Bhavna

To be honest and open hearted in a cruel and callous world

This show really opened my eyes. On the surface, it’s a funny, comedic series about this real estate agent, formerly known as “Liar Nagase” and how an incident causes him to be blessed (although he says cursed) with the Spirit that blows through him whenever he is tempted to lie, and forces the truth out of him. He starts off as a lying, manipulative realtor that will do or say anything to get a contract, including all of its bells and whistles. Turns out he learned this from a former employee Kamiki, who taught him all the manipulative techniques to become number 1 at any cost. Tosaka Real Estate where Nagase works, along with its rival Minerva use this ranking system that pits salespeople against each other for some competition where the #1 salesperson for the month gets serious perks. Minerva is all around scammy and will go to any level to get money and contracts, but meanwhile Tosaka has a little more ethic- especially since Nagase’s Spirit blessing of honesty started, he starts to inspire others such as Tsukishita who is his younger female coworker who is open hearted, polite, people pleasing, and earnest. The series shows how this spirit of honesty and inner alignment with truth changes Nagase’s perspective on life, where he used to live for money, the flashy high rise life, hooking up with random women, and the number 1 sales spot, but now sees something more important than the number 1 spot, which is bringing joy to others, which makes him happy. He starts to feel for the first time a sense of happiness and meaning in his job, whereas before it was just a cold, hard game. His approach even softens the heart of Kamiki, his number 1 rival when Kamiki starts working for Minerva and becomes a villainous rival of sorts for Nagase. It’s like Nagase is battling his own former self or shadow, and sheds light on Kamiki’s obsession with #1 being an armor of protection and a way coping for immense grief and pain he hides inside. Kamiki was a fascinating character, and when his backstory was explained, I was in tears. All villains are hiding great pain, and if it was only allowed to process instead of the ego taking over and creating a mask where they felt powerless, there could be healing and restoration of the soul. But if it is given to the ego, then it creates this hardened, insensitive, manipulative mask, a false self and a shell in place of the suffering victim which becomes a dangerous force. In fact, all the unprocessed pain in the world creates this callous, harsh world and atmosphere that you see in the series. And Nagase along with Tsukishita become like beacons of light in such a world. Once you get past the grief inside, you find the joy of Spirit deep within, that radiates throughout the world. The title song “So far so good” by Kazumasa Oda that plays at the end of every episode is so touching and heartwarming. It really speaks to the healing and joy of Spirit that is brought to everyone at the end of the day when honesty and genuine intentions are extended to all.

As far as performances go, I grew to really love the guy who played Nagase (Tomoshima Yamashita)- at first I wasn’t used to his face, and he just looked like a total a-hole, but then as he went through this honest transformation by the spirit, I found him to be more and more attractive. Then I looked him up and I realized he was the naked dude in Alice in Boderland! Ohhh it makes sense now! In the second season they changed his haircut and he gained weight, so he was definitely not as attractive as the first season. He had more of a dad look in the second season lol. But his character was solid. I loved Tsukishita- she was so sweet and innocent, and when I would go out into the world and encounter mean and horrible people, I would remember her and her smile and it would make me feel better- like there is some light and kindness in this world. Kamiki was my other favorite- his charisma was off the charts, even though his tap dancing was strange and comical- it was very “anime” like for a villain so I thought that was cool too. His backstory was so sad and it gave him more depth as a character especially when seeing his grief and his transformation towards the end, where he questions everything- his philosophy and so even the unbeatable villain has this soft spot where he is humbled and brought to his knees. It was sweet to see the end where it showed that he could change too.

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A match made in hell

A disempowered woman seeks a relationship dynamic where she can feel wanted, and in power. This is what the age stuff is really about- younger people tend to look up to those who are older, and she clearly had an advantage in the relationship with the boy compared to that of her boyfriend who was an abusive, ugly, angry slob. It doesn’t justify how she seduced the high school kid though- that scene in the karaoke booth was incredibly disturbing- to think that she would do that to a kid who’s never had experience with that, and it’s just taking advantage of the power dynamic- but yeah it becomes a match made in hell really. With the kid who has been traumatized by that early sexual encounter and abuse by her, he acts out the unresolved trauma of the boundary violations later. Sexual abuse always results in rage and unresolved anger in the victim, no matter how much it is denied, and the poor kid uses that same act back at her to try to regain control. His life becomes confused, as she injects her own confusion into it. It is a sad predicament- and yeah even though she seem to be together in the end, is it really a choice, or grooming by the abuser? I can understand the feelings of the disempowered, invalidated woman, but I also understand the feelings of the victim and this is not a match made in Heaven, that’s for sure. Dysfunction begets more dysfunction.

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Hollow, flat, lacks depth and life of the anime

As a longtime lover of the anime, I’ve tried to watch this first movie several times, and I get that they don’t follow the anime timeline or stories exactly and that’s fine, but what I’m looking for is more of the vibe, the soul, the essence of the anime. And like many live action movie versions of great anime’s (My Happy Marriage is another example of this), this live action movie fails to capture the magic and essence of the anime. It’s not about the story or the plot points, this live action version is like kenshin with no soul. Don’t get me wrong, Takeru Satoh has done an incredible job playing Himura Kenshin, and he is the only character worth watching and embodies some of the soul of the anime. He has that purity, innocence, but the deadly strength. The rest are hollow, flat, and very one note. Kaoru, Yahiko, Sanosuke, heck even Jinei- how is it that all of them are like flat 2d puppets that lack the depth of the anime? Kind of ironic right? The “real” human actors -when they try to mimic the depth of a 2d animation, they fail miserably and look hollow and flat.

Why does Kaoru let Kenshin get arrested even though he saved her and the school from the rowdy men? At the very least, she would need him for protection. It’s obviously not in the original story, and is totally useless, and just makes her look like an ungrateful person. So weird. The scene with Jinei is so lackluster- she overcomes the trance in 2 seconds and they’re like “Uh oh the spell broke!” It’s so lame!

The villain is wearing this weird fake Halloween teeth on his lower row of teeth and with that haircut and that ridiculous pompous background music theme, he just comes across as a joker. A joker is fine- the anime has plenty of that, but like I said, it is hollow.

The music of the Kenshin anime series is like the heart and soul of it- the music breathes life into it. The music here is again hollow, adds nothing to the movie at all. People rated these movies highly for their star power and keep marveling at “wow it’s one of the best anime adaptations!” If this is the best, then I don’t want to know what the worst is. I don’t plan to find out. Stick with the anime. It has soul that these movies don’t have.

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What happened?

The director and screenwriters for this movie must be totally different people from the series because the movie sucked despite having the same actors in the lead.

The only thing I was interested in was seeing Nami get her memory back, and see who see saves from there. But instead I got a two hours of boredom. I waited so patiently for something interesting to happen, but no. The only interesting thing was the moment when Nami got her memory back. Although even that was anti climactic. The story was incredibly boring so the stuff that didn’t concern me whatsoever. Whatever made the series interesting- the neighborhood drama was cut from the movie and they were somewhere else doing some other thing with stuff blowing up and the politicians and the Russians and who cares what else. So boring.

Why is the husband monitoring his wife like a robot as if she’s an object 24/7? Is 24/7 surveillance considered romantic? Is that a relationship or a science experiment? And the Russian or random white guy villain? As usual the foreigners are terrible low budget actors. Yawn.

Sooo she gets shot in the heart by her husband and somehow survives it because… Why? How? I got royally pissed when she was shot but seriously how much does this poor character need to endure?

Who was the director? It couldn’t have been the same person as the series. It was the typical sequel letdown, but because the series was so good (I gave it a 10, this movie in comparison gets a 1.

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Meh..

I was looking for more things from Issey Takahashi coming off Kishibe Rohan, and I landed on this story. I thought the premise and the title sounded super interesting and was eager to watch it. The whole movie has a slow, dark, and gloomy vibe- not a bad thing but it wasn’t very interesting. I’m all about slow but it was missing real juice and life. The whole movie felt lifeless. I literally watched it for him, but after a very short while I couldn’t bring myself to care about any of the characters. Also the Takahashi character’s flashback about his wife killing their kid and then killing herself reminded me a lot of Shutter Island- where the man basically loses himself after that incident. Never thought I would say it but in this particular case I would prefer the Hollywood version (which I usually don’t).

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The whole show is shallow, childish, and annoying

The alien coming to earth is likeable enough, I mean who doesn’t like an outsider who transcends time and has superpowers and unlimited wealth but is beyond the world? The alien guy has loads of interesting things about him and they could have explored this angle- I mean he’s lived for 400 years starting from the Edo period, but the director of the show never once explores where he came from or what he knows through all his life on earth even, but instead he chose to focus on…

The female lead who is a vacuous has-been airheaded actress and obsessed with her looks and self image, not unlike a regular instagram model. What?! Wow! So original! The show chose to focus on the most mundane character and her narcissism above the cool alien who has super powers? Apparently she and her shallow life is more interesting than what Alien guy has been doing on earth for 400 years or where he came from? Ok let’s talk about the fantastic female lead this show chooses to waste all its time on. She is extremely annoying- because she’s been an actress since the age of 12, perhaps the idea is that she is mentally and emotional stunted or damaged. She surrounds herself with posters and billboards of her own image. Her facial expressions are terribly self conscious and her face contorts itself into new shapes every second with every word, as if she’s trying really hard to be cute or adorable or “an actress,” but just ends up looking like a weirdo. It’s the “socialite” kind of self-absorbed, unbearably bad actor. I mean a grown adult making the expressions of a toddler 24/7 with the emotional intelligence and maturity of a peanut and the narcissism, self importance, and intelligence of an toddler stuck to a mirror all day, I can’t fathom how the alien guy likes her except for the fact that they live close to each other and so the sparks must fly out of sheer proximity? But out of 400 years of being on the earth is this the best the alien guy could do? She is not a catch but keeps telling herself and everyone else that she is in order to keep her fragile ego running. As for the alien says he never felt lonely for 400 years being alone on his own but now all of a sudden he feels lonely because he’s fallen into an instagram romance with this actress? The director squeezes the infinitely more interesting alien and his powers into a cheap party trick for human perception. How come nobody is curious about his powers or where he came from? This self centered actress never once asked about his place or researched how he got to this planet. Only her brother who’s a space enthusiast bothers to look up the comet that came and dropped Alien dude off during the Edo period. All the actress could say is “He’s not leaving anymore! He’s staying here for ME! Must be the power of love! Yay!” Her curiosity about his ends there. What kind of love is that except her own narcissism about her “desirability and charm” to seduce men? Is this actress’s hollow socialite charm, seduction born of desperation, and “sex appeal” forced from childhood trauma and loneliness from lacking a father figure equal to “love?” This show’s director seems to think so.

There is a scene in the 5th episode where the female is drugged and put in a moving car- when she wakes up she’s at the driver’s seat of this speeding car headed for a cliff and the brakes don’t work. Instead of opening the door and getting the hell out, she screams “Help me Professor Toyama!” Like hello do you see that he’s not in the car? How stupid is this woman to call upon someone who’s not even in the scene? Lucky for her Toyama happens to be a teleporting alien who has great skills and can save her ridiculous self. One has to wonder how this actress has managed to stay alive all these years with nothing but a self important ego and narcissism in her toolbox. She is only good for two things: making ridiculous baby expressions and passing out/getting drunk/sleeping.

Another even more ridiculous scene is where this woman says she can make any man fall for her in 15 seconds and she sets a timer and starts doing the top 10 most ridiculous “charming” “Look at me I’m a baby” expressions- and somehow at the end of it even she runs of out ideas but Mr alien dude falls for it and kisses her because her toddler charm worked on him. And then cue the melodramatic K drama music at full volume! What a caricature. There’s nothing romantic about this show. So this incredible alien guy who has lived and watched humanity for 400 years falls in love with a toddler woman who justifies him throwing away his wisdom of impermanence over centuries and extraterrestrial powers for a cheap K drama relationship?? Then the actress lady brags about the earth “The whole earth is a delicacy!” As if to poo-poo alien guy’s planet because she doesn’t care to know where he came from, but they’re in a love relationship right? All centered around her and her petty shallow human whims like taking selfies with the stereotypical “Hai cheezu!” Is that a relationship? Oh God what am I going to do with these characters who have the depth of a sheet of paper?

The show seems to tip toe around her large baby ego and it’s annoying to watch. I came her for the cool alien powers not the usual K drama style romance, yawn! Watching this show is hardly bearable due to the female lead but I was still interested in what the murder mystery story was about.

It reminds me of the maturity level of a K-drama which tends to be at a middle school or high school level of pettiness and performance. It reeks of that same kind of “Means Girls” K drama pettiness and fluff, with exaggerated facial expressions and bad acting.

Also, I have to give the music a 1 star as well because it reminds me of those hollow K dramas that have to fill every second with mind numbing noise, aka melodramatic violin music, because the show is made for toddlers with no attention span, and no tolerance for silence and stillness that other J dramas have.

Also there are many scenes where it’s obvious that they’re using green screen and not a real background but it looks incredibly cheap.

Then Mr alien drops the biggest bomb of all- he wants a K drama happily ever after complete with 24/7 melodramatic violin BGM and “to grow old with her” because he envies the fleeting impermanent life of humans that grow old, decay, and die. This show needs a dose of Buddha’s teachings seriously. There is nothing glamorous or romantic about the life of a human that is characterized by suffering, sickness, and death. But if it’s wrapped in melodramatic romantic music and some nice filters then surely it’s enviable! Give me a break. Mr Alien is ready to those away a life of infinite power to be a finite creature chasing after a toddler minded narcissistic actress who obsesses and brags about her “charm” and “desirability” and making some magazine list for “Best girlfriend material.” There is no depth! No real love! Just a narcissist trying to prove to herself that she’s still desirable and can make a man desire her. How is this love? I just can’t with this show.

Then there is the “suspense” and murder mystery part of the show which is equally lame. Bad guy chasing a flash drive with evidence, and acting like it can’t be erased, another guy with recorded evidence on a pen who naively shows it to the bad guy without making any backups in this day and age… who is then beat up and his pen evidence crushed! But then it’s revealed that alien guy stopped time and retrieved the real pen! But does no one have an ounce of curiosity about alien guy, where he comes from, and how he can do all this? How come the level of higher level curiosity in a human being is so low only to the point of “how can he use his powers to help us with our dumb human problems?” The show presents a very self centered, myopic human perspective and doesn’t see past it to the alien guy’s vast expansive experience, and he’s reduced down to cheap party tricks of turning lights on and off and making things fly…

Finally in the very last episode, narcissistic actress lady asks him “Hey where’s the star you came from?” WOW! Some curiosity finally. Then she ends it with “You came from really far right? To this little island country..” Cue the proposal scene with the ring and the melodramatic k drama music! Oh darn the curiosity about the supernatural has already died and rotted into the usual romance. Then actress lady says “I was interested in dating an alien, but I get bored easily so I’ve had enough. Just like you were curious about dating a famous person like me. You’ll be young forever and I’ll be old soon and I can’t tolerate that. That other actress’s death wasn’t my fault and my career’s getting back on track so I’m going to marry Hiroya. If I marry him now, the people will love me. ” What!!? This has to be the most shallow dialog I’ve ever heard in my life. This socialite airhead got bored of an alien with infinitely more experience and depth than her and wants to marry the other dude because “the people will love me?” This shows how shallow this show, the director and all the characters are. I’m so done. The alien guy deserves so much more. Let the humans have their low level romances. Go home alien! You deserve better! The alien crying on his balcony after the shallow actress dumps him is the low point of the entire series (other than the dialog she just gave). As if they had something so deep to grieve about.

As they sit on a bench waiting for the comet to come that evening, alien guy and his only friend are siting on the bench and the friend says the most sensible dialog to him, “You’re finally leaving tonight. It must be tough for you but I’m actually relieved. A flower must return to its roots, the bird to its nest. Everything must return to where it must be. You will be where you must be. I wish for you to live a healthy life where you belong.” Then just when some sense was spoken into the script, this guy hiroya comes along and says “No it was all an act by the actress because she snooped through your diary and found out you’ll die if you stay past 400 years so she acted like she wanted to break up. But she still loves you! Now it’s up to you!” Cue the K drama violin. The Moor comet comes in an hour… then 15 minutes. Actress gets drunk in her usual style with her friend. Then Alien guy comes to her room. It’s time to say bye bye to alien guy and let him be free and be back home where he belongs. Will the shallow K drama sentimental romance prevail or will the truth of alien guy going to his true home prevail? Then this long drawn out dialog on the balcony which ends in “Tsubaki aishteru”… where the k drama music is just dying to burst through the scene and there it is! Then he disappears for a second and actress lady cries but she still looks like she’s so self conscious of her expressions and literally looks like she’s acting as if she’s crying. It’s so cringe to watch. My patience wears thin.. will he go home on not?

Then 3 years later it shows how this actress lady has grown in her career, running her own company, and wrote a book about her alien boyfriend. Again the director descends into the lower realms of being so enamored by the shallow human realms of fame, success, and money, that again he fails to go into where this alien comes from and what his existence is. So he go back to the focusing on the shallow actress’s life and how she has basically made money off the alien guy relationship and recovered her career. She and Hiroya focus on how big of a hit her book about the alien guy was and how it will be made into a movie, and entertainment is the future of investment! Typical selfish narcissistic human stuff. Yawn.

Actress goes back to talking like a baby and hugging a new dog, complete with baby talk. Then she wins some award and alien guy comes back. Now he’s magically accustomed to earth. So now they’re back to dating but now the alien guy is back to dating her and the usual human life. Alien guy is partnering with NASA and whatever else to make joint ventures and whatever. They do tv interviews together like a perfect celebrity couple. All is well in K drama land. Now and then he disappears. And then he shows up. At this point I’m sick of seeing close ups of both of their faces. They said they are living and enjoying every second they have together because they don’t know how long they have to live. Oh good now it’s over. That was long and exhausting. I’m glad it’s over. It was really bad guys. If the most shallow idol fame obsessed pop culture was put into a J drama, this would be it.

For some reason in the version I watched on Prime, there were “Behind the Scenes” after every single episode and everyone saying “Ganbari masu!” I don’t care! The show sucks. I don’t need a behind the scenes of a garbage pile.

This rating is for the weakest link of the show, and it can’t be higher than this.

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Scariest Thing I’ve Seen in a Long Time!

This first episode may as well have been a horror movie. Izumi is far more annoying in this movie than others, and because Rohan isn’t there for most of the movie to balance out her annoying personality, we are stuck with her and when things get tense I find myself not even rooting for her the way I normally would for a protagonist. She has the facial expressions of Shirley Temple in an adult’s body, with these curls in her hair and wearing this loud flamboyant dress that looks like it came out of the renaissance fair. But even after dressing up so much, she doesn’t look attractive because of her ugly facial expressions and has zero sensuality or mystery about her. She comes across more like a pouty toddler with a double chin. Her character is way too nosy and even after seeing how scary and weird Saion and her brother were with Saion eating a few tongues for lunch etc, Izumi still doesn’t back off. She is obtuse, aggressively nosy, and entirely blind to the visceral, vertical danger staring her in the face. Eating a tongue for lunch should be an immediate, absolute cue to drop the rope and run. The brother gave her a chance to leave and she could have avoided the whole second half of the movie but she had to stick her head into the creepy stuff that “manga artist” was doing like licking pages and stuff.

Now I’m going to have nightmares for weeks. It’s a bad sign when a high control environment says “you’ve seen too much, you’ve learned too much..now we have to get rid of you!” How stupid and naive Izumi has to be to stay in that horror house just to find out the crazy murderous things Saion is doing to write her manga by cutting off people’s tongues! And then even after being targeted and her tongue almost chopped off and somehow after feeding her a recorder full of thousands of voices, (and Saion biting off her own tongue and dies I guess?) - even then stupid Izumi screams after Saion trying to save her? What on earth? Does Izumi have no survival instinct at all? Does she want to die at their hands? Good grief she’s annoying as hell. I seriously found myself wanting her to die or be taken by the bad guys. I guess because of her naive and stupid acting, it balances out the weirdos in the rest of the cast. Because it was all truly terrifying.

Anyway, what is it with the Rohan episodes and tongues? That confessional movie also had this disturbing tongue scene. Not cool and way too weird! The only reassuring parts were when Rohan came on the screen at the beginning and end. Even after all of it was over, Izumi has the gall to say “Oh I wanted to find out what would happen at the end of Midhope manga! Aw man!” Like don’t you realize that this manga artist almost killed you and chopped off everyone’s tongue and absorbed their voices like a demon? “What is wrong with Izumi?” That should be the next episode title!

Mika is scary, Izumi is annoying. The combination is strange.. it has some rewatch value though. The music and sound really makes it more scary.

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Wow…

Man these Kishibe Rohan movies are really something else… who comes up with this stuff? It is utterly BIZARRE and I’m here for it. So this Japanese guy comes to Italy as a laborer and meets this other poor tortured Japanese laborer (how many Japanese are there in Italy? Probably not a lot, what’s the likelihood? Oh well..) who hasn’t eaten for 5 days. Well instead of offering him a sandwich when he asked for food, the mean laborer pretends to give him a sandwich and then takes it away and forces him to do his share with the promise of earning that sandwich. He is so cruel to his fellow Japanese man, and the poor tortured laborer basically fall down the stairs from extreme weakness and dies. Then as the mean Japanese laborer watches, the dead laborer’s spirit comes and curses the mean guy, saying at the height of his happiness he will meet his worst downfall. But did this incident change the mean guy into a good person with humility? No way. He is just as mean as he always was. And he is hit with one stroke of luck after another- the happiness curse, which is an ominous sign that something terrible is about to happen. So the mean guy tries to subdue and suppress his happiness by always tying himself with omens of bad luck like black cats and broken mirrors, but they don’t exactly work which just shows that those bad omens are also a lie.

Kishibe Rohan happens to hear this mean guy’s confession in a booth at a church in Venice. I thought it was kind of funny because it’s possible that neither of them were Catholic as far as the viewer knows, and if it was a real priest, he would have started with the invocation of the Christian trinity and ending the confession with an absolution of sins, but he just remained silent. And the mean guy was just like “Can I be saved?” lol… that should have been a clue that whoever was listening was not a priest. And Rohan also happened to be Japanese hah what are the chances? The mean guy wears a mask during his confession and I thought that was interesting- the symbolism of masks throughout the movie and the setting of Venice complements that.

Well there is this grotesque scene with the spirit of the tortured dead Japanese man coming back in the form of his daughter’s tongue which is so weird and off putting that I had to remove a star just for that scene- it was so unnecessary in my opinion- they could have done that same concept but with some other visuals, because this was just gross. But anyways, Rohan was awesome as always, and I feel like he was just caught in this weird situation and dragged into it, along with the mean guy’s daughter who is also bound by the same curse. Then for some reason Rohan seems to be hit with the same happiness curse as well. But Rohan is a rather comforting reassuring presence in a. Weird chaotic world, and that’s why his character is just so awesome. Takahashi gives life to that character in a way no one else could. And I love how he comes to Italy and starts speaking in Italian like his software just updated, and the same thing with French in the last movie. And he reads people like books because well.. everywhere you go, people are the same. So he is confident in himself no matter where he goes. H elbows who he is and is not swayed by the culture or its people. I like that.

As for the mean Japanese guy, his confession was essentially useless not just because he wasn’t talking to a priest nor received absolution, but rather because he had no remorse for what he had done, and had not changed himself at all. He was still the same terrible person, just trying not to die from the curse, and he was ready to ruin a anyone’s life including his own daughter’s in order to not die from the curse.

What was the moral of the story? I suppose none, except for seeing how Rohan stayed in his worn center the whole time, even though he helped people, he didn’t lose who he was to the curse, Italy, or any person.

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Rohan stuff is always interesting

So Rohan decides to come to France to the Louvre museum because the Japanese needs some excuse to go to Paris because they’re obsessed with French stuff, let’s just be honest. So Rohan has some kind of history with this black painting, and the lady that he knew at his grandmother‘s rental house who has really black hair. In the past, they had a weird exchange where he was trying to draw his manga and ended up drawing this black haired lady, but the lady saw his drawing and stabbed it with a pair of scissors, so that didn’t go very well. Many years later, Rohan, who I imagine was scarred by that experience ends up paying for this black painting that is supposed to be so incredibly black and so-called evil which was referenced by this black haired woman in the past. There are a lot of details that I don’t really understand which have to do with paintings and duplicates and originals and some artists that was smuggling originals behind duplicates and hiding them in some storage underneath the museum. The scene that really came alive was when this black painting was revealed in some storage basement area of the museum. This reveal of the painting that Rohan has been looking for in some form creates a kind of hallucination of people’s past sins and so they start seeing those past sins come alive. But the lesson should only be about remorse so I don’t understand why it needs to be so scary. Then there’s some strange flashback about this black haired lady and the man you married, who happens to be another version of Rohan – it’s like a double act of Takahashi in his half shaven ponytailed glory. So black haired lady gets really sick and somehow stumbles upon this really black tree sap from the sacred tree and starts harvesting it so that her double act Rohan like ponytail husband can paint a better picture than his dad who is supposed to somehow save his wife since she got sick. Well as he starts painting the trees, SAP seems to engulf the entire scene and it’s power. I don’t think the tree itself is evil, but rather it is the use of it and its powers and its sap for human purposes that felt corrupted. So back in the present moment, where everybody is being turned crazy by this black haired painting at the museum, Rohan decides to do a Heaven’s door on himself and write down forget everything which is a great thing for any main character to do in any show. I’m surprised he didn’t forget everything, including how to talk or walk. But somehow everything resolves into a nice little package at the end and everybody goes home happy.

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Still interesting

This third season of Thus Spoke Kishibe Rohan is still interesting but less so compared to the previous two seasons.

The first episode is about how this shadow self of Rohan has somehow overtaken his life for the past 3 months and has been leading a double life behind his back. Then he finds on of his characters that has four eyeballs instead of three as originally planned. This pisses Rohan off to no end. He tries to find a way to reverse the weird shadow man curse and manages to do so with the help of this shadow mistress lady (played by Furukawa Kotone who is another cast member of Nagi’s Long Vacation and plays a similar mistress role).

The second episode is about this kid, a fan of Rohan’s manga Pink Dark Boywho becomes obsessed with this idea around Rohan’s three eyeball character that now has four eyeballs due to the shadow self and stuff from the previous episode. Well the kid stalks Rohan and keeps challenging him to a game of Rock-Paper-Scissors. He loses the first time but then manages to win a couple of rounds and seems to be leaching onto Rohan’s powers which becomes very annoying. Finally after clawing his way back from this terribly unnecessary game Rohan wins the game and regains his powers. This was the more interesting episode of the two, but I think they are both related in that the same weird spirits from the mountain are messing with Rohan using these characters.

I find it refreshing how this series can handle all this dark, violent, adult material without visually compromising the integrity of the drama- they don’t show unnecessary violence or physical relationships and it somehow works.

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Deeply Touching Story and Illustration of Conditions

Wow.. in just 3 episodes, this series told 3 tales of mental health disorders- anxiety, bipolar, and borderline personality disorder. Japanese series go so deep and really know how to convey the deep emotional impact and draw it out of the viewer too. I really felt like I was living in their shoes. The bipolar story had so many interesting insights in there as Gen goes to a psychiatric hospital and is looking down on the patients there, but until he fully accepts his condition, he is unable to be free of it.

The story that most touched my heart and hit close to home was the last story of Fula, the lady with borderline personality disorder. She struggled with the childhood wound of abandonment and has this deep seated rage. She is unable to keep relationships and her sense of self and self worth keep shifting along with her perceptions of others. When she comes to Dr. Yowai, at first she clings to him and when he puts up a boundary she storms off- this is the classic pattern of idolization and devaluation, with a hairline trigger of rejection and abandonment. At first she goes to this scammy clinic where the guy just cares about business and prescribing unnecessary drugs. He flatters her and enables her dysfunction. But then when things go wrong and she overdoses, she’s back at Dr. Yowai’s office. He gives her homework, a reflection exercise to become mindful of her reactions when she starts to self harm. He also recommends her to a center that teaches social skills, since she was raised in an abusive family. At the center they teach her to handle her angry customers at the bar in a different way, and encourage her with the good things she does. That positive reinforcement allows her to change and become better in her reactions to life events. She starts becoming more stable and more self aware. She then visits her parents who insist that she’s a failure and need to take on a job that they choose. Her dad is an angry monster and essentially abuses her physically, emotionally, and verbally, while the mother is the pacifier of the dad’s tumultuous anger. She realizes that she has been reacting in the same way at the bar and in her own life. Her boyfriend was essentially like her mother, a punching bag that absorbed the attacks of an unpredictable tyrant. As she becomes aware and sees herself in her dad, she goes back to Dr. Yowai’s office, and he tells her about being with her inner child- this is deep stuff! So she goes to a spot where she was abandoned as a child and sees her inner child there and hugs her. She basically tells her that the parents are not coming but they are together. That part made me cry because it really hit home for me. She then tells her parents that she will become independent financially from then on. That financial control was the last tether keeping her stuck to her parents’ abuse. Eventually she starts working in a flower shop. She has this high school friend that ditched her and now works as the assistant in Dr. Yowai’s office. It is incredible to see her healing. For some reason this friend never had the decency to apologize to Fuka even as an adult. But Fuka becomes the bigger person and makes her a bouquet of flowers, which the friend hesitatingly accepts. I was not impressed with that character- she seemed unnecessarily cold to Fuka.

Overall it was an incredible series, and I’m a fan of Tomoya- from Nagi’s Long Vacation. He has this chilled hippie vibe that suits this shrink character who seems aloof, a little mysterious, but kind and generous.

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Really Gone Downhill

Was this movie even necessary? This show is so obsessed with marriage and weddings and idolizes the whole ordeal and puts it up on a pedestal. And then going to get married or honeymoon (do the writers even know the difference?) in Rome? Ok but then there’s this weird side story about Bucho getting faux-kidnapped but he’s really doing dance sessions in secret while cross dressing with a guy? And Hotaru thinks he’s kidnapped and goes all over Rome trying to find the dude and then she finds him having a jolly old time at some wedding and doesn’t care that she’s risked her life for him to save him because she thinks he’s kidnapped. But he just gives her a hug.. why didn’t he tell her where he was going? This part was so weird. And then the side story of Rio, the fellow Japanese Himono Onna who has become a lying, manipulative mess of a woman because her husband and kid died in an accident, so basically she’s turned into a shell of a person, a zombie if you will. I’ve seen this theme in many of the lower tier J Dramas- the idea that if a woman loses her husband and kid, they just turn into a shell of a human being, and zombified (the other series that does this is I’m Mita, Your Housekeeper). It’s a pathetic message to send to women that without your husband and kid, you’re nothing. Anyway, then these two Hotaru and Bucho get married in a Catholic Church with a priest who they don’t understand nor does he understand them. Is the marriage even valid? And then they come back home and Hotaru seems to be pregnant. YAWN. Same tired old story trying to glorify marriage and breeding. What garbage. Not impressed.

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A Nice Series to Live with for a while…

When I see the romantic notion of marriage that the Japanese dramas create, I need to remind myself: Life in this world is not like that- people stay miserably married while claiming a “Happily ever after” on the surface. To be honest I never understood why or how “Bucho” fell in love with Hotaru- to be clear, Hotaru is like a mirror of myself. I can relate to her lifestyle (except for the beer part), but the need to be free in solitude and recharge my battery on my own. Honestly I don’t think she needs a man, not emotionally at least. She’s fine on her own and doesn’t like to think too deeply about things. She knows how to take care of herself- keeping a polished image at work, while being her true honest self at home. To have a man who sees that true self and genuinely falls in love with her- well, I can say it only happens in the J drama universe. And that’s why I’m here for that. Sometimes Hotaru really annoys me in this series- like how she misses so many engagements with Bucho and then apologizes each time. And she often doesn’t keep her promises. She talks a big talk and then fails to deliver. She’s constantly disappointing her fiancée in that way, to the point where at one point when she blew him off 3 times in a row he left the house to stay in a hotel to get space from her. Why? Because she’s annoying! Her way of living only works for her, so I would advocate that she should be alone and happy and free. She would be just fine alone. I think putting her in a marriage box and making her conform to the manager’s expectations is doing her sovereign lifestyle a disservice. Here are a couple more things I found annoying:

-Why is one of the tracksuit pockets always turned inside out like a floppy kidney hanging from her hip! It’s so gross and it annoys me to no end! Hotaru is lovable but she’s also annoying! How is that possible…

-How does Hotaru not have a potbelly after drinking all that beer? And does Bucho cook every single day and night, because Hotaru seems incapable of making edible food..

-Hotaru goes to Hong Kong for 3 years and doesn’t answer a single letter or email from Bucho like what on earth? But this just shows that she is more suited to live a free and single life rather than with some dude.

-How she keeps saying “Bucho” for every reply- sometimes in a scene, (I guess for humor) all she says is “Bucho” and while she is sovereign and free, she comes across as a clingy child who’s worshipping this manager- and it just sounds like an employer-employee relationship even at home. And the way she says it grates on my ears.

-What’s up with the other lady with the kid - the ex-girlfriend of Bucho? Like what in the actual heck is up with her? She continues to encourage Hotaru and Bucho’s relationship while actively sabotaging it by coyly asking Bucho to tie her Yukata, trying to sleep with him, and seduce him every chance she gets- like tie the yukata yourself you indecent woman! She really annoyed me. And then her kid turns out to be another version of herself, as she manipulates Bucho into staying the night with both of them, and then Hotaru comes to their cabin and sees Bucho lying there with this ex-girlfriend lady practically sleeping on top of him. What on earth?! How is this okay? Why wasn’t it addressed by anyone? Why didn’t Hotaru get mad and demand an explanation? Why didn’t anyone hold this sly woman accountable for her actions? And yet Bucho acts so jealous and rigid when it comes to the young crush guy that likes Hotaru even though they never did anything. Which leads me to…

-The young guy who likes Hotaru.. I feel like being a Himono-otoko himself, he could have understood Hotaru in a better way and I wish they could have deepened their relationship more. Like ditch the manager for a few months and date this guy for a change. But who knows, maybe it was just an ego thing for him, like wanting to compete with the manager to steal his woman.

Anyways in the end they show how Bucho accepts this offer in Taiwan for 3 months and she starts becoming disciplined. That was nice to see.. and then in the end they’re planning to marry I guess. Now I have to move on to the movie and see what other young crush comes along to steal away Hotaru… With that said, the actress who plays Hotaru (she’s also in Hitori de shinitai/I want to die alone)- and I think she has such a beautiful, exquisite face. I do see a pattern in her themes though, and I like it!

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Makoto is NOT Worth the Trouble

In the initial episodes, Hotaru was rather endearing and “real,” but she was often a caricature of herself. I mean why does she need to have her track pants’ pockets inside out like it’s a requirement for her dress code? And then she misses her first date because she’s so stupid that she chants “Beeru! Beeru!” All the way home? Wtf kind of stupid reason is that? Is she that dense? Halfway through I started to not like her because she just seemed to be annoying just for the sake of being annoying.

But my bigger issue with this show is, the director has a chauvnistic streak where there is a “ideal woman” type called Yuka, and anyone who doesn’t fit that incredibly narrow definition of a perfect woman is basically discarded as trash. And Hotaru is called a Himono Onna or dried up fish woman and it’s a way to scapegoat and attack women for not being some dreamt up ideal by a misogynist. No good. And why is everyone obsessed with this BOT called Makoto? Yuck. He’s this dud that “returned” from London probably on a 3 week vacation and acts like he’s all that. But his acting and his lines are like a bot. He doesn’t know how to communicate- in the beginning, all he could say to Hotaru was “hai” “hai” and “hai.” I’m like which idiot wrote his dialog? And the actor plays the character with the most grating lack of expression ever. He looks like he’s not even interested in being in the show. On top of that, Makoto is a male chauvinist. He goes up to Hotaru and kisses her without her permission while she’s taking a nap, then decides that he likes her and calls all the shots. He decides when the relationship starts, and when it ends. It’s all on HIS terms, even though he literally has nothing to offer her. He never makes conversation with her, and just looks bored when they’re together, making Hotaru anxious and she starts compensating for his lack of effort. But he keeps saying he likes her as a way to keep her hooked in. Then he decides on a whim that she should move in with him. Then when he gets insecure and jealous like the usual fragile ego misogynist, he dumps Hotaru via email and says one morning “It’s over. Pack your stuff up and leave.” Wow what a cold bot this Makoto is. Hotaru would have been happier being in relationship with AI! When he was living with Hotaru, half the time he communicates with her by writing notes, or text messages. He doesn’t try whatsoever, and meanwhile Hotaru is bending over backwards. And where is she supposed to go when Makoto kicks her out on a whim? The manager’s house is about to be demolished- where is she supposed to find an apartment on a moment’s notice? And why is everyone including Yuka initially in love with Makoto? He’s not good looking, is incredibly dull as a personality, and is a chauvinist and has an extremely fragile ego. Poor Hotaru. She went through all that trouble for this disgusting person. She should have seen right through him once she saw that the whole relationship was only on his terms, and based on his whims and mood swings. He crosses her boundaries and clings to her when he wants to possess her, and then when he feels threatened he throws her away like trash. What a bad character she got involved with. At the end about a month later when she’s living in a weekly apartment, Makoto who strategically says he wants to get along with her at work (especially since she has moved up the ladder and has more influence now), is working at his desk when Hotaru comes up to him and says thank you and bows to him and says she fell in love with him and she’s changed a little. He has no expression, never initiates such meaningful conversations, and looks like he couldn’t care less about her heartfelt gesture. The manager, though he was a chauvinist in his own way, calling her a dried up fish woman, and saying her life is done as a woman, at least grew to appreciate her over time. But honestly, none of the men in this series were worth the trouble. There is nothing loving or romantic about any of these relationships. But as the men - the manager, Makoto, the other guy that likes Yuka, and the other guy that’s the manager’s divorce buddy are all talking, they discuss how Hotaru is living alone and Makoto said he thought she would go back to living with the manager. And they interpret it as a great thing that she lives alone and doesn’t go to the next guy (the manager) as soon as she is dumped. Then the manager calls her selfish, and then the other guy says “we always attract such selfish women don’t we?” They are all red flags. Hotaru is better off alone.

In the end, Hotaru doesn’t join the Christmas party of bots, but is sleeping alone at home. She tried the relationship thing that everyone harped on about, and it ended up being a disaster. And when she’s back at home, the bots go back to criticizing her. That’s why they’re not worth her time. Hotaru IS the light. She doesn’t need any bot to complete her. In the end she looks much more confident.

In the end, she comes back to the manager, well they have more chemistry together than Makoto bot.
Now I realized there is a season 2! Will it go up or downhill from here? Will find out….

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Takane No Hana

I find this concept of the flower atop a high mountain, the beautiful, unattainable woman, to be so intriguing. The main character is raised by a master flower arranger and she is expected to be the best of the best and carry on the family name and school. But her heart is yearning for something outside of the glass walls, and she meets this guy in a bicycle shop who looks like a muppet who has a heart of gold. She is basically the flower that came down from the mountain to hang out with the chickens. But I can understand her need for freedom, and in order to master something great, one has to open their heart. It’s just that I wasn’t really buying into their romance. It had this 90s Hollywood romcom feel to it that renders the romance as fake, melodramatic (mostly on the part of the female), and unnecessary. My opinion is that she should have stayed as the unattainable woman and found her true value from the divine source within. But oh well. The aesthetics were amazing. An interesting fusion of the traditional culture and the wild heart that wants to break free of it.

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