Almael

• April 3, 2016 at 4:22 PM
• in reply to: Live Actions & JDorama Review & discussion

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Almael

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Konkatsu Deka

Year: 2015

Thoughts:

This show is about Hanada Yoneko (neko-chan 😆 ), who’s a god sent for the police. One day a female criminal made her realize she has to get married now or never. However, that’s a problem. That is because she attracts and falls for criminals. Therefore it has become a semi-law that men she gets involved with and who are connected to a case are without a doubt criminals.

She wants to get married but can’t!! She gets encouragements from her senpais (for a reason). Yoneko isn’t exactly picky as she goes for all kinds of stereotypes. The good thing is her boss: “If you report it(her radar hit)… we can forgive any kind of love.” => Any love is forgiven for the sake of justice.

If only that were true with the Japanese police force. The policy in reality is that members of the force cannot have criminals in their family. This means either they cannot join the force to begin with or have to leave. And if they marry a foreigner their career’s over and they get posted somewhere in the countryside. This is about the honor of the police and you know how serious they are about their hypocritical honor.

Anyway, the situations are kind of amusing and you get to see pick up tricks of the criminals. The actors are mostly veterans, not top notch but nothing to complain about.

The cases are secondary in this show. There’s not as much riddles to see here if you are looking for such cases. But that doesn’t mean the cases aren’t without merit. For example episode 3 is sending us for a loop until Yoneko intervenes. Hint: it’s easy, consider her radar being absolute! Scaryyy!!! Case aside the real shocking revelations are at the end of the episode.

So rather than criminal cases the real issues are human nature, relationships, circumstances etc.

Overall, it’s an OK relationship show.

Verdict: 7.7

Cast: 8

Cast performance: 8

Script/Directing: 7

• April 3, 2016 at 4:19 PM
• in reply to: Hello There!

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Almael

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Hmm? My friend, I’m pretty sure I gave you something like my 4/5 manuals on OCR & Japanese translations (ocr-instructions, yomikaku/finereader, general corrections, general translation-instructions, further links) before you started your own. Not that mind or even care about credit for myself (just don’t touch my associates). I share everything worth especially knowledge for prosperity.

Regardless, we at Abh Nation did venture, explore, and did all possibilities. But when I took over the old stuff was outdated (parts missing) and we had the latest OCR at hand. And thanks to everyone’s contribution I fast tracked/introduced OCR machine translation and the rest was done by us humans. It wouldn’t have been possible to get SN4 out as fast otherwise.

Yes, it’s certainly your baby. It’s true I only did little things here and there as far as Tenchi goes.

• April 2, 2016 at 10:41 PM
• in reply to: Hello There!

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Almael

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It’s alright for the master to sit back. Let the younglings have their limelight.

It’s not like the guy pioneering it before him is even mentioned either.

• April 2, 2016 at 5:30 PM
• in reply to: Live Actions & JDorama Review & discussion

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Almael

Member

Gokusen

Type: live action

Genre: school comedy

Year: 2002-Apr-01 to 2002-Jul-03

Introduction:

Gokusen is a series of three shows based on the manga of the same name by Kozueko Morimoto.

Summary:

Shirokin Gakuen: Kumiko, the granddaughter of a Yakuza boss, (known by her students as “Yankumi”) becomes a teacher at an all-boys private high school. Her class is full of delinquents.

Critique:

The show is basically the female counter part to GTO. Only not as good.

Despite a large cast the show is dominated by Nakama Yukie as Yamaguchi Kumiko.

The rest of the cast are rather disappointing leading to a bad impression. Story wise it’s your regular school teacher & students get in trouble show. Solid but not so exceptional.

However, the setting gives rise to lots of fun and comic situation as Kumiko she tries to help while keeping her family a secret.

Verdict: 7.7

Cast 8

Cast performance 7

Script/Directing: 8

• April 2, 2016 at 5:13 PM
• in reply to: Live Actions & JDorama Review & discussion

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Almael

Member

Zettai Kareshi [Absolute Boyfriend]

Type: relationship drama

Genre: romance comedy

Year: 2008-Apr-15 to 2008-Jun-24

Summary:

Izawa Riko has been turned down numerous times by men due to her seriousness. Namikiri Gaku talks her into a 5-day free trial of his company Kronos Heaven’s ero-robot 01 prototype. 01 is the perfect male humanoid tailored to the owner’s ideal image of a lover. He is devoted and completely loyal to his lover. An unexpected love triangle develops.

Critique:

From the start the show has numerous good actors/actresses among the cast and huge guest cast. Despite that it appeared ordinary at first and I had my doubts about a few things. However, as the story progressed the show became a lot more entertaining and my doubts got resolved.

Aibu Saki (Izawa Riko) plays the duck that becomes a swan. She is truly unsuspecting. Hayami Mokomichi (Tenjo Night) plays the oblivious sex crazed ero-robot causing Riko many troubles that are hilarious at times.

Interestingly and surprisingly, the show’s actors speak french quite well unlike the engrish in some other shows. I can at least make out 80% of it. Overall it’s very entertaining.

Verdict: 8.3

Cast 8

Cast performance 8

Script/Directing: 9

• April 2, 2016 at 4:29 PM
• in reply to: Live Actions & JDorama Review & discussion

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Almael

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Liar Game

Type: live action

Genre: psychology, game mystery suspense

Year: 2007-Apr-14 to 2007-Jun-23

Introduction:

Aside from this Japanese version there’s also a Korean version.

Summary:

Kanzaki Nao is an honest college student who receives a hundred million yen one day, along with a card saying she has been chosen to take part in the “Liar Game”. The aim of the game is to trick the other players out of their hundred million dollars. At the end, the winner gets the hundred million and the loser is a hundred million yen in debt. The next day, she receives notification that her opponent is her former teacher, Fujisawa Kazuo. She goes to him, seeking help, but ends up getting tricked into handing her money over. Desperate, she approaches the police for help, but they are unable to do anything. However, she is told of a mastermind swindler, Akiyama Shinichi, who is to be released from jail the next day. Desperate, she goes to him for help.

Critique:

From the rules presented it’s clear the “liar game” is a scamming scheme because

the organization always gets the initial money back from losers and winners alike

This means the organization gets at least 150% or a maximum of 200% back or gains 50% or 100% repectively. If you take penalties into account the organization gains an additional 100 million yen each time! Since there are revival rounds for losers, the organisation can milk even more from the losers. The whole scheme is completely obvious with the revelation of the second round rules. It gets explained at the end of the revival game so you won’t miss it.

Since Kanzaki Nao gave her initial winnings to her teacher, she will always end up in debt. In the best winning case she would end up with 0. Well, this would make the show pointless to watch, hence, enters Akiyama Shinichi!

The game challenges presented can be considered extreme difficult, I guess. That said, it’s not really from my point of view. A game problem can be divided into two parts:

the math problem: here you have to determine the true nature of the working of the game and device a mathematical strategy. This requires at least high school level math and at most 101 (business) IT and 101 probability. For example basics of binary, general summing, tree algorithm, or recursive thinking at most.

It’s not exactly difficult but requires multi level thinking and tracking.

Since the schemes and strategies are prominent in this show acting isn’t really an important factor. The villains are good at it, though. Unlike some other shows the heroine is a satisfying match even though being the perfect damsel isn’t exactly cool.

Toda Erika as Kanzaki Nao is a good actress hence she is a good liar here. 😆 Seriously, she is effortlessly natural it’s hard to tell about her efforts. You may think her character’s too dumb but I’ve seen such cases in real game shows (e.g. popular or elimination voting game) before. What I don’t like is how honesty is being equalized with being dumb. There’s no limitation to being dumb nor is anyone free from it or making a mistake.

Even after Nao got the trick explained she still didn’t figure out or unable to think beyond is kind of exaggerated but it can’t be helped for the plot’s sake. She falls for the simplest of tricks, the double sided card game. It’s a game of probability but the show’s visual explanation is bad or even confusing. For a better explanation watch “No Game No Life” or imagine Mendel’s bean experiment. It’s kind of obvious no matter what she plays she loses. But she’s too dumb to even figure that out. Without Shinichi it’s just too sad, monotone and boring. Of course he comes exactly at the moment when there’s still a chance to save her (any later would be pointless). Based on that you can figure out if a games is hard or not. Well, Nao does come up with with a trick of her own … She figured out the game’s scheme! it totally contradicts how dumb she is. 😆

The 4th round at first appeared most interesting but the math probability was way simple. Each one has to smuggle a total of 300 million but can only do a maximum of 100 million at a time. With 5 in each team it’s a minimum of 15 times needed. A total of 30 rounds are permitted for both sides. If both sides smuggle all the time then it will most likely end in a draw unless “luck” interfers. Yet, Nao & co. easily fall for the obvious logical trap(s) at first then resort to teaming tricks. Thanks to Nao the rest is pretty simple, too. At this point there are two recap epizodes with minor new scenes. For a short show this is too excessive.

The show is all about watching how things turn out for your favorite characters. Things are made funny at times and of course there’s suspense. Overall it’s entertaining.

Well, as a game show there are limits on how to create games for it. Hence, once you have seen them you have seen nearly everything. That’s pretty much the reason I wasn’t eager to write a review. I don’t feel like writing about the second show in the series either so I hope this extensive one will satisfy for a while.

Miscellaneous/Trivia stuff:

The map seen in the third round has a striking similarity to the world map in “Chaos Dragon”.

The hospital shown is the same from “Hana Yori Dango” where Toda Erika was in the last episodes. This show was shot right afterwards or at the same time btw.

Verdict: 7.7

Cast 8

Cast performance 7

Script/Directing: 8