Higanjima 彼岸島 [series]

um... ok so when did Endo Yuya become the best thing to grace a low budget drama?

I have to interrupt my SPEC reviews again for this drama I just finished. I was expecting a low budget really bad drama full of lame acting and bad effects - which I got, but out of the smoke and fog of cheesy dialogue and terrible mournful furrows of worry ...came a beacon of genuine acting skill... What the f*ck?

Now, I've liked Endo Yuya in a lot of things, he has always been weird and interesting side characters in a range of shows and movies but somehow he stole it away for himself this time. 

The script and general execution of the series was a bit piss poor, as you would expect from this kind of drama, but Endo was acting like he was in any other mainstream show, with all the subtle looks and perfectly timed lip quivers of a veteran low budget actor like Saito Takumi or Mizushima Hiro. 



These guys have moved on to better things with huge budgets but continually come back to lower class movies and dramas just because, I guess, its fun and the stories are so different. 

I didn't know Endo would do the same. He has brought back his acting skills from the better shows he has done and not lowered his level at all for the piece of crap melodramatic late night bollocks that is Higanjima. 

Don't misunderstand, I liked it. It was easy to watch even without subs - there seem to be none anywhere on the entire internet. I'm not slating it at all, I'm just really impressed that Endo can act like he is in a big budget movie for such a low class idiot drama. 

Cast:

Shiraishi Shunya - Akira

Suzuki Ryohei - Atsushi 

Endo Yuya - Ken

Yamashita Rio - Yuki

Megumi Sato - Rei

Kurihara Louis - Vampire Miyabi

Nishii Yukito - Bon

I will admit I just wated to see Kurihara Louis as a crazed man-made vampire hell bent on destroying his hated mankind for torturing him. And he delivered his usual scope of overly weird, slightly more weird, and generally creepy weird, as I expected. He wore that wig well.

But I was just completely taken in by Endo's Ken. He really seemed tough and cool and worth rooting for. Never seen Endo with long hair looking a bit stacked either - where did those shoulders come from? Weren't you like, a tiny 12 year old skinny thing a little while ago..? I think someone has started eating their greens.

I wasn't so sold on the rest of the gang, but Suzuki Ryohei (Hentai Kamen, Zenkai Girl, Tokyo Dogs, Majo saiban, Mei chan no shitsuji, Papa doru, Yankii kun to megane chan, Hana Kimi - do I seriously need to go on?) is another good actor that also raises the bar of this cheap late night drama. 

The main character Akira is a little bit flat, I like Shiraishi Shunya but I think this character isn't much to work with - there's not really much time to flesh out the characters. I expect the manga is totally different. 



The cast definitely made it feel more like an obscure movie rather than a low budget drama. I just imagined if this had been filmed with the cast and directors of Clone Baby... oh god no. Although one of its directors did also do Megane chan so go figure that one out.

Anyway its not Clone Baby. Although it is bad and cheesy and cheap, very short episodes, and no huge climactic ending, there are some nice back stories (as much as you can cover in those super short eps) and I'm wondering now how the movie worked out. It had a much higher budget, Mizukawa Asami is in it for a start, but I'm not sold yet. 

I mentioned my partner in crime before, my own Hanzawa Naoki boy Taka, well he works for the company who did some CGI effects on the movie, so I kind of feel like I should watch the movie now too. At least that one has subs. It doesn't look much better than this drama to be honest, but when I can be bothered I will give it a watch.

Aaagghgh I ranted without saying any plot again.

From what I can gather, Akira's brother went missing when they visited his girlfriend's parents on the Island of red spider lilies (Higanjima) and promptly freed the vampire Miyabi from his boarded up shed thing - as you do. 

Miyabi was a kind of vampire king on the island so much as he spawned them all after killing the military unit that made him. I missed a bit somewhere because I wasn't paying attention but I think he got locked up by the main military guy but when he got let out by Atsushi he killed everyone and spawned an island full of minions again. I'm not sure about that part I was taking SPEC screen shots at the time.

So Akira never knew what happened to his brother until one day this chick tricks him onto the island - I never got what her back story was apart from needing to rescue her sister. I wasn't listening when that bit was on either. Sh*t I really wasn't paying attention was I.

Anyway, Akira and his brother team up once reunited on the island to finally thwart the vampire Miyabi, but first have to battle a whole island full of hungry vamps and the odd monster here and there. 

The thing that Bon gets turned into was cool but really weird. Like something from Doctor Who for sure. Its creation is made from the suffering of the victims as far as I could make out. But the other monster thing that head butted its way into the wall while Akira and Atsushi finally met up with the vampire Miyabi for a show down ... I totally missed what that was. Where the f*ck did that come from?

I really should pay attention instead of finishing off my other posts.

You know when you have a TV show on in the back ground while you are cleaning and suddenly all this stuff is happening that you have n context for? Yeah that.

Well, that is what I got anyway. I thought it was worth watching purely for Kurihara Louis' weird face and I got a side salad of Endo Yuya being f*cking amazing. So yeah. Its a win for this crappy show I think.

~

voice ヴォイス [series]

with friends like these who needs autopsies?

eita and ikuta toma - what a brilliant pairing! for a potentially typical format of mystery drama the casting of these two was an inspired decision.

there is a lot of banter between all the main characters and even quite a lot from the supporting cast too. 

it was well written with sensitivity to a sometimes somber subject matter.

the setting is medical school and the five main characters are students taking a seminar on forensic pathology. this, they come to learn, is about conveying the voices of the dead to those left alive.

in confusing cases where the cause of death is unknown or suspicious, forensic pathology listens to the signs the body shows in order to hear the real story of those last moments on earth.

all taking the seminar for their own different reasons (often something in their past that has haunted them) the five work together to understand how dead bodies can explain the life that once was attached to them.

kaji daiki (eita) is actualy unwillingly drafted into this course by the lecturer who can see something in him that would surely flourish in forensic pathology.

his friend ryosuke (ikuta) is avoiding the pressure of his dad's high position, 

kanako (ishihara satomi) lost someone in suspicious circumstances, 

teppei (endo yuya) and akira (sato yuki) who have a great argumentative banter with each other from day one, also appear to have their own reasons for joining this usually fairly unpopular and misunderstood course.

the second great pairing in this is endo and sato. i would never have thought to put those two together but it was a stroke of genius. 

its always quite fun to see endo getting beatings and playing the nervous geeky fool, and sato is great as the scarey looking, angry but soft hearted idiot akira.

each episode has a new case for them to solve and they are all pretty interesting. 

but it is the banter between the main five plus akira's mum that i like best about the show. it keeps it all rolling.

all the boys seem to pick on kanako and she stubbornly keeps them at arms length for quite a while. ishihara is another actress who can play many different roles well. 

one minute a closed and focussed young girl and the next a frantic, rude, sneaky teacher as was her role as in puzzle.

ikuta looks beautiful in voice i have to say. he is a little slapstick (how we like him best) and a little serious too. and not many people look good in puffa jackets so thats one to be proud of.

kaji daiki is basically riding on his exceptional intuition and has Galileo style flashes of genius when he is in deep thought - he usually saves the day with his soft focus psychosis epiphanies.

its kind of cheesey i guess but eita's awsome expressions and that messed up

mop of hair he has just makes it fun to watch. i could watch him in the worst program ever created and i probably would still like it due to being blinded by his greatness. his thinking face is awesome. haha, it sounds funny to say that. it really is though. cant help but love that man in whatever role he is in.

and that big green/blue coat was another inspired piece of casting. it was like the 6th member of the team.

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