Just watched: The Woodsman and the Rain

Free time? Yeah, I think I remember that. What with thing and another, my TV watching has been reduced to half hour bursts, and if I do have an evening spare, I find myself unable to watch anything more demanding than Running Man or Vs Arashi. I’ve even been reduced to putting episodes of Amachan on my phone so I can watch it during my lunch break, and even then I’m falling way behind.

But I did manage to watch this film. The Woodsman and the Rain is a gentle, humorous tale of a director who’s trying to make a low-budget horror movie, and a local lumberjack who helps him.

It has a Mitani Kouki kind of feel to it, possibly because of the lead actor, Yakusho Koji, and also because it’s a film about making a film and Mitani Kouki often wrote about that kind of thing. But it’s actually directed and co-written by Okita Shuichi who I haven’t heard of before, but I’ll definitely try to look out for his work in future.

It’s a sweet little film, with lots of nice scenes. The performances are great, with Yakusho Koji especially good. He can go from macho indifference to childish glee and it doesn’t look forced. The scene where he sees himself on screen for the first time is a joy. Oguri Shun is also great as the director who is hopelessly out of his depth, but who finally comes out of his shell.

The whole film wanders along, looking quite lovely, and being rather sweet.

Just watched: Vs Arashi and stuff

Since it was a lazy Saturday evening with no football on, I decided to watch an episode of Vs Arashi to pass the time. It was pretty much the same as always, fun but no real surprises. The opposing team was the cast from the new film Gatchaman, a live-action version of the anime that has been released twice in the West: once as Battle of the Planets, and then again some years later as G-Force.

It was light and undemanding. The format hasn’t changed at all in the past few years but that doesn’t seem to matter. You would think that Arashi would have a big advantage in most games with all their practice, but this show has been going so long that most guests are making their second or third appearance. Plus, of course, Arashi has a guest on their team who is usually a complete novice or playing it for laughs.

But anyway, it was nice to see that Gouriki Ayame really is adorable without a script and soft-focus, and the team as a whole were pretty funny. I laughed when one guy, Nakamura Shido, said he’d be good at one particular game because his hobby was bazookas.

After I watched this, I felt like I needed a bit more Arashi before I went to bed. I couldn’t be bothered to wait for a download, so I went on YouTube to see what had been posted up recently. I found an old episode of Himitsu no Arashi-chan which is a TV show I don’t know much about, but it had Nakatani Miki in it. I wasn’t sure how the glacial beauty of Nakatani Miki would mix with the knockabout humour of Arashi, so I watched it.

Part one
Part two
Part three
Part four

I was surprised to learn that Satashi Ohno appears to know about flowers and flower arranging, and they also played a couple of traditional Japanese games. One was particularly interesting (the games are in part four, by the way). Each player has to make a motion in time to some music, according to simple rules. If the object in the middle is still there, touch it or pick it up. If it isn’t there, then knock on the table, or put it back (if you have it).

I’d never seen a game quite like this in England, so I thought I’d pass it on. There are no subs, but the games are easy to follow and it's nice to see how the Japanese entertained themselves before Nintendo.

Currently watching: Hanzawa Naoki

Well, after a summer of nice weather and things to do, I’ve had little time to sit down and watch any TV, and when I do it’s usually Amachan. I only watch about two episodes a week. At this rate, it should last until Christmas!

But then I noticed that one J-drama was getting very high ratings, almost a 30% share. It didn’t seem to have anyone very famous in it, so I started to wonder why it had done so well. I took a look at the first episode, and although I wasn’t hooked, it was an enjoyable slice of drama.

The story is about a banker, Hanzawa, who suddenly finds himself blamed for a loan made to a company just before they went bankrupt. And at 500 million yen, this is the kind of loan that could end a man’s career. It’s up to him to clear his name and get the money back.

It’s nicely made, with some very dramatic music pushing the action along. There’s a lot of meaningful looks and jostling for power in the bank. It’s all very macho, in a way. In fact, there are almost no female characters at all, and perhaps this makes Aya Ueto the surprise highlight of the show, being very good in her role of Hanzawa’s wife.

I shall keep an eye on it. I'll be honest, I'm not sure why it's been such a ratings hit. Maybe because it doesn't have much competition?

Currently watching: Why Did You Come To Japan?

Non-Japanese people on Japanese TV normally make my skin crawl. If they’re in a drama, the chances are they can’t act. If they’re on a talk show, they’re probably not that interesting, but just happened to be in the right place at the right time.

Of course, there are exceptions, such as Pete Barakan on Japanology. And also this show. It’s a humorous documentary where a TV crew asks foreigners arriving at an airport what they’re going to do in Japan. Most of the interviews are quite short and sweet, but every now and again they ask if they can follow people to their next destination.

It seems that, as long as someone is interesting enough and agrees, they’ll follow the story. Thus, we see an Englishman walk from Osaka to Tokyo Tower over the space of a month or so. And at the end of his trek, the film crew arranged for some people he met during his journey to be at Tokyo Tower when he arrives.

But usually, the stories are not that heart-warming. Instead they’re played for laughs (in a nice way) with subjects like a Ninja Convention or some guy trying to start a new life in Tokyo, arranging everything on the internet, only to find his new flat is between two loud building sites.

The program is a mix of English and Japanese with a few other languages thrown in. This can be followed quite easily by anyone with intermediate Japanese, apart from the commentary from the comedy duo Bananaman which is a higher level. But still, you can usually guess from the context.

It’s funny and interesting, like a sort of Soko Ga Shiritai, except not about Japanese people. And you can find it on YouTube. (Not any more you can't)

Just finished: Double Tone

Well, there you go. Two murder mystery cases and two connected dreams, running concurrently, with the same murderer in each. The trouble with that is, once one mystery is solved, then the other one is automatically solved too. This makes the final episode slightly odd since the big reveal happens halfway through. This kind of ruins the surprise (assuming, of course, that you haven’t already worked out who the killer is).

I admired this series, with its two interweaving storylines. It occasionally didn't quite exploit the possibilities, though. For example, one woman communicated to the other woman via letters that she’d write. When the husband found these letters which apparently predicted his wife's death, then I thought that something big was about to happen as he would no doubt demand to know more about them. Nope. In fact, he didn’t seem that bothered.

There was a lot going on in this drama. Too much, however, to all sort out in one final half-hour episode. An excellent idea, but the ending couldn’t match the build up.

Recommended: SOIL

My initial plan – to use the translated manga version of SOIL to help me understand the TV series – didn’t last much further than four episodes and mostly I was reliant on meeting up with a Japanese friend every week (who’d also seen it) and asking him what different things meant.

But I got there in the end. I’ve just watched episode eight and while I still need to ask my friend about it, I’m fairly sure I understood most of it. Not every line of dialogue, but enough to be getting on.

The story involved the disappearance of a family and how this uncovered various dark secrets. It was set in a pristine New Town in a baking hot summer and this gave it a dreamlike and slightly suffocating atmosphere, even before weird things started to happen.

Even though the style of comedy was quite physical, this drama also had moments of beauty. Some of the directing (by Takashi Shimizu) was top notch, and film students might want to take a look at a couple of scenes: one in episode six where flashbacks are woven into the scene with only a change of lighting to show the difference, and also in episode seven, when someone watching a reflection becomes part of the scene he’s watching in a very natural and non-CGI way.

I enjoyed this a lot. Now I have to watch it again to work out if I understood enough so I can make subtitles for it. Hmmmm... this could take a while...

Just watched: Galileo XX - Utsumi Kaoru Saigo no Jiken

This is an episode of Galileo in name only, since this story focuses exclusively on Utsumi Koaru, played by Shibasaki Kou. The eccentric scientist makes a cameo appearance in one scene and the final scene is on the same day as episode one of the  second series, but apart from that this drama has little to do with the rest of the Galileo canon.

Except, of course, the presence of Utsumi Kaoru solving a mysterious crime. A man is arrested in Tokyo, pushing a dead woman in a wheelchair. It’s discovered that he’s wanted in another prefecture, he confesses to a murder and he is transported to the other police department. However, by the time he gets there, his story has changed completely.

There’s no science behind the puzzle this time. Just a tangled tale of blackmail, false accusations. It’s a more old-fashioned murder mystery than Galileo’s demonstrations of physics and chemistry, but no less entertaining.

It was fun to watch, and nice to see Shibasaki Kou’s character get centre stage for once. It’s not a complete return to form for Galileo, nor is it as good as Suspect X, but it’s a decent addition to the series.