mrsnakedown

It literally is too. My friend has a set of SNS accounts reporting on niche news surrounding Ryu Ga Gotoku (the games) from things like interviews and Japanese news outlets, and he found out over a year before the show aired on Prime that it's "[a] co-production between American companies Wild Sheep Content and 1212 Entertainment", and that all five production credits on the post in question are Western because the guy with a Japanese name was born and raised in the US. It straight up is American TV LARPing as jdrama, and it really shows that nobody at the writing board had any clue about why the games (and ninkyo as a whole) are so appealing. https://www.tumblr.com/04tenno/721415114814881792/havent-seen-any-buzz-about-this

I might even write a review on it as a fan of the games if I get myself in enough of a funk about it again, because the premise alone misses the point badly enough and the rest of the show doesn't really do a lot to claw back any respect from me. But I'm ranting!

DVD release has ended the streaming embargo on this movie, but it's currently only available on U-NEXT with no subtitles. It's been out in Australian cinemas and on some long-haul in-flight entertainment systems with English subs, but beyond that I have no clue what the plans are for a Western world release considering the special isn't even on Netflix yet. I assume it's on the table but in what capacity is yet to be seen, I guess

Either way, I've bought the DVD and am waiting on it coming home via a proxy service. I need the five hours of bonus content injected into my bloodstream

I also found it briefly on dailymotion in January, but it got nuked a day or two after I downloaded it from there with cobalt tools. I don't know if it'll end up being uploaded there again, but it might be worth keeping an eye on if you're anything like me (avoiding torrents on a low-speed low-bandwidth shared network)

https://youtube.com/@studio_sauce - all of studio sauce's other social links are listed on the page

i also put this together for myself but i've made it shareable via direct link in case anyone else needed something like it: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL85ad0Sg11kJ2687PY63D1j8lEIbkSTWH
it's a playlist of all the toshio-free-wi-fi uploads on youtube but ordered so they play sequentially, and with a dummy video inserted at the end to force the videos to play as videos instead of shorts.

hope that's helpful✌️

interesting format - i'm not an SNS guy by any means, and i hope once studio sauce finishes uploading the series that they make it available in full with episodes *not* split into three, but it's a fun and fresh way to release a drama. there's a fairly low barrier of entry for western viewers compared to a lot of other methods. available on youtube, twitter, instagram, and i think tiktok?

i'm very new to this so i'm not sure how to make edits to a drama entry, but at time of writing it's about five hours until the first part of episode 8 releases. i'm excited to see what happens next!