Viewing Diary for 2023

rje1  a few seconds ago

Not especially exciting or memorable account of when a couple decide to build a house. She wants a trendy designer, but also her father to do the building, and so there are inevitable numerous clashes in sensibilities. As you'd expect, the house gets built (full of compromises) and the designer and carpenter develop a grudging mutual respect. There's a running subplot about the husband trying to write television scripts under ridiculous requirements, but it never goes anywhere and just wastes time.

The usual running gags and hijinks we've learned to expect from Miyama, except now he has protege Honoka to reverently copy his every move and laugh hysterically at his puns. Squeezed in between is a dark story that builds to an anguished climax, representing the theme that "we don't know if the truth can make people happy, but lies can't save people".

Numerous major flaws, but nevertheless important in advancing the cause. More kisses in a single quarter episode, than from every GL series from Korea and Japan (forget China). A fairy tale masquerading as a modern drama.

It looks to me like it's based on Japanese people's impressions of historical Europe that they've derived from watching old Western movies.
This is more evident in the anime version, e.g. when the little rich girl's servants are all black (in fact they look like white men in black face, rather than true African Americans). I found this offensive, but after all that's what we see in old American movies.
Not even as precise as medieval! In the first episode we see suits of armour (late mediaeval/early renaissance I think), in the second a viscount in a wig (roughly 18th C style I think) riding in a coach. On top of that, the locals use the odd German word, which must sound very European and exotic to Japanese ears.
I don't think I've ever seen a Western program depicting such eloquent, and as you say, orgasmic responses to food! Similar to the Wandering Gourmet, minus the orgasms.
One of the many bizarre/hilarious aspects of this series, is that the meals are typical everyday dishes, not at all inventive or unusual.

The story consists of a reasonably interesting mystery, solved step by step in the usual overwrought and mannered Japanese movie style, and nothing otherwise of interest in the characters and their interactions.

It shouldn't surprise us that behind the magic and romance of anime is a typically Japanese workaholic corporate world, where the cynical mercenary higher-ups, mercurial creatives, and ruthless producers duke it out. The plot is driven by the race for ratings between two production teams, like a typical sports movie/anime, and while the production process is interesting, it's hardly enough to fuel a movie. See the anime Shirobako for another account.
As it drives towards the climax, artistic integrity overtakes the crass wish to win, and in its service the whole team finally pulls together. This whole movie is secondary to the anime world at its core, and necessarily the climax itself has to be provided by the two anime series' final scenes, rather than the conflict between the various humans, who we can't really care about because we don't know them, other than the FL director's fairly sketchy childhood story (we've seen this before in other videos about anime e.g.  Juuhan Shuttai!)..

I watched so many Japanese dramas that I became immune to their faults; and then so many more that I became intolerant. Abe Hiroshi's bad guy looks like a nice teen trying to look tough in a school play. The story is typically overwrought maudlin, but in case you can't follow the melodramatic script, loud emotional music will be your guide. As so many dramas do, this one relies on secrets and miscommunications to drive it forwards. If people just stopped to listen to each other, the story would fall apart. Four episodes were enough for me; I can guess the rest without watching it.

Set in a dreamy fantasy slice of the real world, inhabited only by teenage girls. Two meet for the first time when they become step-sisters. The parents remain in absentia overseas throughout. One girl, shy, inhibited, and deferential, is extraordinarily knowledgeable and skilled at cooking. The other, impetuous and wears her heart on her sleeve, is willing to lend a hand, but especially loves to taste the productions of their kitchen, as well as take secret photographs of her new sister at work. Mutual cooperation ensues in yet another variation of the Japanese food drama. The adoring gazes (at each other, not just the food), the electric accidental touches, the ecstatic faces, are unmistakably symbolic, and this is the nearest thing to shoujo-ai without actually being so.

The movie is for lovers of the drama, and has much less time to explain things. I watched the drama almost 2 1/2 years ago (and loved it), which may have contributed to my confusion in following the movie. Just as someone mapped the drama, the movie needs a diagram to help keep track of what's going on (maybe copy the one directly from the movie). The movie benefits from having dropped the serial killer subplot. The three leads are just as charming as they were in the series.

The psychology of this story is so messed up, and typical of many Asian dramas. It’s ridiculous that because the ex-boyfriend says he loves her, and cries everywhere except in front of her, somehow that excuses the abominable way he treated her repeatedly, including sexual assault, because it clearly wasn’t given with real consent. Whoever calls that love has a very twisted understanding of love. It was quite narcissistic, and someone like that in real life would be very unlikely to change and become capable of truly caring for someone. The ending felt rushed and unfinished. Perhaps the script writer was hoping for a second season.