Sean Akizuki's East Asian Drama and Movie Blog

Yup I'll say I've just started with Kamen Rider Blade.  Too bad I can't find any sources to get any Chinese drama with subs to watch so I can review them.  Now here's my earlier thoughts- unlike Hibiki I was magnetized to watch four episodes a day and the concept of the Undead is pretty interesting.  Just my thoughts- what's this conflict all about?  Now trying to find out how this Toku drama will go.

Well it's time for another Kamen Rider review and I'm pretty mixed on this one. I did like the concept of music as weaponry, the Oni Riders and the Makamou.  But this series was controversial because from episodes 1-29 he had Tyuyoshi Kida/Shinji Ooshi tandem and producer Shigenori Takatera and later we have Toshiki Inoue/Shoji Yonemura tandem and Shinichiro Shirakura taking over.  So what are my thoughts?  For some the whole Hibiki show itself presents the unusual world of Kamen Riders battling giant Makamou monsters of different breed- while not large enough to bring a giant robot battle, they are still large nonetheless.  The idea of Hibiki using the drum was for me, pretty much cool at the same time strange.  The narration of Asumi were interesting and I wonder why they removed it by episode 31.  So pretty much, there were interesting Riders that came into the show with much of Japanese stuff, in short this show is very Japanese like Kakuranger, Hurric...

Kamen Rider Hibiki is a weird yet somehow appealing series.  Yeah, I love weird stuff, I'm pretty weird myself.  Now for some of my thoughts and I've reached the Inoue/Yonemura half.  Well for some of my thoughts on Hibiki while I'm now in episode 33: The Makamou concept is pretty creepy and has some nightmare fuel.  I wish more Riders will have that.  In this case, this is pretty Japanese and I love all the huge monsters involved which the Riders have their creative way of defeating them.  For me the whole concept of music as a weapon is cool while some people find it weird.  Sometimes a teamwork of Hibiki and his fellow Riders happen in order to defeat more powerful Makamou. During the second half, we have the infamous staff change.  From episodes 1-29 we are introduced to the pretty "musical-like" scenario and some kanji appearing onscreen.  Shigenori Takatera and writers Shinji Ooshi and Tyuyoshi Kida were fired.  In effect, T...

Yup these are the two writers who have written some good series but also have written some bad ones too. So far, the two have been a tandem for some time considering they were together in working out with Timeranger (Inoue was a secondary writer), Agito (Kobayashi was a secondary writer), Ryuki (Inoue had a lot of it with Kobayashi and both shared some weird sense of humor and don't forget, Inoue wrote Megumi's part as an ultra useless character) and Decade (as secondary writers to where they still managed to add some good plot, otherwise Decade is already too kiddie). In fact, it seems to be that both got cocky after their successes or not, I mean Inoue got cocky after Jetman and Agito, Kobayashi well I dunno but it seemed she got cocky after Timeranger. Both had also worked with Shinichiro Shirakura (Toei's reason why they get a lot of value on toy sales) and Naomi Takebe (Inoue with Kiva, Kobayashi with OOO, and in Super Sentai, Gobusters). Now for their points in commo...

I would admit that there are some Kamen Rider seasons that I enjoy but not all are memorable.  Here are some ways I think it can be memorable... It's all about the plot.  Having some mysteries, things you can relate to real life and just the right pacing makes things enjoyable.  Kuuga and Agito are all about mysteries, stuff you can relate to real life and just the right pacing.  In fact, having some mysteries that don't contradict each other is essential.  When a Kamen Rider has ALL those annoying plotholes, it becomes really annoying. Quality acting.  Yup that's another factor that makes Kamen Rider really memorable.  IMO Agito's acting is really that good then again, Kuuga has also acting that good.  For one, I would attribute that good acting managed to make Kuuga and Agito a success aside from the rather complex stories moving in just the right pace for fans to follow. Memorable villains.  I would like to say sigh, most villains...

Well this is a broad topic but I thought I was inspired to write this entry from this entry by Fantasy Leader on why Tokusatsu acting matters .  Just my thought- it SHOULD also matter in TV Drama as well not only to Oriental drama but to all sorts regardless of country.  Like it or not, TV Drama requires a lot of emotions. I'll just use some examples relevant to this blog and plus, I may soon update this blog a lot more: While I was watching Romance in the Rain, I really had my rather bland review on Leo Ku's performance as Shuhuan.  While I am a huge fan of his singing but I'll just say, he wasn't my type to be Shuhuan.  Buckets of tears type drama need strong performers if you ask me.  Average acting isn't annoying but it doesn't make anything memorable.  In fact, I felt like I wanted to face palm at times whenever Leo Ku needed to display a lot of emotions but wasn't able to pull it off.  In Kamen Rider, some the seasons I thought had weaker ac...

Here's another Ambrose Xu drama and this what I'd say, I liked it the first time and disliked it the second time because part of me was hurt was it?  Well I did like a girl who looks like the lead and lost her to a guy who looks like the leading guy.  So yeah, I was "Xiao Gang" in the whole story.  The story starts with sad opening where we discover that the leading lady Tian Bian (whose original name we never know) is the lovechild if of the Hsu family and of course, this angers her grandfather who was irritated at his son's own infidelity.  So later, the Hsu family adopts an orphan who we know was never related to them namely Xerya and he becomes a Hsu but is trained to call his foster mother Li Hong as "big mother".  Li Hong has been bitter for a number of years due to her husband's infidelity.  Li Hong has one daughter Shan Ni played by Penny Lin. What intrigued me here is the competition between Xiaogang (acted by Wallace Huo), his lover Mand...

Well I haven't written a drama review until my subconscious unlocked something again... this time it's the Taiwanese drama Lavender. This featured one of my earlier crushes Tammy Chen and Ambrose Xu where the story features Yishin and her older sister who both suffer from a heart attack. Really I feel pity over these girls and just countless buckets of tears tend to pour out. Actually it isn't Qiong Yao's writing but still, it felt like it. The story of Yishin and Qingchuan (who takes the screen name Leo as he grews up) is when they are still children, so really how many childhood dramas do come to life? In this cae, Qingchuan falls for Yishin when they were just kids and he protected her from bullies. Really children can be so cruel to bully other people because of certain defects like having lower income or bad health. What losers. So everything moves forward to their grown up years. Qingchuan is now the singer Leo and Yishin works for Xiaotong who has feelings for...

In Romance in the Rain, there's the lesson of "what goes around, comes around" which can be seen by these... Lu Yiping Yup she is part of the karmic cycle. When she vows revenge on her father and her father's latest wife Xueqin, everything goes for the worse like when she started dating Shuhuan for revenge. That of course causes a serious conflict. In the original novel, she and Shuhuan are never reconciled teaching a hard lesson revenge does more harm than good. Lu Zhenhua I would think that this guy really deserved a lot of what was coming to him. Having the tragedy of Pingping was no excuse to start picking up women and divorcing them like they were stamps. So pretty much by the time he was a high ranking general, he had seven ex-wives then he picks up Fu Wenpei as his eighth wife after multiple divorces. Then he picks up Xueqin as the ninth wife and had some bigamy for some time. In his case, the karma hit him when it turned out to be that for ten years,...

Heisei Era changed much of the Kamen Riders.  In one way or another, everything changed like gone are the days of villains making convoluted, complicated plots that waste the budget of the organization and almost every episode is a cliffhanger like a J-Drama is.  In fact, Black RX kind of started that trend in some episodes though I'm talking about the Heisei Riders which is written as a J-Drama in contrast to the Showa Riders: Kamen Rider Kuuga was pretty much an experimental season that rather did well.  Naruhisa Arakawa at this point may have pre-defined his writing styles in some way.  The experiment was trying the realistic approach to Kuuga and some mystery wrapped writing, the Grongi were very new considering they didn't make all those "Hey let's make those children grow seeds." or "Let's trap a school full of children and then let the hero fall into it." type of plans.  No, they played a lethal hunting game that added the suspense factor. ...

This is my favorite song in the whole Romance in the Rain series.  In fact, while I love the opening and ending song, this song really touched my heart the most.  It describes the patient love Yiping has for Shuhuan as the latter prepares to leave for battle with her half-brother Erhao (who is waited upon by Fang Yu). While you were holding my hands tightly And keep saying,  "Take care, Take care!" While you were looking into my eyes deeply And keep saying,  "Don't see me off, Don't see me off!" When you walked onto the departing train platform I finally could not stop myself from calling and calling Seeing your train went away further and further My heart was filled with scattered and confused feelings Haven't even started to say those thousands of words My tears were already overflowing, overflowing From then on, I got attached to that train station Countless times I was there, aimlessly staring The farewell scene would always reappear...