Soumatou Kabushiki Gaisha 走馬灯株式会社 [series]

Gorgeous Kashii Yu just giving it all the Keigo in an ugly dress. 

Being monumentally bored at work certainly has given me a chance to post some things recently hasnt it? This last month I've just gone mad on here reviewing everything I can in my vegetative state at my office desk. 

I'm not complaining, at least I can use my time for this a little bit rather than pacing up and down the aisle at the shop like I used to. But I feel like I'm shirking and I don't like that much. 

The time goes way to slow for a start, and I really dont think doing my reviews at work is appropriate, but no-one will give me anything else to do so here I am again writing a review half joyed on painkillers and half asleep from boredom. 

My neck still hurts and its uncomfortable to sit here and type but its basically all I do at work - sit and type, so why not just carry on. 

I'm having to take half of 1 tablet while I'm at work rather than 2 whole pills like I'm supposed to, because as anyone can see from my Bitter Blood review last week I cant function on these painkillers. 

I melted my hair off with a nice chemical cut from hair straightening lotion because I was so spannered and out of it lately I forgot half of my hair was freshly bleached and I just covered it in the stuff, promptly breaking all my hair off in massive clumps in my hands. 

Dont operate heavy machinery? Dont operate hair styling products also! Still, my hair is definitely f*cking straight now though. What's left of it. And purple. Which is great.

These pills have such a weird effect on me - they make my voice go weird! I've never heard of that before. 

So, yeah thats a little bit off the point really, I will get on to this review now. Just thought you might like to know how retarded my recent doings have been. Never a dull moment. 

So now my short singed haired self will tell you about this drama Soumatou (revolving lantern). 

The lantern is used as a symbolic image in the drama as it is in real life for that concept of your whole life's images flashing before your eyes before you die. 

This drama is another budget late night jobby, with short episodes and a weird story line that doesnt make much sense unless you suspend belief in standard ideas of physics and all that - and of course they are my favourite shows to review. 

Kashii Yu (Yukan club, My boss my hero) is gorgeous as always, and speaks nothing but super polite keigo all the way through in her quiet mild sweet soft voice, then gives a little evil look to the camera... yeah she's super cool. I want her to be my grim reaper. 

Her character works for the Soumatou company which holds the recorded video of your entire life ready for you to watch with drinks and a comfy sofa. 

This company pops up everywhere in different forms, hiding in other building or behind a door that wasnt expected to be there. 

Someone would stumble on the place and be ushered in by this Keigo hostess in a terrible dress, and fall pray to the secrets revealed in the videos of their own lives. 

Some people found out truths about themselves and family, some people misread what they saw and assumed the worst, but which ever path they took it usually resulted in murder or suicide or some sort of nasty and unfortunate ending that makes our girl smirk her way out of the room. 

The stories are all pretty melodramatic, like finding out your mother actually isnt - she killed your mum and stole baby you and passed you off as her own, then killed your girlfriend and acted like she had never existed... then you do nothing about it and accept it... ok... whatever is going on there I dont get it but whatever... moving on... 

Another episode has the entire town out to kill someone just because an old mental psychic crazy person told the town they would die and they OF COURSE believed that and went on a major children of the corn mission to sacrifice the.. seriously what the actual f*ck... ok... 

Ah of course the episode where the family look as if they are all plotting to kill the husband because they say such bloody mean things to him, and that totally backfires in the worst way ever - to be fair they treated him like sh*t - they deserved his tragic misunderstanding. Stupid idiots. 

Well this has been a lovely rant that didnt make much sense. I hope I gave you a nice idea of how this show works anyway. Generally it seems like man has a tough time in life, finds Soumatou and goes in to have a look, watches his life videos, finds out some secret that ruins his life, goes and acts on it, comes back and kills him self. Or someone else. 

Joy. What Joys. What an joyfull drama. 

No comic relief, no inappropriate boy love fuwa fuwa for no reason, no bad purple eye shadow bruises and fights in deserted factories, but all the low budget script writing you could ask for 

...if you were a maybe at that age where your clothes are all black and you like watching serial killer documentaries and feel that they were justified for slaughtering everyone. We all had that phase - dont deny it.

Well now I am at home editing this without my electric fan because I left it at work - tonight's sleep will be comfortable (>_<)#! I am trying to do this one handed because all I have is Satako san's Pikachu uchiwa to fan myself with. Oh another joy.

If you want a cast list go to drama wiki, I cannot be bothered. I put some relevant people in the tag list at the bottom of the post anyway.

Im so damn hot right now, I feel like this laptop is actually the sun and its burning holes through my legs. 

I know this review has been half arsed and non explanatory, and seriously I dont care because its a pretty lame drama that I wasnt too bothered with. I fell asleep through a few episodes and cant really even remember how it ended. So, joys. Everything is worth watching though. Unless Nino. To which I just say NO. Clue is in the name. Not going there.

So yeah, this drama, go watch it, or not, Im not fussed, its, you know, whatever. Im too hot, go away now.

~

FACE MAKER [series]

What's that you say? Another budget late night suspend all real knowledge of science and logic style crappy drama? yes please!

Yep. Here is another one. Ridiculous science that is always attributed to genius rather than technological advancement because they know its never likely to really happen this way. 

This time it is in the shape of face transplants. And hair and voice I might add.

Oh they try to get around it but saying of course the voice changes when the face has been reconstructed this way - but taking the bandages off to have a brand new hair colour and cut is an optional extra I guess everyone opted for. 

The hilarious short clip in the intro of the face being removed is like saying the transplant merely consists of the skin being glued like a mask over the newly skinned face of the client. 

Like your bone structure has nothing to do with it. 

And when you see the wall of faces in his office you start to get the idea they really want you to think that's how it works.

This is certainly a far cry from realistic. But having said all that its not that bad of a drama. It got a little bit boring in places but generally it was pretty level and easy to watch. 

It comes complete with all the bucket loads of morals that you would expect to find in this kind of drama, 

with a moody, confused, angst ridden doctor stalking his patients so that any given moment he can pop up like a f*cking MS Word paperclip and suggest a better way of doing what theyre doing. 

Oh, and to tell them that he sold their face - the one he cut off them a few months ago.

These clients (if you really want me to do a plot synopsis then I guess I should) come to this genius surgeon to give them a new face to run away or begin again for various reasons. 

Usually it all goes well for a while then the person's life that used to own that face rears up in front of them to cause problems or the person with a new face's old face gets sold to someone - sometimes to the one who's face is now on the person with the new face - and jesus what the hell kind of sentence was that? 

Ok so the plot can get a little confusing. But each episode has its own story so its not so hard to follow. If they had all been weaved in and out of each other then maybe it would have been as confusing as my last paragraph. Actually might have worked well weaving some stories together but I think they had enough on their plate. 

This doctor used to work for the US witness protection program - have you noticed that even though Japan is incredibly advanced in many ways they always feel like their genius characters have more credibility if theyve worked or grown up abroad? 

They shipped in Ataru from the US, this face maker guy is pretty much the same. 

He finds himself back in Japan searching for something - although this guy is far from savant like Chokozai-kun. He has all the feels and knows all the things. Apart from his own stuff obviously. Knows exactly what everyone else should do about their troubles but has no idea about his own.

The face maker has a blurry past and, as usual for these forgotten memory dealies, just one photo in his pocket of a girl he thinks holds the key to something half remembered in his past.

Yeah yeah same sh*t different drama. Its nothing new by far. But it was interesting enough. I liked a few episodes more than others. 

I liked that not all of them ended perfectly happy for everyone, and some bad decisions were rightly rewarded with bad results. But mostly the moralities were correctly played out like fate always wins and the good will out. 

There were many familiar faces in this one. No idea what the character's names were so I wont do a cast list but they are in the labels at the end of the post. The face maker is played by Nagai Masaru and his sister is played by Hinata Chiho, a few other notable guests were Kamen Rider Kabuto's Sato Yuki, and Dr DMAT's Kato Ai who seems to be in every thing I watch recently.

It was not the worst budget drama I've seen, but its no better than most. I love the idea that he can just swap faces around like he is playing Mr Potato Head with random people and letting them lose in the world.

These cheap ass dramas, they're like an addiction for me. Seriously, one day I really should give these up. 

~

trouble man トラブルマン [series]

Get the funky life!

This has got to be the weirdest series I’ve seen so far – and I'm watching Arakawa for f*ck’s sake. It is no surprise really – it is directed by Sabu so what the f*ck do you expect right? It took me about four episodes to get into it but it spirals so out of control that I just couldn’t help but become hooked.

Trouble man is the oddly overlapping stories of six people linked together by bizarre and unfortunate circumstances and in the center of it all is our favorite little hedgehog Kato Shigeaki of News. He plays our main character Tokuda, a man surrounded by relentless unbelievable trouble and misfortune.

These people are lashed together by their woes and eventually we get to see how all their stories link together. It gets progressively more complicated and twisted up but still all I can do is imagine Shigedgehog with a curly perm (it is suggested at one point and I just couldn’t let it go)

Cast:

Tokuda - Kato Shigeaki

Ozaki - Takezai Terunosuke

Makiko - Iwasa Mayuko

Kameda - Nakayama Yuichiro

Tagawa - Riju Go

Sasaki - Kino Hana

~

Asai Akira - Terajima Susumu

Kita Kenji - Kunimoto Shoken

Kagawa Ryo - Ogura Takeshi

There is a lovely little cameo of lead actor and main character from postman’s blues (Another sabu film) and really it just adds to the surreal feel of the series. It is already bonkers but by episode nine there is nowhere to run from the intelligently tangled storylines.

It wasn’t hard to get such decent screen shots, the whole thing is filmed so skillfully and looks so arty that you could stop an episode anywhere at random and it could be the makings of a movie poster.

There are lots of Shige-running-like-a-mad-man scenes, for which I’m eternally grateful, and all the characters get a chance to be fully explored so that there isn’t a week one in the bunch. There are some great arthouse-movie style shots in true Sabu form, and it is full of humour that is sometimes completely inappropriate to laugh along with but you just can’t help it – again, true to Sabu form.

Who the hell ever allowed Shigedehog to be in a Sabu production? I nearly died a million times from his nervous laughter and the shocked faces he pulled. If it wasn’t so funny I would say it could have been some noir-ish gangster movie, especially when we see our little Shigedgehog get pummelled half to death and then apologise for being alive…

But seriously, the constant *…eeeeehhhhh?!* resounding chorus from all and sundry, especially when coming from Shige’s exhausted confusion, was constantly squeal-worthy humour.

And there is a short scene where he is cooking in episode 10, ruku-chan I swear you will totally fan girl ureshii squee over that for no real comprehensible reason. And I noticed he has the straightest nose ever. And always slightly floofy hair. But anyway, enough ranting about Shigedgehog.

I think I lost the plot about the time Marcus the toy monkey started dancing for Tokuda in the paper stock room. It is nutty but a brilliantly paced series and I really had no idea where the hell it was heading at any point. And to top it all off you have that f*cking theme tune bursting in at the end of a really serious episode, News start happily squarking bollocks that sounds like get a f*cking life – im telling you it fully does and their cheesy ass “singing” jars against the savage events of the program. News make me laugh. And prey tell, what is this funky life and how does one obtain it? If News’ wardrobe and choreography is anything to go on then I believe it maybe related to some psychotropic drugs. Can’t help but love those lads.

Uwaa! I have the best idea! Sabu should direct one of News’ stage shows! Oh my f*cking god that would actually be one of the best things to ever happen in the universe. Can you imagine it?!  I’m thinking it is the only way I’m gonna get roro in a big ass dai kaiju cockerel costume. That sh*t would work if Sabu did it.

So think 8uppers crossed with alice in wonderland as the wardrobe, the love child of lady gaga and rage against the machine for the lyrics, fusion of takeshi’s castle and the crows zero movies for the set design, and you have yourself a News concert directed by Sabu. Wicked! I’ve fallen completely off point here haven’t I…

Fa fa funky time!

Mune odoru ne

Nankai na jinsei mo isso tanoshime

Ba ba burning heart

Donna toki mo

Zenryoku zenkai ima koso

Get the funky life!

Yeah you f*cking know it.

 

Run Shigedgehog, run!

~