Dragon Seinendan ドラゴン青年団 [series]

Cute but its more like a failed Yuusha Yoshihiko. What was that ending? 

First off I was confused that the theme tune was Kat-tun not Kanjani, but that was the least of my problems with this show. 

I liked it enough at the time, maybe because I really wanted to like it - I love to watch Yasu being seriously Yastastic but alas he was kind of the only thing that was worth watching it for. well, Daito Shunsuke, adorable Renbutsu Misako as well. Ok so the cast was great, and actually everyone was really good. 

I loved the setting; really reminds me of Yuusha Yoshihiko in the sort of gameplay style of scenario, but I was really disappointed with its non ending end. Im not sure if that's what they were going for but it felt like a real anti climax. 

Cast: 

Yasuda Shota - Yoshio 

Renbutsu Misako - Yoko 

Endo Kaname - Kenji 

Honda Chikara - Tamotsu 

Yusuke Santamaria - group leader 

Daito Shunsuke - Kazuki 

Araki Yuko - Yuka 

A dragon appears in Tokyo, all flames and carnage. 

At this time in Hikariyama City, three childhood friends Yoshio, Kenji, and Tamotsu, on finding a scroll at a used bookstore, discover that they are in fact the descendants of the Warrior of Light. 

They decide to take on the responsibility of killing the dragon and saving their neighbouring city. 

Kamenashi Kazuya apparently does a little guest star appearance which I dont even remember. 

I remember them all trudging around looking for crystals and getting really stupid powers, finding birthmarks on themselves which they really should have noticed by that point in their lives, and Yusuke Santamaria being epic and brilliant as usual. 

I first saw him in Bimbo Danshi and have super joys every time he turns up in a drama when I'm not expecting it. He was very funny, stepping in to seemingly cause issues but ultimately being awesome and helping them on their way. 

The idea was so close to being great but the execution of it was lacking somewhere. 

I did enjoy it, I like dramas which spoof video games or other movies. 

But this was a little bit frustrating. 

Not Kingdom Hearts frustrating because I'm so useless I cant beat the cards and save Alice in the second level, its just that I found the character's stupidity a little bit over the top and the story wasn't quite enough. I didn't really notice until the end though, it felt like it was building to something that never came into fruition. 

Only by the end of the last episode I realised it wasn't going anywhere. It duped me up until that point thinking there would be a cool show down with terrible graphics. Nothing much happens and it felt a little pointless to have sat through. 

I think the bar has been set pretty damn high with Yoshihiko now, I don't think any gameplay spoof dramas are going to touch that by miles. 

Its a shame that this didn't delivery because they wasted a great cast by not giving it enough ...something. 

Im not even totally sure what it is that is wrong with it to be perfectly honest. Just missing something. 

I don't like to write something off like this, but I prefer things that are so bad I love them ,or so great I cant stand it, sadly this is neither of those. Like I said, it was enjoyable at the time, up until the end and it suddenly felt like a big fat waste of time. But that's just what I took from it. 

Maybe when I got back over it to get the screen shots I will rewrite all this because I've been swayed by remembering all the good parts... If you're reading these words right now then that didn't happen.

Guess not then.

~

Rescue: pride of orange 特別高度救助隊 [series]

Maru your face is so epic I may die. Your furrows of worry are the best.

Maru’s furrows = Marrows.

Ok the only reason I watched this was for Masuda Takahisa’s awesome face, I swear it was the only thing keeping me going. It was terrible and brilliant then terrible then brilliant again. I think I will go with it being brilliant, but believe me it was still very terrible.

The painful constant monologue, when people were in desperate need of saving, was frustrating and excruciating. Over and over again. But I guess it made it funny too. Nakamaru Yuichi has the most awesome concerned eager face in the world. Maru your face is epic.

He actually didn’t stop shouting throughout the entire program. It was geniusly funny in ways I’m sure they didn’t intend – ah maybe they did. Who knows. The writers of this show seemed to be off the f*ckin’ planet anyway.

This is bound to be a pointlessly unhelpful review and you probably won’t understand a word I say as my memories of this series are too wrapped up in jokes inspired by the dire melodrama to make much sense. I will try to be coherent.

 

Maru plays Kitajima Daichi – god only knows how I can possibly describe him accurately to you.

He is like a small puppy with all the enthusiasm of a girl scout trying to save her grandma, with only love and cookies, from a bulldozer.

Massu plays Tezuka – Daichi’s best friend, another lovely little puppy with a cute worried face.

I love watching Massu trying to look like he is having a hard time doing sit ups and chin ups and stuff when you know really he could sh*t all over everyone when it comes to that stuff.

These two are firemen. Yup. In silver News / Kat-tun-esque suits. So, everyone feels right at home then. But fire fighting is not enough for them, nor is the silver. They want to become part of a special rescue unit called the super rangers パー！and use said girl scout determination to undertake arduous training and become super-special-mighty-morphing-orange-eito rangers.

Or something like that.

We have lots of familiar faces for the other recruits, including Daito Shunsuke (fujoshi kanojo, tumbling, nobuta o produce) Yamamoto Yusuke (atashinchi no danshi, tumbling, rinne no ame, hana kimi) Ishiguro Hideo (gokusen, kamen rider den o, 1 pound no fukuin, Princess princess D)

here is them all staring at the sky for some reason:

Even baka Sato Jiro is in this series being his usual mental self. It isn’t right without him. I’ll say again what I have said before. He should be in every series ever made.

Rescue is full of shouting, disobeying orders, bringing personal issues to the pot, being irrationally angry at everyone else, sudden half naked chin ups in a restaurant/bar, main characters dying left right and centre unnecessarily because the rescuers all monologue instead of dig them out of the rubble, and lots of the

super-happy-ninja-orange-eito rangers stopping to stare at fire as if they have never seen it before.

Aside from the writers having not done a great deal of research into things that cause fire and therefore made believable scenarios it was the usual *things go bang and woosh fires explode and things fall down* and then super-orange-special-awesome-ninja-eito rangers rush in to save the day, or to stop to bring all their personal issues to the pot, or just to look shocked at fire for 20 minutes.

There were lots of great bits that made me think *ah this is why it was so popular.* Then with the frustratingly sh*t bits I was carried through my Massu’s amazing face which I would be distracted by even if zombies were sprouting up from the ground and turning into flowers as Johnny Kitagawa road passed on a Tegoshi’s pink elephant spraying magic zombie flower potion onto the dribbling hoard from the trunk.

The most brilliant part was probably Maru’s furrows of worry. Every time something serious was happening I was curled up on the floor laughing at the Marrows on his forehead so prominent you could wash your laundry on them like a wash board.

Actually, Maru come here a minute, let me borrow your forehead for a bit, I’ve got some socks I forgot to put in the wash last time. Just don’t let Roro near it, he’s murder with a wash board; he’ll ruin your washing and charge you for it.    ...hang on, theyre all at it.

Anyway. Back to the f*cking point. What is the point? The super-special-needs-orange-eito ranger guys having existential crises every time anyone was hurt or was scared or breathed. It was relentless and infuriating, then became brilliant, then plain frustrating, then kind of insulting that we were expected to go along with that sh*t, then it was brilliant again. I was very dizzy by the end of it all but those two weirdoes kept me going. How wonderful to have Maru and Massu in a series together with the most worried expressions anyone could muster.

I don’t know what else to say, clearly nothing else stuck with me but Massu’s general awesomeness which I already had such a problem with I have had to seek help from an addicts anonymous helpline, and the epic Marrows that I had no hope of accurately capturing in the screen shots. It was worth it in hilarity value on that alone.

More team NakaMassu please. It makes the world a better place. I’m sure there were meant to be lots of heart warming and soul searching moral messages in this series but when the orange NakaMassu power rangers – I mean eito rangers – I mean super rangers descend all I can do is laugh. What a stupidly great program. Or greatly stupid. Maybe both. Yeah both.

fujoshi kanojo 腐女子彼女 [movie]

she’s the girl no-one knows how to love,

he’s the guy every crazy girl hopes to meet.

main cast:

#matsumoto wakana (kamen rider den-o series and movies)

#daito shunsuke (tumbling,nobuta o produce, crows zero 1&2,

hana kimi, himitsu no hanazono, shibatora, rescue, futatsu no spica)

#furukawa yuta (beck, kamen rider den-o movie yellow)

when I started watching kamen rider den-o a while back

I recognised ari but couldn’t place her for ages.

then slowly the image of her laughing in the butler café crept into my head

and I remembered it was her adorable performance of yuiko in the

live action movie of popular manga fujoshi kanojo,
how to date an otaku girl. (thats not what it means but its the western title)

now, the lovely lovely lovely lovely daito shusuke plays the male lead

in this film, and that alone makes it worth watching.

He has one of the best confused and horrified expressions of anyone,

and has to exercise them constantly throughout fujoshi kanojo

the more his character finds out what a nutter his new girlfriend is.

a fujoshi is someone with a liking for shounen-ai manga (boy love)

and usually upon finding out about her otaku nature

yuiko is dumped in disgust, but hinata (daito)

doesn’t know what the hell a fujoshi is so he tells her its ok

(having fallen completely head over heels in love at first sight)

only to slowly realise she is a bit of a nut bar.

hinata tries his best to try and go along with

her bizarre fantasies – even reading some manga he would normally

find embarrassingly stupid. the both of them are adorable and bonkers,

i couldn’t love this film anymore than i do, it is impossible not to

wish them endless happiness so much that you could burst.

i always always cry at the end of this movie – it completely

turned me into the biggest most squealing useless idiot of a girl

the first time i watched it and even skipping through to

get screenshots just now i teared up. i love it so much.

its very funny and sweet, really sad and adorable.

every crazy girl wants to find a boy like him.

and secretly every boy must want a cute crazy girl like her.

they must do. she is so lovely.

i wish matsumoto wakana had been in more dramas

or at least a few more movies, i love her so much in kamen rider

and when i watched fujoshi kanojo for the first time way back when,

i think i fell for her almost as hard as hinata fell for her character.

she must be great if im squealing about her and not

going off on a fan girl rant about fuuchi. although

I cant let this post end without a bit of a キャー and a little

‘team fuuchi’ flag wave. cant help but love daito shunsuke.

with all the things ive seen him in and adored,

i think his role in this movie may be my favourite – though

I say that with apprehension as my mind scans over

all the other roles of his ive really liked. (especially fuuchi)

the story is great (proper girlie though) the casting is perfect

and the acting is superb. it is over the top, very funny,

cringingly sweet (and embarrassing too) and just plain brilliant.

it’s a film i revisit periodically and will stay in my movie collection

for as long as i have one.

~

tumbling タンブリング [series]

its basically gokusen with leotards.
im sure it was terrible but i was too distracted by nisshi and fuchi to care...

original tumblers:

yuta - seto koji (atashinchi no danshi, rinne no ame, koizora)

mizusawa - yanagishita tomo (takumi-kun, akai ito)

kaneko - tamoto soran (furuhata chugakusei)

hino - nishijima takahiro (ghost friends, delicious gakuin, ai no mukidashi)

tsuchiya - tomiura satoshi (hana yori dango, taiyo to umi no kyoshitsu)

yankee tumblers:

wataru - yamamoto yusuke (antashinchi no danshi, hana kimi, rinne no ame,)

ryosuke - miura shohei (gokusen, giragira, school, koizora)

nippori - kaku kento (samurai high school, taiyo to umi no kyoshitsu)

kiyama - daito shunsuke (hana kimi, nobuta o produce, rescue, shibatora,

               futatsu no spica) [i call him fuchi so dont get confused]

others:

natsuko (wataru's mum) - otsuka nene (tokyo dogs, saigo no yakusoku)

kashiwagi sensei - akira (hana yori dango, yamagata scream)

mari-chan - okamoto azusa (moyashimon)

akabane (wide jaw skunk hair boy) - isaka tatsuya (water boys)

tashiri shigeo - sato jiro (gokusen 3, densha otoko)

ezaki sensei - kuninaka ryoko (hotaru no hikari)

the main cast is quite large so i thought id get that out the way in one go.

also, i want to point out that this is a totally biassed pointless review. most of my shots seemed to be of nisshi so i had to go and do them again. bear with me and my minor obsession and i will try and explain as much as i can around my fan girl moments.

right, its bad. its really cheesey. its like a gokusen wannabe with jumping and leotards. it completely won me over though.

i couldnt take yamamoto seriously at all doing his joey from friends acting. the way he threw is bag down all the time became funnier and funnier to me the more he did it with those permenantly flared nostrils. and sato koji didnt stop crying throughout the whole program. literally a few minutes break then he was off again. every damn episode.

tomiura satoshi's soft high voice commically lept out against the yankii's grrrrrring, shouting, and yakuza wanna be talk. but i do think he's great. dont get me wrong.

yanagishita plays another flakey gay which made me sigh: ah bless you useless takumi-kun. it was hysterically bad but he does it so well.

daito looked so stunning i squealed fuchi! everytime he came on screen.

seriously, bruises and a split lip really suit some people so much that its

almost a shame when they havent been fighting.

i was just screaming team moody ass hino! through the whole thing even though i had to wait untill the end episode 7

before nisshi cracked a smile! its just cruel.   ひどいよ!

and when nishijima smiles its like the sun coming up, he cant do them small, its like his whole being is made of smile. the contrast was hysterical. (it wasnt meant to be).

absolutely adorable. big squee for nisshi right? yeah you know it.

ah i should probably tell you what its about.

it centers around a gymnastics club basically. a load of yankii sh*t heads (who are really nice guys at heart as they always are) join in and it begins to save the angry nutters one by one in gokusen abandoned warehouse stylee.

wide jaw skunk hair boy ^ wants to f*ck everything up so he does and all the guys change into better people through their own trials and their friend's dilemas.

it has some bizzare camera angles, lots of sitting on the beach at sunset, and, of course, those token abandoned warehouses have perfectly placed steel poles to beat the sh*t out of school boys with as is the way of things.

but seriously people - you get to watch nisshi prancing about on a gym mat -

do you really care what its about?

ah and also fuchi's character goes 'nanas and beats up people quite a lot with scarey eyes and major serious face - which is awesome - and slightly more believable than yamamoto   :p

it was funny that lovely miura shohei basically played the same character that he played in gokusen. but with some leaping about in shiny pink clothes.

it was very funny. sometimes because it was meant to be (baka sato jiro) sometimes because i was just plain laughing at it . (the wataru and ryosuke making friends flash back. god that was bad)

i think it would have made an amazing stage show though. i'd truly love to see it onstage. it is perfect for it i think. im useless. i havnt said anything about it really have i?

its about kids finding somewhere they belong, finding their morals, understanding true friendship... yeah its basically gokusen without yankumi plus jumping with shiny clothes.

one of the things i did notice is how good their bad tumbling was. these guys are all pretty accomplished in leaping about like pros, so doing bad falls and not landing flips properly is quite a skill.

the good tumbling was stunning aswell. from all the teams you see thoughout. i would have like to see more dancing and stuff - thats kinda of why i think it would have made a good stage show. less d*cking about on the beach more shiny clothed jumping beans.

truth be told, i only watched it to see nisshi doing acrobatics and fuchi beating people up, i wasnt expecting award winning tv. so i quite happily squeed (not a real verb) all the way through.

its completely predictable, lame and cheesey. but you will have fun watching it. i did.

massive nisshi smiles all round.

~