.

Tsugunai The Unforgiven Blu Ray

Tsugunai is near the top of my list for jdoramas that I like a lot more than I should. I love the cast with Tanihara Shosuke who now does morning tv, Kimura Tae and the late Ashina Sei. The story of this homeless doctor solving a murder mystery was a fun 3 episode show and unfortunately, there is no 720 copy of the show. Not in Avista, jptv or nyaa. So my only option was to buy a bluray copy.

I have always wanted to support jdoramas and I am glad I can do that buy watching them on Amazon Prime, Disney + and Netflix but the cost of a bluray set is around 20, 000 yen. The minimum wage in Tokyo is 1,113 yen. Two days worth of wages will not even buy a jdorama set, even at used price.

Since this is only a 3 episode show, the price is nowhere near that expensive. The full retail price for Tsugunai is 9000 yen but I got it second hand for about half the price. Yes, I am aware that the market for jdoramas is limited to Japan and they have to make their money back but average person can't afford this. Same with the price of anime in Japan. The average person can't afford 20, 000 yen on a tv show when it can buy a lot of meals.

If I ever buy another bluray jdorama series, it will either be a series that I really love or something I am unable to find online. 

Bloody wished NHK had done a sequel to this.

Stepfather Step Episodes 1~5

When I found out that jptv.club was closing, I went on a crazy download spree. No need to keep a good ratio anymore, it was time to leech like crazy and get some shows I had never seen before. I was looking around thinking what Konishi Manami jdoramas I have not seen before and I saw Stepfather Step. I remember hearing the name before and since it has Kamikaya Takaya (Iryu Sosa) and Hirayama Aya I decided to give it a go.

Stepfather Step is about an expert robber called Kaitou (phantom thief) King played by Kaimikaya Takaya and his calling card is leaving a King of Clubs at a crime scene. Hirayama Aya is his colleague who is a scam artist but she only scams bad people and they both work for his lawyer.

Kaitou King losses his footing one day, falls down a hill and is knocked out but is rescued by twin brothers. Both parents of the twins happened to elope with their lovers at the same time so the twins are in need of a father and decided that our Kaitou King is the man for the job.

Stepfather Step is a super kid friendly dorama. It is more about a thief becoming a suburban dad, taking out the trash and dealing with nosy neighbours including a cop. Stepfather Step  is more about creating touching moments like a mother who gave her daughter away or kids covering up for their classmate being accused of stealing. 

There's nothing wrong with that, it is just that the writing feels very primitive compared to something like Shiroi Haru which was a funny and nuanced jdorama about an ex-con playing dad to a girl whereas Stepfather Step feels so generic and uninspired

It is a show that completely ignores the fact that teacher played by Konishi Manami spends so much time with the twins instead of the students in her class. The twins always speaking in unison is also annoying. It is a common anime trope where twins must say the same sentence all the time but it happens all the time and rather than finding it cute, I find it annoyingly fake and trying too hard to be cute. Not to mention zero attraction storyline between fake father and fake mother. Stepfather Step is too much of a squeaky clean kids show. 

I really wanted to like Stepfather Step because of the cast but no amount of acting can save a generic script. I don't feel like finishing it at all because watching is a chore. The files from jptv are in ts format which means uncompressed files at about 4gb each! I am not going to delete them because they don't exist in nyaa, jptvts or avista. Maybe someday I'll upload them somewhere.

Speaking of jptv, one series I really wanted to download was a Uchino Masaaki series called Hadachi: Uma no Hone. No one was seeding it and I can't find it anywhere. Should have downloaded more from jptv. In summary, Stepfather Step is a very generic TBS show about a thief playing dad and a teacher playing mom to twin boys. You are better off watching Shiroi Haru. Meh.

Gannibal S2 Episodes 1+2

 

Season 2 of Gannibal is here! The first season ended at a very exciting cliffhanger when I thought the show was close to finishing. Our main character Agawa  had discovered the secret and was close to pulling off a rescue. Surely there wasn't much story left to tell right?

Turns out there is much to tell and we find out this Gotou family has another secret that is equally as bad if not worse than cannibalism. It explains why everyone in this family is weird and scary.

Especially this new character who is going to be a challenge for Keisuke.

The most important thing I learned from the first 2 episodes is that Kita Kana has a nice buck tooth sleeping face.

I don't understand how any sane man would not run away from his family for Kita Kana.

Especially a family like this.

Am I the only one who really wants to this Toyohara Kosuke prequel series? I am guessing he is going to be in flashbacks.

The grandmother is one piece of work. She is the worst person in the whole thing.

I have just activated my Disney+ to support Gannibal. Normal jdorama budget would not have allowed the violence in this show.

Can't believe Disney does not have limits on violence in Gannibal.

Can't wait to see the rest of the 6 episodes. Won't give S2 of Gannibal a must watch yet because it is too early. My only worry is that while Agawa is a badass and can hold his own against the monster, it is a bit of a stretch when he has to face a fully armed family. 

I love how they did the monster. He looks like scary and doesn't look real but they have mixed in practical effects with the CG. Very watchable. I subscribed 4K but I can't really tell the difference from the 1080 rips. 

64 / Rokuyon jdorama review

64 is an 2015 NHK show about an unsolved case where a little girl was kidnapped for ransom and was found dead after the money was delivered. The 64 in the title refers to the year when the crime happened, 1989 or Showa 64, the last year of Showa era before Heisei began.

Pierre Taki who has has cancelled in Jdoramas, only appearing in Netflix shows plays the main character Mikami, a former detective who was involved with the 64 case and now works as the head of public relations in D prefecture. So nice to see Pierre Taki in a leading role because he is usually a supporting actor. So sad he got cancelled in Judge Eyes. I have a digital copy of the PS4 original and I have a feeling if I start it up, it will update and remove him from the game so if I want to play it again, I have to do it offline.

Mikami is haunted by the case, which happened 14 years ago but he has bigger worries as his daughter has run away from home and his wife sits at home waiting for silent cause from his daughter. Furthermore, as head of PR for the police he is constantly butting heads with the media over issues such as not releasing names of suspects. 

As the head of PR, Mikami is also tasked with convincing the father of the victim to accept the visit of the Director of Police before the statute of limitations runs out on the case. Mikami is a person under a lot of stress and he is trying to juggle it all so he has my full attention.

In the beginning, 64 seems so familiar. I have seen so many unsolved cases jdoramas before. What makes 64 stand out is showing the relationship between police and media and PR team who get no information from actual detectives and the media constantly crying for blood because they feel the police are stonewalling them. Most of the times in jdoramas, media are usually presented as just printing out the police's press release instead of doing investigations so this part is refreshing. 

However, it is very dangerous to give too much information to the media especially before an investigation is finished. We have seen it time and time again media jumping to the wrong conclusions in Australia. Media fight to be the first to report something and get the scoop and they play a role in keeping police honest but at the same time, everything is not so black and white.

The one thing I do not like is the direction of 64. The director Inoue Tsuyoshi did one of my favourite shows ever Hagetaka but there is a kind of weirdness to the direction. There is always a high pitched noise between scenes and sometimes the angles are weird. I don't know how to explain it but the style of the show seems wrong. I feel like a more traditional WOWOW style would have been better.

That being said, I feel like I have to watch the 2 part movie now because the story is pretty good and I like the way that the real killer's identity is discovered because it ties everything up beautifully. Watchable 5 episodes which should have been 4.

Apollo no Uta Eps 1~3

Apollo no Uta is about a guy called Shogo who becomes becomes a gigolo because of his childhood trauma seeing his mother sleep with many different men. 

He goes through life without care except for his childhood friend Hiromi who has a thing for him but he brushes it away.

At the end of episode one, something horrible happens and Shogo has done something he cannot take back. However he wakes up in a world where there is a different Hiromi who is a singer and is no longer Shogo's childhood friend. Shogo's mom is different and I was thinking is this a fix your mistake in another timeline story.

At the end of episode 3, Shogo goes to a different timeline/world this time with robots/artifical humans and it seems like this series is about him running into Hiromi in different worlds. This is a very low budget show and visually there is nothing special and I don't find there is much chemistry between the characters to keep me interested.

Apollo no Uta is based on a work by Tezuka Osamu, the god of manga so the story should be good but I am not compelled to watch episode 4 and there are too many things to watch. Meh.