Ibuki is so outrageous, I'm in shock disbelief >half of the time. I still don't know if the character really works. Or how Hoshino (doing out of box acting for himself too) finished the drama without losing his mind.
There's frequent subversion of genre tropes, lots of inspired stuff, also ridiculous and baffling choices. Ibuki is inappropriate, highly disruptive, WTF.
When there is fast cuts (editing), the character feels like a psychological assault -- a bit like Ayano's highly manipulative Amuro in Rip Van Winkle (2016).
One of the best J-indies. Go Morita's so good, he evoked Ken Ogata in Vengeance is Mine and Yutaka Mizutani in Youth Killer! Hamada is the perfect underdog movie star. He is iconic I am speechless.
If she really has a new drama for Satomi Ishihara on Fuji TV in October 2026, it explains her odd defense of Bunshun's 1-sided slander of Jiro Sato. Turns out Sato was unilaterally condemned by Fuji TV's lawyer for "compliance", which involving interrogating Sato with his guilt pre-determined and totally dismissed his account of the events (that both Fuji and Hashimoto's agency kept moving the goalposts for her demands, to the point a drama written for Sato had to be rewritten for her sake.)
How does she write plots about investigations (Unnatural, MIU404), yet she cannot understand that Bunshun reporting only an actress' account in a workplace conflict is not an investigation of the total facts? And she assumes workplace management (involving several agencies) has no dereliction of duty or communication breakdown (either unintentional or not), simply bc her own workplace dramas are full of wonderful employees?
Is everyone just not a big fan because it's a slow burn? It got a 4/5 from Japan Times and South China Morning…
I happened to go through JT James Hadfield's reviews last night. He's hit and miss. He engages with what he likes carefully. Others leave me scratching my head, in his description of things that did not happen like he said. He had a set idea regardless of what happened onscreen. Maybe fans and someone in a rush with deadline don't watch sth the same way. It'd help if reviews rank a work within a director's filmography to give more context.
It was a decent watch, i guess. i have to admit i lost interest halfway through..even though the first episode…
It's definitely the script. On the tension between insiders/outsiders, the conflict was developed patiently with nuance in the director's previous drama, Gannibal. Here it's like a Hollywood scene of "teachable moment". Really awkward.
Poor my girl Ai... I hope we will never have to see his face again. TT
Fuji TV had the task of telling him about her boundaries, but chose not to -- even when Sato is known for ad-libs. Now Fuji TV throws him under the bus after Bunshun, where **AH has a regular column**.
Akiko Nogi is on X defending AH from public backlash, when people are reacting to Bunshun and Fuji TV undeservedly acting as the arbiter of justice. They lack transparency in how they obtained evidence for their claims/decisions on a reasonable TIMELINE. The public is supposed to believe 2 institutions' "trust me bro", as they crush Jiro Sato.
Do we really want a world where Bunshun and a notorious TV station (their handling of Nakai allegations) can end careers without evidence, and blatantly ignoring 1 of 2 sides? As fellow women, when the threshold of sexual harassment is so low, it is bad for everyone.
There's frequent subversion of genre tropes, lots of inspired stuff, also ridiculous and baffling choices. Ibuki is inappropriate, highly disruptive, WTF.
When there is fast cuts (editing), the character feels like a psychological assault -- a bit like Ayano's highly manipulative Amuro in Rip Van Winkle (2016).
Akiko Nogi is on X defending AH from public backlash, when people are reacting to Bunshun and Fuji TV undeservedly acting as the arbiter of justice. They lack transparency in how they obtained evidence for their claims/decisions on a reasonable TIMELINE. The public is supposed to believe 2 institutions' "trust me bro", as they crush Jiro Sato.
Do we really want a world where Bunshun and a notorious TV station (their handling of Nakai allegations) can end careers without evidence, and blatantly ignoring 1 of 2 sides? As fellow women, when the threshold of sexual harassment is so low, it is bad for everyone.