timotey

I watched this movie for Park Jin Young who played a supporting part in this movie - and who was as awesome as always, of course. And to watch him kick butt and be all ruthless and smart and cunning was a pleasure, too, of course.

I loved the action and Yaksha's core team, their loyalty to him - but I simply couldn't stand Prosecutor Han aka Nike. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't because of his need to uphold the law, not at all. But I hated that he behaved like a bull in a china shop once he joined the team in the field, getting them almost killed time and time again. When I'm dropped into a situation I don't know anything about, I don't behave like an arrogant power hungry know-it-all. I keep my trap shut and follow the lead of those who actually do know what's going on. He irked me so badly!

But I did love the ending, the scenes while the credits were rolling. That was awesome. And if there's a sequel - which is quite uncertain now, considering Netflix's current money trouble - I will watch it because I want to see Yaksha's team again!

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This was cute. Quiet and peaceful. No big upheavals, just a story of two friends becoming successful in their chosen fields and finding love in each other. IMHO, it would've worked better as a movie - even 4 eps seemed a bit too much - but it was really cute. The actors sure elevated the whole thing.

I think my favorite character in the series was Kang Woo Il, the Big Name composer and Lee Eun Soo's boss. I loved that he gave Eun Soo an honest opinion on her writing without ever being mean. That he gave her a second chance and the time to get her song lyrics just right. That he worked on them with her. That he didn't let Han Sun Woo's childish tantrums rile him up. That when he proposed to Eun Soo and she rejected him, he calmly and kindly accepted it and remained her friend... He was just so... good.

Overall, a nice way how to spend an evening or two. But it's true that the drama was mostly carried by the acting and chemistry between Park Hyung Sik and Han So Hee.

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I haven't seen Ryusoulger as of yet so I watched this movie solely for the Lupinrangers and the Patrangers. And even though they didn't interact much, I wasn't disappointed because it gave me much food for thought. Why?

Because it felt so... sad. The fun and energy of the series seemed subdued. Even the music - like when Kairi & Keiichiro met on "their" bridge - was so sad. The thieves, especially Kairi and Touma, were so... I don't know how to describe it. Like they carried the weight of the world on their shoulders, like their way of living was sucking the life out of them. Like Tsukasa mentioned, none of the Lupinrangers went home after they had been rescued. Umika at least went to college but Kairi still lived solely for stealing and Touma might have started a café but now that Tsukasa found out about it, it meant scraping it all and running again. In the series, being a thief seemed all excitement and fun but in the movie, you could see how much it was costing them, the fact that they could never go home. Not that they ever regretted their choices but... yeah.

It seemed like mainly Kairi and Keiichiro matured. Kairi was, what, 21 here in the movie? But when he talked to the Ryusoulgers, it felt as if a span of decades separated them. And Keiichiro... he was still quite excitable, sure, but what he had been through, it showed. Especially in the scene on the bridge.

I love that when they want to talk, they either go to the park where they first met or to that particular bridge and there they wait for the other to show up. One look in the middle of a fight is enough for them to communicate this, to say, "I need to talk, I'll be waiting," and the other just... gets it.

And the plot of this particular movie, the dinos trapped in the safes of that new Gangler leader, the despair of the Ryusoulgers to get them back... Kairi & Keiichiro understood it like no other. The need to save a loved one trapped like that. It was his brother for Kairi - and it was Kairi for Keiichiro! Kairi - and Touma and Umika - had also been once trapped in a Gangler's safe, the Gangler Boss Dogranio's safe, and it was Keiichiro who had to decide what was more important to him, the earth or Kairi. And he chose Kairi...

Gosh, the scene on the bridge, the way Keiichiro couldn't seem to take his eyes off Kairi. Kairi's "Don't die, Mr. Hot-headed policeman." Yeah, it was short but the actors managed to squeeze so much emotion into it, the depth of affection between Kairi & Keiichiro, their need to see each other, to talk to each other, at least for a little while, like they used to before, when the world didn't know the identity of the thieves... Yeah, these two? They are definitely not just friends.

Also, I love Kairi's new abode, the old factory. It's very chic.

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A really funny comedy starring Hirose Suzu & Yoshizawa Ryo who didn't get their happy ending in Natsuzora - but they do here!

Suzu plays Nanase, the daughter of the CEO of a pharmaceutical company, a genius death metal band leader, and Ryo plays Taku, her father's assistant, a guy with no presence whom everyone overlooks. When the CEO is targeted and set out to die in two days, these two have to band up together to save the day. Hilarity ensues, of course.

Gosh, I loved them two's hijinks! I honestly love it when Ryo plays nerds, he's always absolutely fantastic, and this part was no different. His "Ghost" - as everyone called him for his tendency to just fade into the background - is smart but very nerdy and timid while the heroine is also smart but very bulldozer like and rash and brash. It's water on my mill, honestly!

Also, the most hilarious plot point? When the heroine's father, the "dead" CEO, is revived... by TAKU's kiss, I kid you not! Why? Because they needed to kick start him with a shock and Taku was famous for his static electricity discharges that were so strong that when Taku and Nanase wanted to touch - or kiss - one of them had to stand with one bare foot on the ground to, well, ground them. This was so funny! Honestly, Ryo and his man-kissing. Is he actually aiming for some record?

Also, there are some really funny cameos, like by Satoh Takeru or Shison Jun or Matsuda Shota!

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This was cute! Like I said before, Inukai Atsuhiro has a great comedy timing - which he showcased perfectly here - but my favorite scenes of his are still those where his voice turns all soft and sweet, when his characters turn all lovely and wonderful. And though there weren't many moments like that in S2, I still loved them.

Like when Mob was reading Kikuchi's goodbye letter. That one hit just the right spot. Or when Mob encouraged Ayato to go and talk things through with Toujou because he didn't want him to have any regrets later on. That one had just the right amount of softness.

My favorite side-story not involving Mob? The one with the girl that was no girl. That one was so good. I loved all the manhandling!

This drama - and its first season, of course - also introduced me to Ito Asahi for which I'm grateful. I'll have to look for more of his work.

I hope that Mob was right at the end and that there will be S3! It makes me smile and all happy and fuzzy on the inside. It's just the right cure for feeling blue.

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This is an incredible, amazing, fantastic series. I was honestly wow'd all the way through not just by the great cinematography and CGI but also by the acting and the writing. It was so well plotted out, it was all connected, all the details, all the characters all the way back to the very first episode and... wow. I was really truly wow'd.

What made the drama for me were the main characters who started out as bitter enemies but slowly found together and became friends and they built this little family together right in the middle of a war and they were all kinda broken and they all suffered terrible losses but they never gave up and they fought for "love and peace" and...

And when the final battle came and they started dying one by one, sacrificing themselves for each other, to defeat Evolt and to build a new world, I bawled like a little kid. Especially Kazumin's death was heart-wrenching because the scene was so well made, just Kazumi and Misora, no music, nothing, just the tingling of particles as his body fell apart...

And then the ending. When nobody remembered Sento - and then Banjou appeared and it was just the two of them in this strange new world, the oddballs who didn't fit because of their genetic mishaps and they found each other and they were so happy. Gah! And so it ended with Kazumi & Misora, Gentoku & Sawa - and Sento & Banjo!

This is what I call a masterpiece. Really, truly, honestly.

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Yamada Yuki in another movie about gangs. He seems to have an affinity for this type of movies ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

This reminded me a lot of High & Low in its vibe because Masaki & Atsunari didn't start a gang to do evil things or whatever but simply to have friends and never to get bullied again and be cool and stuff. Kinda naive - a bit at least - but at the same time, it was going well for them until another gang decided to invade their territory.

And that was when it got brutal. The attack on Atsunari (Yamada Yuki) was... yikes, especially the second one in the hospital because it was so unexpected and the raw brutality of it chilling. I think that this was the most cold blooded thing I've seen in a while.

My favorite thing was the friendship between Masaki & Atsunari, their loyalty to each other. And Atsunari's relationship with Aki. When Atsunari decided not to attend high school because he couldn't let his girlfriend work while he was going to school, that was honestly so touching. I also loved that Aki wasn't all set up against Atsunari being in a gang, she pretty much accepted all the guys as their extended family, annoying but lovable. Aki was truly awesome and her and Atsunari's love so genuine!

And the thing was, this movie was about very poor people. Atsunari was working in a ramen shop, Aki at a gas station, they were 17 and they already started a family, doing their best to support each other with no education and a low income. But they never let it get them down.

So, a good action movie with some nice Yamada Yuki whump for a good measure! Nice!

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I decided to watch this movie for Shison Jun who played one of the supporting parts but I fell in love with Kamiki Ryunosuke's Shin and Arimura Kasumi's Aoi. Their love story was so beautiful - and in the end so very heartbreaking.

The main hero, Shin, can see people's fate. Those who are about to die he sees as transparent, splotchy, as if they are already not there. It bothers him but he's convinced that fate can't be changed and so he doesn't even try to do anything about it. Until he meets Aoi. When he sees her turn transparent, he decide to try to change the fate after all. And he succeeds. But he learns that saving people comes with a terrible price for himself.

The last third of the movie, I pretty much bawled through, it was so sad. And yet so incredibly beautiful. You pretty much know how the movie must end, it's inevitable, Shin's fate is inevitable. And even knowing that, you root for him. Because once he realizes what he has to do, he makes peace with the inevitable and he sets out to do what is necessary.

What floored me was the twist with Aoi at the very end. That I didn't expect at all and when all the important scenes were shown from her perspective, I was honestly left gaping. Wow. So heartbreaking!

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This tiny little web drama had the perfect balance of ridiculous humor and them feels! I wish the movies were like that, too, because their humor was simply not my cuppa. Here, it offered a nice counterbalance to the heavy emotional stuff.

And Yoshizawa Ryo killed it as Sougo. He does so well in emotional scenes. I haven't read the manga nor have I watched the anime so I didn't know that Sougo, Hijikata and Kondo had known each other from way back when, that Hijikata and Kondo met Sougo when he was a little brat. And though they would rather die than to admit it - especially Hijikata! - they both saw him as their kid brother, despite his rather sadistic and violent tendencies.

The scenes where it was revealed that Hijikata went after Mitsuba's fiance not just because the guy hurt Mitsuba who was dying and so vulnerable but also because he wanted to protect Sougo, his position within the Shinsengumi! Or when Sougo told Kondo that he'd always felt like there was a distance between him and Kondo & Hijikata, that he'd felt like he didn't belong with them, the way Kondo closed his eyes for a moment because he'd never realized that Sougo saw it like that - and then he punched Sougo for being stupid. I mean, of course he did ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

So, yeah, it's kinda funny - and honestly touching, too - that Sougo despite being so brutal and sadistic and actually a rather merciless killer when push comes to a slight shove has always been protected and looked after by so many people in his life, mostly without him realizing it, Gintoki included.

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Well, that was quite brutal. But it gave me a similar vibe to The Maze Runner which is always a plus, so there's that ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

My favorite games were those where Arisu got to show his smarts. Brutality doesn't really do it for me, I don't play any of those shooting games, whatever they might be called. But give me a game based on puzzle solving and I'm there with my bells on. So those games where the players had to actually use their heads as something more than a battering ram, those I loved.

But because of how brutal this drama was, I didn't actually feel sorry for any of the dead characters - besides Arisu's friends because that was at the beginning, when it was all fresh and new. But the longer it went, all the killing and murders, the more desensitized I was? Well, I mean, when there's too much of something - be it death or, I don't know, bad language - it stops hitting true. By the end, I was more shocked that any of them actually survived.

Overall, an interesting "dystopian" story. But I really had to be in the mood for it. The music, though, the music was absolutely amazing. I didn't skip the credits once!

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This was a really well written drama. Infidelity truly isn't my thing - actually, there are very few things that I find less appealing and the whole concept just doesn't sit well with me, betrayal of any kind has my skin crawling and stomach churning - but I liked that this drama didn't just have the female characters cheat on their husbands for the heck of it but every one of them had a good reason for doing it.

Still, it says a lot about me, I guess, that my favorite stories where The Chaperone Wife and The Headache Wife. And the main arc of Sakura and Haruto, of course.

With Haruto, what I found interesting was his relationship with his dad and that his dad actually approved of his decision to stand by Sakura and keep his shop instead of coming back to the company, but being who his dad was, he couldn't just say it out loud but his little smile was more than telling!

Also, a side note, for a country that's considered more than a little prude, Japan sure knows how to make steamy dramas. Wow.

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Holy smokes, I bawled at the end. I bawled so hard. This drama hit so many right spots for me. The whole found family thing with the hotel staff was the best, the way they overcame so many difficulties, the way the learned to stick together and trust each other... and in the middle of it all, Iwata Takanori's Ukai, their quirky good fairy, so to speak.

I think that one of my favorite moments happened in ep 9, when the news crew visited the hotel and started spreading rumors about Ukai and so he decided to tell them the truth about what happened to him in the previous hotel where he had worked, how he was sabotaged there - and then they all closed their ranks around him, they were all there for him the way he had been there for them before. And it was simply wonderful.

And then the ending. Like I said, it made me bawl, because it was so good but also so very bittersweet that my heart ached. Because Ukai came to love them all so much... but! He was someone who couldn't live without a dream and since they all helped him fulfill his, he felt... empty all of a sudden. So he asked the general manager and then all of them to, please, let him go so that he could find a new dream... Gosh, that hurt. But it was also so touching and wonderful because, yeah, they would all miss him terribly but most of all, they wanted him to be happy, even if it meant he would leave. And I think that's the definition of a true affection.

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Holy smokes, this turned out to be so much darker than I expected, especially the friends' past. But I loved that the message - if you can call it that - here was that nobody was irredeemable, that everyone could find their way back to the light and be forgiven. And this group? They came out of it so much stronger because after all the betrayals and lies, not one of them was innocent and so no one dared to judge. And that made their bonds and trust so much deeper and real.

I loved that the movie focused mainly on Yuichi and Tenji, on how they repaired their friendship and trust. That was simply amazing. But also, Yuichi was really, really, REALLY scary. The lengths he was willing to go win the game - when he broke his own fingers, I was honestly left gaping! - but at the same time, I was touched by how deeply he cared for Tenji, how worried he was about him when he realized that Tenji really was worthy of his trust and that it might actually kill him. And then the other way around, when Tenji found out the truth about Yuichi, that Yuichi was sold to child traffickers and abused as a kid, that he murdered 3 people in a cold blood and also let his stepmother die, and yet, Tenji did not abandon him, no, just the opposite, he stood up for Yuichi and defended him... GAH!

So many twists and turns! And so unexpected! Just when I thought I knew what was going on, the movie laughed in my face! Gosh.

One thing that bothered me a bit was that they did not manage to take down the Friendship Game, after all. But I guess, they had to choose between the data and friendship and they chose friendship. And since it was left open-ended...

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The whole movie? 5 friends playing a game on the roof of a high-rise for 90 minutes straight. That's it. That's the movie. And yet, I wasn't bored, not even for a second. Oh, the twists and turns! And just when I thought I knew what was going on, the story took a sharp left and off it went again!

Gosh, when Yuichi exposed the traitor among them! And then, when he revealed that he lied too and what he lied about! Everyone's shock and horror! Everyone's! Even the hidden game masters' because that they didn't expect! And then, when Tenji joined Yuichi - and gosh, just how he joined him! - and off they went together to the last game and just when I thought that Tenji could not be redeemed, there was yet another twist and it went back to Sawaragi and... and... and...

I'm so smitten with this movie! Yoshizawa Ryo as Yuichi and Yamada Yuki as Tenji are simply incredible here. The scene between just the two of them at the end of the game, mwah! I can so understand why they love acting together, their chemistry simply crackles! And the way they can both turn from innocent into devious from one second to the next, wow!

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