A deliciously sweet Sunday.
I go by the name of Toffeeish and every Sunday I will give you review on something cool and Asian.
Mostly anime, but I enjoy manga, games, Cds, food, you name it!!
I haven't really ventured much into Japanese dramas much, but I have heard a lot about the general idea of them. Instead of tear-jerking love stories and soap opera tragedies j-dramas are full of slapstick comedy and silliness. This particular drama is based in a music college that Chiaki attends. Originally bought up in Europe, he had to move back to Japan when his parents split up. Somewhere on the way though, his plane had an emergency landing and he feel out of a boat, so with those haunting memories he is now stuck in Japan (easily the worst bit of the plot, a plane crash AND drowning!). He's from the piano division and his known through out the school for his brilliant piano but also his astounding good-looks. Nodame is also plays piano at college but she's a freshman and labelled under-achiever. The two are set the task of playing a duet together and as they are neighbours begin to spend a lot of time together. Thus the two obviously, and quite suddenly, fall in love (really, it was like they blinked and suddenly appreciated one another!). But Chiaki doesn't want to be a pianist, he wants to conduct, so when a famous conductor comes to school Chiaki immediately wants to be his pupil. The madness that follows would have to be seen to be believed. The plot has innumerable flaws and the romance doesn't have enough drama in it but it is unbelievable funny. I just sometimes wonder if I'm laughing at bits that are supposed to be funny....
I contemplated not doing a review for this anime because it's so hard to form a review of this, but I'll try! The plot is all based around Rintaro Okabe, who dubs himself as Hououin Kyouma, the mad scientist. He has his own little imaginary world where 'the organisation' rules society and is constantly sending agents after him. He has a 'secret lab' where him and his few friends play along with his conspiracies and play about with their 'phone microwave (name subject to change)'. But convinced that they just sent a banana into the past the whole gang are whisked to the border of imaginary and reality. It's difficult to trust anything that's going on since the main character likes to play pretend. I think that this is a brilliant idea as it means your constantly thinking and questioning what you're watching. But it makes it kind of complicated as well, especially the first episode, I almost didn't want to continue to episode 2 because there was no sense at all in episode 1!! However, I'm happy to report that things pick up a lot from episode 2 onwards. It is still very illogical and confounding, but in a more entertaining way.
"N.H.K." the Japanese Broadcasting Corporation. Or the Japanese Hikikomori Coporation. According to Satou's hallucinations it's all the N.H.K's fault that he's become a Hikikimori. Secluded to his room Satou hasn't talked to any one in four years. That's when Misaki comes along, claiming that Satou is perfect for her 'project' they start they're counselling sessions to save Satou from his seclusion. Then things get out of hand, Satou lies to his mum and now he needs a job and girlfriend. Now Satou must take his slow steps into society while trying to make the ultimate ero-game with his friend and neighbour Yamazaki. It does have some serious notes on social anxiety, the difficulties coping in life and how one is supposed to live but mostly we laugh as Satou makes a fool of himself. It also has lots of culture in it, otakus, lolicon, doujinshi writing and moe, you can find out all about these Japanese things. But it still mostly sticks to pretty outlandish humour and horrible coincidences. Unfortunately the one book I have is pretty short, so it's difficult to give my opinions on the plot but it does appear to have some good potential.
This is my third drama with homosexuality in it, but this time it's very different because there is no cross-dressing people, just some big misunderstandings. Jeon Jin Ho is a budding architect who wants to enter the Dam Art Gallery Project. This project is supposed to be based on the Sanggojae but this makes it very difficult for every one as the Sanggojae has always been locked to outsiders. The owner of said house is Park Gae In and after being betrayed by those closest to her she has no choice but to sublet one of her rooms. Of course, a lady living on her own couldn't rent the room out to a man. But what if the man was gay? Then there wouldn't been a problem, so after several misunderstandings Jin Ho has to pretend to be gay to stay with Gae In. But with Gae In being such a careless loud mouth Jin Ho is constantly forced into awkward situations. Thus, start the chaos! There is also the addition of Chang Ryul and In Hee who cancelled their wedding because they both had other lovers. Trying to work out the true intentions of theese two is difficult because although Chang Ryul refuses to let go of In Hee he keeps returning to Gae In, his other lover. I'm not even going to get into the criss-crossed love square that's formed!
This anime has been one of the featured shows on animedreaming for quite a while now, so, upon my sister's recommendation, I decided to watch it. It's mostly a ghost story, but it hasn't really got a ghost in it exactly. It also has some pretty unnecessary gore in it. I don't like gore or ghost, it's not really my thing at all. 26 years ago, Misaki, the all-round brilliant guy, is killed in an accident. Horribly effected by their class mates sudden death, the whole class decides to pretend she's still alive. Even the headmaster plays a long and puts an extra chair out for her during the graduation ceremony. That's weird enough, but when Misaki turns up in their group photo 9th grade class 3 can't even begin to realise what they've done. They opened 9th grade class 3 up to the world of the dead. I get a bit lost with the rest of the story, but basically every year, the 9th grade class 3 are always missing one desk and one chair because like, a dead person joins they're class or something.... And then every month a student or a member of their family die. It's not particularly clear... but that's the history of the school. Now Sakakibara is transferred into said class of terrors. Unknowing of 9th grade class 3's calamity, Sakakibara accidentally destroys the protective measure they had set in place. Know, with his class mates dying around him, Sakakibara is determined to fix such a horrible problem. Or something like that. Really, it's not clear why Sakakibara is willing to endanger himself to find the answers. The plot is very layered, but I think the writer might have had difficulties with such a plot because it seems fairly disordered. I do think it's a very interesting plot though even if some parts of the story are too far-fetched. Like how every one's memories get altered so you can't remember who the ghost in your class was and the self-altering school documents that add and remove the ghosts name.... I really don't like those bits. But the idea of a ghost in your school and not knowing who and unusual deaths and stuff, that's what makes it interesting.
Sakakibara is your average kid with lots of curiosity, fairly boring actually. But then there is Mei Misaki, she is very pretty. Her face is so blank and expressionless that she really looks like a doll. Although she is completely ignored at the beginning it is very interesting to watch her adapt to be around friends. She also appears to have an interesting story to her family, but I haven't really heard about anything yet. All her abnormalities make up for Sakakibara's boring traits. The only other character that I'm interested in is Akazawa. She's a bit of a tsundere, but I bet there's a reason that she's the Head of Countermeasures thus responsible for protecting the class against the calamity.
The art is very nice. I like the addition of all the dolls, it makes everything very creepy. Really, the whole animation is creepy, crows and flickering lights, the whole town is depicted as a place of death and decay. Very well thought out. Then there's those superbly detailed backgrounds, so pretty. There's one thing that really ruins the art: the deaths. I don't mind death scenes, but these are irrationally gross. Dismembered limbs and blood every where. If it was necessary for such gruesome deaths to take place then the use of obscure camera cuts (I find) are more effective than the exaggerative amount of blood flying everywhere.
In all honesty, I am quite open, I don't really hate any genre. But I just dislike unnecessary horrors. Sure, maybe some of you out there like watching blood pour out of someone as some sharp object is insterted into their body. But it just looks really crude to me and pulls away from the quality of the plot. Even with that, this is a good show. Short but I don't think it'd do to be any longer.
