The Fifth Annual November 8th Awards

Given that this past twelve months has seen my amount of TV viewing fall off a cliff, this is probably the least representative November 8th awards that I’ve done. Nevertheless, I have seen some very good things and I’d like to celebrate them. And so, with a conspicuous lack of nominations, here are the winners...


Best drama

Petero no Souretsu

Actually, this was going to be Border right up until last week, when I finished Petero no Souretsu. Plenty of dramas this year were quite nice, but most were abandoned halfway through. These two, however, kept me gripped until the end. Border expertly took a silly idea and played it straight, turning it into something quite unique: a sensible supernatural cop show. But Petero no Souretsu was a fine piece of drama, expertly played and I think it just deserves the win.


Best comedy

River’s Edge Okawabata Tanteisha

I did enjoy No Con Kid (didn’t write about it, though) and Kagi no Kakatta Heya but to be honest, River’s Edge had no real competition. Made with such care and acted so perfectly, there was almost nothing to dislike about this series. The idea of a detective series that takes weird cases is hardly original (after all, last year’s winner Mahoro Ekimae Bangaichi had almost exactly the same plot) but I fall for it every time. Gorgeous.


Best Film

Ah, now this is a category that I have kept up with. Mostly.

The Great Passage
Petal Dance
The Last Chance:Diary of Comedians
Snow White Murder Case

A tough one. The Great Passage is a film about dictionaries, and I love words and language, so it obviously struck a chord with me. The Last Chance made me cry with its tale of a failing stand-up comedy act. The Snow White Murder Case was a great story that kept me thinking long after it ended but, despite all that, I cannot explain the hold that Petal Dance has had over me since I first saw it. It’s gentle semi-improvised pace means it is more of a mood piece than a story to be followed. And that’s how I’ve enjoyed it each of the six or seven times I’ve seen it. Almost like ambient cinema. Delightful.


Best Actor

Oguri Shun (Border)

A winner by a country mile. His performance in Border held the storyline together, and was full of nice touches as he slowly lost his ability to trust his colleagues while he relied more and more on his supernatural power of seeing the dead. Perfect.


Best actress

Inoue Mao (The Snow White Murder Case)

Tricky one, this. I almost gave it to Toda Erika for Kagi no Kakatta Heya, simply because for the first few minutes of her performance I didn’t realise it was her. Quite a convincing change in appearance and mannerisms.

But Inoue Mao takes it with a great performance as the suspect in a murder investigation who has already been tried and charged by the media. The best role in her career so far.


Best Game Show

The Genius
Crime Scene
Game Centre CX
Running Man

After three years of being first, Running Man slips back a few places, displaced by two new game shows from Korea: Crime Scene (basically Cluedo for TV) and The Genius. I decided to give the award to The Genius since it's a stunning piece of work: tense, exciting and funny. It is everything you want from a game show. Crime Scene was an excellent example of how murders can be fun. Meanwhile, Running Man is still funny enough that I can barely wait for the subs each week and Game Centre CX remains a fixture on my list of essential viewing.


Best album

Bump Of Chicken “Ray”

I knew half the CD before I even got it, since so many singles had been released from this album. Luckily, the half I didn’t know was well worth the cost. A great piece of work. The three opening tracks by themselves are almost worth the win.


Safe Pair of Hands Award

Odagiri Joe (The Great Passage, Gokuaku Ganbo, River’s Edge, Real)

This award could have gone to Hong Jin Ho, the ex-Pro Gamer from Korea who appeared in The Genius, Crime Scene and a nice bit of Korean fluff I saw called “Sweet 17” where he gave advice on romance, of all things.

But Odagiri Joe was in so many films and dramas I saw in the past twelve months that I lost count. And, amazingly, I liked all of them. Well, Alice no Toge wasn’t so great, but everything else was good. Certainly, twice he was involved in stuff that’ll I want to watch over and over, and everywhere else he was able to lift his scenes into something above the norm. Effortlessly talented.

And that's my opinion (albeit very uninformed) on the previous twelve months.

Recommended: River's Edge Okawabata Tanteisha

In terms of production, this is difficult to fault. The director, Hitoshi One (Moteki, Mahoro Ekimae Bangaichi, Akihabara@Deep), has made a series that is great to look at. And now, with that filmography, I think he’s become one of my favourite directors. On top of this, the music is excellent and the acting, too, is top quality. The casting director did a great job of filling every role, no matter how minor, with memorable faces and performances.

Only the storylines in the later half of the series disappoint. It settles into a formula of “Can you find this person I knew twenty years ago,” with little variety in the cases. The writer tries to make each conclusion as unpredictable as possible, but there’s no denying the dip in originality towards the end. Especially episode ten, which seems to be two half-finished ideas pushed into one episode.

But, despite that, I think this is worth recommending. If the quality dipped, it never stopped being worth watching. The whole feel of the drama is just so nice, and the three lead roles are perfect: Odagiri Joe’s laid-back charm, Ishibashi Renji’s sense of a dark history, and Koizumi Maya’s flirty energy. Everything went together so perfectly that, even when the stories weren't so great, I still wanted to spend time in this world with these people.

Just finished: Gokuaku Ganbo

I’ve just finished this entertaining but wildly uneven series. Gokuaku Ganbo was mostly notable for the wide range of acting styles on show. I started watching it because it had Ono Machiko in it, and I kept watching it for pretty much the same reason, loving her performance as the debt-ridden woman trying to pay back her Yakuza creditors by working for them.

Alongside her were a number of Yakuza stereotypes of varying degrees of cartoonishness. Is that a word? Never mind. It is now. There was also Odagiri Joe turning up occasionally as a laid-back, slightly corrupt police officer, and Shiina Kippei trying very hard to look intelligent and suave, while Naka Riisa wore spangly dresses and ran a bar.

Perhaps the part where these different style jarred most was in episode three. Our hero, Kanzaki, is still new to this business, and has been beaten up. In the next scene, Ono Machiko is acting her socks off as a battered woman while two other members of the gang talk business while ignoring her. Now, I know they’re meant to be uncaring mafia-types, but it did feel like Yosemite Sam walking into a scene about domestic violence.

Once you got over this, this drama was an enjoyable romp through some illegal scams to bleed money out of desperate people. The stories were nice and varied, building up towards the usual Big Boss Battle in the final episode – a corrupt politician, in this case.

So it was an interesting drama, which didn’t quite know how serious it was supposed to be. But certainly worth the time.

Currently watching: River’s Edge Okawabata Tanteisha

This new series could be described as a less anarchic Mahoro Ekimae Bangaichi. It’s got a similar run-down look, there’s a weird mystery to be solved each week, and it’s got some decent music in the soundtrack.

But while Mahoro Ekimae Bangaichi has a slacker, don't-care attitude, River’s Edge is moer arty and is shot better. The lighting and photography are great and it also has a slower pace (perhaps to give the viewer time to appreciate how nice it looks).

Like a lot of things this season, it stars Odagiri Joe as the detective who works at the agency that’s run by the nameless “Director” (played by Ishibashi Renji) and Megumi, the secretary, (Koizumi Maya). Episode one had them trying to trace a restaurant owner from the 1960s, hopefully this series will avoid the usual crime cases. There was also something about the detective having precognitive dreams. We’ll see how that develops during the rest of the series.

I enjoyed it a lot. It’s late-night slot meant the program was able to avoid the flat style and same old faces that prime time dramas suffer from. It’s stylish, engaging and, since I’m a fan of Odagiri Joe, it’s got everything I need.

Just watched: Real

Real is a film released in 2013 starring Ayase Haruka and Satou Takeru as two lovers: Atsumi and Koichi. Atsumi is in a coma after a failed suicide attempt, and Koichi is using a new method to send himself into her thoughts in order to talk to her, and try to discover why she tried to kill herself.

It all looks great. The fictional world of the comatose Atsumi is nicely realised. Sometimes solid, sometimes indistinct, and the other people who “live” in her world are convincingly false and somewhat unnerving.

Supporting actors include Nakatani Miki and Odagiri Joe. Mind you, almost everything I see these days seems to have Odagiri Joe in it. It’s not a deliberate choice, honest.

The story, though, is a bit of a strain. The twist halfway through is easy enough to predict, and the film even puts in a few things to prompt you in case you can’t see it coming. But even so, once the story has changed, the viewer is expected to forget what happened before.

And the ending, too, isn’t terribly well thought out. Having spent all that time creating such a convincingly weird world, the final scenes are a bit of a change in style. So this film, while being great for the eyes, is not so great for the brain. Worth a look, though.

Currently watching: Gokuaku Ganbo

My initial excitement about the new season of Japanese dramas has waned somewhat (mostly due to Smoking Gun, a police drama so bland that I can see no reason for its existence) but it has been re-animated recently by Gokuaku Ganbo.

This drama stars Ono Machiko as the plucky but unlucky girlfriend of a hopeless boyfriend who runs up a huge debt and then runs away, leaving her to deal with the Yakuza types who want their money back.

It's a comedy, but the style ranges from comic-drama to cartoonish Yakuza stereotypes. But once you get used to that, it's not really a problem. And the cast is great. Supporting Ono Machiko is Naka Riisa, Odagiri Joe and also the writer of Amachan, Kudo Kankuro in his first acting role in some years.

The storyline seems pretty solid too. Certainly, it offers up enough opportunities for all kinds of adventures. And the subtitles from Crunchyroll are very good. I applied for a job a subber there and if this was the standard they got, then I'm not surprised I didn't get the job.

Currently watching: Alice no Toge

Hmm, revenge dramas. I can take them or leave them, frankly, especially on TV which is usually too timid to be nasty or cruel. Watching this drama, I was reminded of Saki and Shokuzai. In Saki, the lead character killed people off one by one. Meanwhile, in Shokuzai the reason for the revenge wasn’t revealed until the final episode.

In episode one of Alice no Toge, nobody died and the viewer knows exactly the main character’s motive. This leaves me wondering exactly where the tension and suspense is going to come from.

The best bits of this series so far are Ueno Juri in the lead role, who is good as the emotionless doctor out to avenge the death of her father, and Odagiri Joe, who plays a journalist who has already worked out her plans.

On the down side, it starts with a woman walking in slow-motion while the sound of her high heels echo ominously. I’m getting a little tired of that cliché, and it did not make me think “this is going to be awesome”.

Other than that, I’m just waiting for the storyline to start.

Recommended: The Great Passage

Sometimes watching a TV show prompts certain needs in me. For example, I have to be drinking white wine when watching Saikou no Rikon, or drinking beer when watching Match of the Day. While watching this film, I had a sudden urge to get the largest dictionary I own (the Kenkyusha New Japanese English Character Dictionary) and watch the rest of the film with it on my lap, like some kind of weird substitute cat.

The film that inspired this burst of bibliophilia is set in an office where they are making a new dictionary. An odd topic for a film, but one that works surprisingly well. People leave and join the team, they fall in love and get old. It’s a gentle character-lead comedy, full of people discussing things that normally never get discussed, such as how do you define the direction “right”?

Despite being miles away from a Hollywood blockbuster, the film still seems to think it needs some kind of climactic event: some last minute danger to overcome. In this case, it is the discovery that a word is missing, meaning some last-minute list-checking is needed! It’s not exactly defusing a bomb on a speeding bus.

The acting is great. Matsuda Ryuhei is miles from his more usual slacker-type roles, and Miyazaki Aoi is perfect as the love interest. But it’s Odagiri Joe who really makes an impression. His character is someone not suited to dictionary work, and he provides a lot of the comedy, but in a sensitive way: never so overt that it seems out of place.

It’s a great little film, made all the more remarkable by the peculiar subject matter. The subs, by 8th Sin are excellent, and so are the translation notes. I’m a sucker for this kind of story, and I think that these people are heroes, too. Fitting an entire language into a book, however imperfectly, is still an amazing achievement.

Looking forward: The Great Passage

This film, whose Japanese name is Fune o Amu (舟を編む, which means “Knit a Boat” or something like that. No. I don’t get it either), is about a publishing house that decides to make a new dictionary. It doesn’t sound like much of a story at all, but that stuff fascinates me.

The story follows the progress of the dictionary, and the people who write it. The main character, played by Matsuda Ryuhei, joins the team as an assistant and slowly rises to be its manager, while falling in love, battling the publishers etc. Odagiri Joe is his co-worker, and Miyazaki Aoi is the love interest.

Although, really, the main love interest is language, and the obsessive perfectionism that goes with trying to pin it down. It is the fate of all dictionaries to be out of date by the time they’re published, so I think there’s a doomed romanticism to expending that much effort into something that can never be a definitive work, only a snapshot of an ever-changing subject.

Unfortunately, I can’t find an English subbed version, only a hard-subbed Chinese/Japanese copy, which is barely enough for me to follow the conversations which are, as you’d expect, all about the nuances of language. To be honest, I have doubts that even a fansub of this would be able to do it justice. I think you'd need some serious translating skills to get this done. Luckily, it’s already done the film festival circuit, so English subs exist out their somewhere, and it’s the Japanese entry for the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film which means a DVD release is almost certain.

I struggled through the first half an hour, but to watch any more without really understanding it would be a crime, I think. The directing and photography are excellent, considering how much of the action is in a musty old office. In the meantime, I shall scan the local listings of Art House cinemas and search in vain for subs on the web, until the DVD is confirmed. It’s going to be a long wait.

Japanese or Korean actors who could play Doctor Who

In the UK right now, a major cultural shift is taking place: the actor who plays the lead role in Doctor Who (technically speaking the character is called “The Doctor”, not “Doctor Who”) is stepping down, and now we have months of speculation about the future of the show and who will take over.

So, as I was wondering who I’d like to see in the role, I thought, if language were no barrier, which Japanese or Korean actors could take the role? Who has the required air of alien-ness and childlike qualities? This is the list I came up with. It's in order from "unlikely" to "you know, I think this might work!"


Nukumizu Youichi

One of my favourite actors, even if he only ever plays one role: the downtrodden ordinary man. But I think he’d be good at this. Something about his self-deprecating sense of humour appeals. I’m not sure how good he’d be at action scenes, though.

Kimura Takuya

To be honest, he’s practically already played Dr Who. His performance in Mr Brain was a great example of eccentric genius, all nervous smiles and sudden bursts of energy. And his character’s constant bemusement at how other people think or feel is another aspect that I found quite Doctor-ish. The down side is that he never does two series of the same show, effectively ruling him out for this role.

Abe Hiroshi

Putting to one side the fact that Abe Hiroshi could play any role and be brilliant, I think he’d be great in this. He has physical presence, but also a subtlety in his acting which I think would fit perfectly.

Kuriyama Chiaki

I poo-pooh the idea that the Doctor must be played by a man (otherwise the British Empire will fall or something like that) and I’d be very pleased if producer Steve Moffat chooses a woman for the next series. And if so, why not the striking and unique Kuriyama Chiaki. She's a decent actress who knows how to do an action scene.

Bae Doo Na

In Air Doll, the role she played was of a newcomer to a strange world, and I think she has the right qualities of slight eccentricity and vulnerability necessary for playing the Doctor. Maybe her boyfriend (?) Jim Sturgess can convince her to go for the part.

Odagiri Joe

Slightly alien air about him? Check. Eccentric taste in roles? Check. Can do comedy and drama, even in the same scene? Check. Well, I can’t find anything wrong with this idea. Plus, he speaks English (at least, he studied drama in the US). He could actually do this! Please? Pretty please? Someone send the producers of Dr Who a link to this page, and then when he gets the job, you can all thank me later.

Just watched: I Wish (Kiseki)

Because Japan has such an apparently small pool of actors there will, on occasion, be times when you watch something that brings together a whole group of actors that you'd recently seen in others things. This film has Abe Hiroshi, Natsukawa Yui, Nagasawa Masami and Odagiri Joe in it, all of who I've been writing about in the past month or so.

This film from 2011 tells the story of two brothers, living in different towns with their separated parents, and their friends. Each of the seven children has something to wish for, and when one of them mentions that if you make a wish at the point where two bullet trains pass, then it'll come true. So they arrange to skip school and go to a town in the middle of nowhere just to make their wishes.

The cast of children are good, and are ably supported by the experienced cast of supporting actors. Special mention goes to Otsuka Nene, the mother of the two brothers who packs a lot of emotion and understanding into her few scenes. The film is also very nicely shot. The director, Hirokazu Koreeda, has a filmography that's well worth exploring, including Air Doll, After Life among others.

It's a heart-warming story, and even if it does rely on a very convenient plot device once they get to the town, it's still a nice tale, nicely told.

Just watched: Adrift In Tokyo

If you're feeling depressed that an actor as good as Odagiri Joe should end up in an ill-fated series like Kazoku no Uta, you can take some comfort in the fact that his 2007 film Adrift In Tokyo has finally been released on DVD.

It's directed by Satoshi Miki, and if you've seen any of his other work then you know what to expect. A storyline that meanders from event to event, with a surreal sense of humour. In this film, Joe plays a student deep in debt and Tomokazu Miura pays the thuggish debt collector who's demanding repayments. Then one day, the collector pays the student one million yen to walk with him across Tokyo. But he won't say why.

As the two men walk from one peculiar event to the next, they start to bond, and in the end they have to pretend to be part of a family. While all this is happening, we also see the co-workers of the debt collector's wife becoming increasingly worried about her absence. But, unable to believe that anything really bad has happened, they never take the situation seriously.

There's also a great cameo from Yoshitaka Yuriko as a schoolgirl who is convinced that the two main characters are father and son, and also Koizumi Kyoko (Saigo Kara Nibanme no Koi) as the schoolgirl's aunt who is also part of this pretend family.

It's a slow, dreamlike film and Satoshi Miki's signature use of logic runs throughout. Not a great deal makes sense, but once you get over that, it all makes sense.

Just watched: The Uchoten Hotel

It’s the first of January, and I’m writing about a film set in a hotel on New Year’s Eve. It’s almost as if I planned it! I didn’t, of course: I’m not that organised. But when I sat down yesterday evening to watch this, you can imagine how pleased I was to see that the date in the film matched the date on the calendar.

This film, also known as Suite Dreams, is a comedy from 2006 about the various misadventures of a group of guests in a high class hotel as the staff prepare for the end of year celebrations. It’s directed by Mitani Kouki and stars Koji Yakusho (who previously worked together on the excellent University of Laughs) and is an homage of sorts to the screwball comedies of the 1930s. The comedy is kept light and sophisticated, and the stories intertwine very neatly. Most of the first ninety minutes is spent making everything go wrong, while the last half an hour is spent putting everything right. Well, most things.

 The cast is full of well-known faces. I won’t list them all because half the fun is spotting them, but noble mentions go to Shinohara Ryoko as a call girl, and Takako Matsu as a maid who gets mistaken for the mistress of a rich man by his son. There are plenty of cameos to enjoy, and it looks like everyone is having a lot of fun making it.

It’s a perfect holiday film, and if you can find it then watch it quick, because it’ll be a whole year before you can see it without thinking “I wish it actually was New Year’s Eve.”

Just finished: Atami no Sousakan

Somehow the word "finished" doesn't seem right.

Anyway – big spoilers up ahead (kind of)



The final scene shows Hoshizaki (Odagiri Joe) riding the fabled school bus into a tunnel with a bright light at the end, but with no further explanation. People all over the internet started going back through earlier episodes for clues. Myself included. However, it was clear to me that without a firm grasp of Japanese or of Japanese imagery, I was going to struggle. Additionally, I'm aware of the desire for people to read too much meaning into vague or random texts, which made me wonder if the things I'd found were genuinely placed there or just a coincidence.

In one scene, Mitsuko Katasura (Fuse Eri) uses Scotch tape on the floor to trip up Hoshizaki, leaving his shoes behind. Now, people take off their shoes before committing suicide, so is this a clue for something? Meanwhile, this site shows screen grabs from a passport issued in 2008, but has stamps in it from 2007. A nice find, but what does it mean?

Perhaps the smartest finding has been regarding some of the puns and meanings hidden away in the numbers throughout the show. Two commentators on d-addicts have posted their theories, and they make for interesting reading. Perhaps the most important refers to the registration plates of Hoshizaki's car and the bus. Clakaz wrote that the number plate of the bus is 4392, which can be read “Yomi no Kuni” (the world after death) while Hoshizaki's licence plate is 7292: “Nakatsu Kuni”or middle world.

Add to this the sign welcoming people to South Atami that reads “Almost Heaven” and Hoshizaki's description of the problem being that two worlds aren't mixing and it's pretty clear that the whole premise of the show is about the afterlife and the living world overlapping.

At least, I think it's clear... I could be wrong.

The other number puns all seem to refer to characteristics of the people they're attached to, so the number thing seems pretty solid.

But as I said, I'm mostly walking in other people's footprints here and I'm wary that any theories I come up with will be wishful thinking. The significance of the number two is so vague as to be everywhere and I do wonder how many theories based around it will be dead-ends.



The clock in that room in the police station was interesting, though. The hour hand always pointed to the "two" position, although the actual numbers were mixed up on the dial. I couldn't find a clear view of it, though.



A thorough knowledge of myths and lore around death in Japanese culture will help put together the pieces of the puzzle. One person on d-addicts noted that Hoshizaki's comment that he only smokes once a year is a reference to people visiting his grave once a year (to light incense, I suppose) which is something I would never had got. But, if Hoshizaki was already dead, what did it mean when he went through a tunnel to a bright light. Was he returning to life?

This show definitely needs a proper sit-down and viewing again which unfortunately I don't really have the time for. This evening, I just skimmed through, looking for screengrabs, and found this scene in the cable car, with this guy whose face we never see. I don't remember noticing him before. Who is he? Does he mean anything?



Maybe I should just hit "publish post" and move on to something else...

Just finished: Jikou Keisatsu

You know, I should try and find time to write about the end of Atami no Sousakan. In the meantime...

* spoilers ahoy! *



Well, they're not really spoilers. But better safe than sorry.

Having finished the second series, which was pretty similar to the first, I can happily report the quality stays high to the end although I was a little disappointed that there wasn't a proper conclusion to the love interest. Instead we had a reference to Satoshi Miki's forthcoming film "Instant Swamp" (the stuff in the jar is instant swamp. If you see the film, it all becomes clear).

Odagiri Joe and Aso Kumiko are both great as the two lead roles, and they're ably supported by the rest of the cast. Fuse Eri is clearly the funniest woman in Japan, and Iwamatsu Ryo also impresses as the lovable boss. He also directed episode three. Versatile man.

The first series had, perhaps, the better crimes to solve but that's not to take away from the fun to be had in series two. Now that the characters are already established from series one, the writers start to have some fun. The two detectives who come in from time to time and try to impress people become increasingly surreal with each episode. And it's interesting to read that episode eight, in which Odagiri Joe's character is hospitalised, is actually written and directed by Joe himself.



I really enjoyed this. Funny and intelligent. And I still think this would do well in the UK.