OK, in all fairness, I'm really NOT a fan of the "tokusatsu" genre, so the premise was *completely* wasted on me.
That said, the script wasn't too bad, all things considered; but at the same time, it's not like they could've come up with a masterpiece, either. More like, "some decently written dialogues" and "a coupla surprisingly good scenes" drowned in a sea of silliness.
The acting was much better, particularly thanks to Shiraishi Sei and Ohara Yuno (who are, incidentally, two of the three reasons why I've watched this in the first place - the third one being Tanabe Momoko, whose role is, alas, a very minor one with tremendously little screentime).
If you're a tokusatsu fan (or an action figure otaku) you might appreciate this much more than I did.
If you're a fan of the afore-mentioned actresses, like I am, it might be still worth a watch after all.
Otherwise, I'd humbly suggest you steer clear of this and invest your precious time more proficuously...^__^;
All imho, of course! ^___-
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Poor script + too much focus on unappealing characters
I was drawn in by the first episode, which was by far the best, and by my love for choral stories, focused around a large group of characters. And indeed, the parts I really liked were the ones regarding the different families leaving on this Mayang Street, their daily lives and struggles, etc.Too bad, after a few episodes, the focus started shifting, slowly but surely, to the relationship between Tan Songyun's and Xu Wei Zhou's characters, and that deeply annoyed me for a coupla reasons: first and foremost, their characters are, imho, really unappealing (particularly the guy, whom the writer tried waaaay too hard to make us like with huge doses of lazy writing - how many times do they show us some Mayang Street person getting in trouble, only to have him/her so conveniently saved at the last moment by Xu Wei Zhou's "Deus ex machina" character? - a character whom I really despised BTW - such a selfish person, sacrificing others and their feelings only because he wanted to be an undercover cop - and then again, had it been so as to stop some terrorists or other types of reeeeally dangerous criminals, I might still have had some sympathy for him...but no, all that just to stop a bunch of *smugglers*...how can that be even remotely worthy of provoking his own granny's death and bringing grief to everybody else around him?!? Sorry, but I don't get it...). Secondly, I have the feeling that those actors are the weakest ones in the cast (please note I haven't watched anything else with them, so it may very well be that thy're not so bad and my impression just depends on the poor script and on the director's orders, who knows...but judging solely on what they showed here, I'll have to borrow a deliciously caustic definition the brilliant Youtuber "AvenueX" used for other actors and say that "one's a vegetal, the other one's a mineral". The former has the expressivity of a plant (always with that annoyingly faint smile or a faintly sad expression - in both cases veeeeeery faint, almost imperceptible...it gave me the feeling someone's scared of getting wrinkles otherwise, URGH), the latter as expressive as a rock (dude, poker might be a better career option than cinematography, seriously). They're both good looking, I'll give 'em that. But good *acting* is something else, in my book. Like, something else *entirely*.
Another huge fault of this dorama is, as I briefly mentioned earlier on, the poor script: inconsistent, incoherent, cheesy, lazy. Always taking the easy way out, always giving me the strong impression the writer couldn't care less for *conveying* messages but rather chose to *force feed* them down the viewers' throats. It was really hard, for someone like me who can't stand poor writing, to keep on watching it till the end, seriously. I think I should have trusted the gut feeling I had while watching those überbland opening credits and steered away from this.
Anyway, the only redeeming points (and the reasons why, a) I kept on watching after all, and, b) I don't give it a lower grade) are, firstly, that the rest of the cast did a pretty decent job (particularly considering the poor material they had to work with!) - and here I want to give honorable mentions to Niu Jun Feng and Li Mu Ran: such nice characters, and so nicely played, that they had me smiling inside every time they were on camera; secondly, as I mentioned at the very beginning of this review, the choral parts of the script weren't bad after all, so those kept me hooked enough that I wanted to see what would happen to the other characters; thirdly, after the (again, imho) total yawnfest of the middle part of the dorama, I kinda enjoyed the last few episodes (the ones after the time skip - those that most other MDLers seem not to have enjoyed, BTW) that brought some closure and - as far as I'm concerned - what I'd define a "happy" ending (given how much I disliked Xu Wei Zhou's character, the fact that he was finally removed from the picture felt like a happy ening to me, what can I say...^_^;...had that character been totally expunged from the series - and had they chosen another actress for the FL's role - I might've liked this much, much more.
As is, nevertheless, the passing grade is beyond reach of this drama, imho. 5/10
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As good as the 1st season ^___-
I'm normally a bit wary of Specials and sequels, as in my experience I've noticed, time and again, how these unfortunately tend to be not as good as the original stories. Every rule has its exceptions, though, and I couldn't help being very favorably impressed by this "Yuru Camp SP", where I found all the things that made me love the original drama in the first place: a lovely cast of good-looking and talented actresses (just as for the drama, my special mentions go to Fukuhara Haruka, Tanabe Momoko and Ohara Yuno), the beautiful scenery, the relaxing atmosphere. Can't wait to watch the 2nd season now! ^__-Was this review helpful to you?
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What I really liked is the fact that all characters, even the sillier ones, are still depicted as decent people (so there's literally no angst here and that's relaxing by itself, no despicable characters, no "villains", etc.).
The OST is also quite nice, and the cast did OK but nothing worth calling home about (let's be honest, the plot being what it is, it ain't like they could've given award-winning performances anyway, LOL).
All in all an OK watch, 7/10 in my book.
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The story starts a bit slowly, in all fairness, but then from midway on it keeps getting better and more interesting.
The cast did a pretty good job, although some were better than others (with honorable mentions for Kuroki Hitomi, Kurashina Kana and my beloved Fujitani Riko - too bad her role is so small!!! T_____T).
The music was very good and the rest of the "packaging" also of high quality.
With a slightly different ending (* SPOILER BELOW) I would've given this an even better grade, It's still a very solid 8 in my book! ^____-
(*) SPOILER: I really didn't like the ML's wife and I was so shipping him with Oda's character, with whom I think there was a really great chemistry!!!
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Sayonara Maestro: Chichi to Watashi no Appassionato
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Being quite a big fan of Classical Music, it was of course with pretty high expectations that I started watching this "Sayonara Maestro - Chichi to Watashi no Appassionato".I'm glad to be able to say that I really liked it, although the ending was a bit of a let down, honestly. More on that in a jiff.
The script was pretty good, the cast simply great (honorable mentions for Nishijima, Ashida and Nishida), and the music of course lovely (though the pieces selection got worse towards the ending, as far as my taste goes). The setting is beautiful and the production value top-notch.
So why didn't I give this a perfect 10? SPOILERS AHEAD, stop reading now if you wanna avoid those.
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The series had been, up to the very end, a beautiful and very inspired story of how a broken family could repair itself through mutual understanding and selflessness. Therefore, the ending felt such a terrible let down!!! After the beautiful letter sent by the ML's mentor from his dying bed (in which the old man basically told his pupil to cherish his loved ones and put them before everything else!), the "ML goes back to Europe to pursue his career" ending felt *completely* out of place!!! >________<
If I had written this, my ending would've been as follows:
They gather for their last concert in the contest. The major is moved to tears by his daughter's performance, and later (through some fast flashbacks) explains why he had so fiercely opposed the orchestra: his wife's death had been caused by her passion for music (it could've been anything, seriously...like for example, that she got run over by a car while crossing the street in a hurry so as not to be late to a concert...). But now he understand he's been wrong the whole time, and to make himself forgiven he decides to start supporting the orchestra, which can therefore go on without disbanding. As for the ML, he chooses to stay with his family (the wife going back with them too) precisely because of his mentor's letter. And as for the ML's agent, he can go back to Austria and who knows, maybe become Conchita Wurst's agent instead. So everybody lived happily ever after! ^____-
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Every now and then, let down by the current trend of J-dramas, more and more "americanized" or "koreanized" imho, it feels good to jump on a time machine and watch some "oldie-but goldie" from the Golden Era of Japanese Drama.It's been the case with this "Utsukushii Hito", which until the very end I thought I was gonna rate as a perfect 10 and include in my "Top of the Crop" custom list...but then came an ending I really didn't like.
MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD, so jump the next paragraph entirely if you wanna avoid those! ^___-
Now, despite having been an avid J-drama fan for quite a long time (next year it's gonna be twenty years since my first J-drama!), I must confess not liking the way villains are treated by most Japanese scriptwriters. Look, I'm not saying that villains shouldn't be bad - that would be asking the impossible, LOL - but what I'm saying is just that if you have a villain poisoning everybody else's life throughout the whole series, killing, battering, abusing, deceiving, etc.....then I don't want said villain to get away with a metaphorical slap on the hand. I don't want them to be pitied by bleeding hearts, psychanalyzed, understood. And I certainly don't want them to get a completely undeserved happy ending (as was the case here!!!) while the good guys get a bittersweet (more the former than the latter, actually) ending. I want such villains to get punished, to get a gruesome death if possible, or at least a life-long harsh punishment (like, I could have been OK with this villain getting thrown in a cell together with "Bubba, the 7-ft tall, 300-lbs serial gay raper", who would've made his sorry @ss repent day in and day out! I suppose I'm more Chinese than Japanese in that aspect (I'm thinking for example of the classical Chinese detective stories - like those about the überfamous Judge Dee - whose last chapter is alway dedicated to describe in quite gruesome terms the killers' punishments! ^___-). OK, END OF THE SPOILERS. ^___-
Apart from the aforementioned ending, the script is very good. The acting superb. The OST marvelous. This could've been a perfect 10, seriously....but it's still a very solid 8 in my book! ^___-
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If you, like me, love comedy, and even more so *Japanese* comedy (owarai), for its peculiar flavor and its many facets (manzai, konto, oogiri, etc. etc.), then you too might find this "Beshari Gurashi" aka "The Kings of Laughter" particularly interesting.A word to the wise, though: don't expect this series to be only comedy, there's quite a bit of drama mixed in there (definitely more than I expected, in all fairness - more on that in a jiff), as we could sum this up a glance behind the scene of the geinin/owarai world.
The cast did a pretty good job indeed, the "packaging" / production value and the music are also of quite high quality levels, and the script is very well written, portraying the harsh reality of the comedians' (geinin) lives, and the sweat and tears hidden behind those laughs. I would've honestly given this an even higher grade, weren't it for the fact that I personally found one of the dramatic moments, well...waaay too dramatic - it was honestly like a punch in the stomach!!! >_______<
*******************
SPOILER AHEAD
*******************
(I'm referring to the ending of the fifth episode)
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After a few years, having myself become a bit of a fan of a coupla idol groups (namely, Keyakizaka and its offsprings Hinatazaka and Sakuraza), I went back and decided to give this "Amachan" another chance, as now I knew I could enjoy more than before its second half.
All in all, there are a few nice scenes here and there in this asadora, but also a lot of "meh" moments, therefore I'd totally say this work doesn't belong, alas, to the better ones originated from Kudo Kankoru's pen, It's my humble opinion that the writer was a bit out of his depth here - but then again, to write an asadora is an herculean task (tantamount to writing 26, yep, TWENTY-SIX movies with the same characters to be aired in a 26 weeks time-span - indeed, not a feat every writer can accomplish!) so I can't actually blame him too much!
The cast also gave mixed performances, with Koizumi Kyoko being the best of the lot imho.
The music was pretty good but also terribly repetitive (basically, one song repeated over and over, plus a coupla sidetracks).
A decent production value completes the package. It would be more of a 6.5, but since I don't use decimals, I'll round that up to 7. An OK watch, but no masterpiece, as far as I'm concerned.
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I feel like I need to make a short premise: in my humble opinion, if you have a certain amount of interest in the idols phenomenon (you don't have to be a die-hard "wota", just not someone who can't stand it, LOL), then you're most probably gonna appreciate this "Idol Shikkaku" more than otherwise - just like humble me appreciated it.I really liked the production value / "packaging" and the script (with the sole, partial exception of the ending; more on that in a jiff). Oh, BTW, in case you don't know, the story is based on a novel written by an active member of NMB48 (hence a colleague of the four girls acting as members of the fictitious group "Tetra").
The acting was good as a whole, with some doing better than others as it is to be expected.
And now on to the ending and why I didn't like it too much (spoilers ahead, so stop reading if you don't want them!!!):
I honestly found it way too unresolved, on the one hand realistic, ok, but on the other hand a bit bland/bitter and uninspiring. It would have sufficed to have the ML's phone ring in the last scene where he's looking at the sun to make it right, imho!!!
Still, a totally solid 8/10 in my book.
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I'm really happy I finally decided to pick it up, as it really exceeded my expectations!!!
If you, like me, appreciate when writers manage to accomplish a well-done character development, then chances are you'll like this series too!
The leads slowly-but-surely develop, in fact, from the almost unbearable characters they are at the beginning (LOL, you'll need some patience, believe me!) to the more open, warmer, kinder and more humane persons they'll get to be in the end, all thanks to the help from those sorrounding them and to the fact that, as imperfect as they are, they can still become a little less imperfect just by staying together - and to this humble reviewer, that alone is a gazillion times more romantic than the usual "Cold male CEO x buck-eyed, eyelashes-batting Cinderella"!
(Too bad they kinda ruined it with the useless SP episode...but that's another story...)
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Although the genre (high school romance) isn't really my favorite (on the one hand, I'm probably too old for it, LOL; and on the other hand, my favorite genres are rather comedy, iyashikei, horror, mystery, etc.), nevertheless I actually liked this lil' movie that definitely managed to exceed my expectations: the story is clean, straight-forward and nice, the leads are both very good and so is the "packaging" (directing, editing, photography, music,...).
Totally solid 8/10!
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Both works, in fact, share the same fascination with time loops and the technical prowess required to portray them through sequence shots. And of course they are from the same director and share a relevant part of the cast.
I personally think that the story here is just a lil' bit weaker, and the setting a lot less fascinating (let's be honest: beautiful ryokan in the hills around Kyoto beats small family restaurant/café in an anonymous city side street any day of the week!!! ^_^;;;....), hence my grade.
It's still another wonderful movie I can wholeheartedly recommend, though! 9/10
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