Sean Akizuki's East Asian Drama and Movie Blog

Racism seems to be the most frequent motive of aliens to invade our world in the world of fiction.  Now I'm going to an analysis of the Grongis and the Fangires on how each author handled their racist villains. The Grongi in Kamen Rider Kuuga executed their racist ways by making games out of humans.  For them, human beings are nothing more than prey for their sick game, I don't know if they even eat people behind our backs.  So there's the game of killing humans depending on the rules like a Grongi can choose to kill pregnant women by eating their unborn or killing old people by throwing them down a cliff, it's pretty disturbing if you ask me. In the case of the Fangires, most of the antagonists have been shown to think they are far superior than other races and two, they view every other race as just source of life energy for them which Taiga stated about humans later in the series.  Despite the fact Kiva is very cartoony, the racism of the Fangires is one int...

Well they've gotten their reunion in "Love for Beginners" where Rin Takanashi plays a hot vixen, looks like a stereotype breaker can be done if Rin Takanashi can be cast out as a hot nerd.  My plot?  Looks like we'll probably have Rin Takanashi cast out as a hot nerd who hardly entertains her suitors, who thinks anybody can be beautiful regardless how ugly they are and is too conservative.  So pretty much, she meets Tori Matsuzaka who's a geeky guy who's unlucky in love because he spends too much time reading and the two begin a relationship.  Pretty much, I want to write something to give justice to nerds everywhere or to women of beauty of virtue who are lusted after bad guys.  Or two, just a little bit of it that maybe there will be headturners in the campus who are more or less attractive than Rin Takanashi but they turn heads due to their flirty behavior to show that beauty is irrelevant with being flirtatious and that Rin Takanashi is beautiful inside o...

The Fangires for me in Kiva share an interesting concept even if they belong to a series that's too light and fluffy to be expected of Toshiki Inoue.  Unlike the standard vampires that bite to suck blood, this race sucks the life force out, the victims become glass-like and they break to pieces.  And when they are killed, they also are broken to pieces.  Now my thoughts on the Fangires: I find the concept of the Fangires' design cool while they seem to be a parody of the Grongi.  Strangely enough, why would Inoue parody the Grongi?  Was he attempting to go lighter and softer instead of his standard darker and edgier?  The Fangires in themselves as stained glass vampires, I just love their designs giving the baroque look.  I just find those fangs that come out of the air, impaling the victims then sucking their life force out to be a cool concept but at the same time, was it done in order to censor out blood considering this show is cartoony from sta...

Well since I feel like I haven't given Kamen Rider Kuuga enough credit so I'd like to credit it for actually defining the basic styles of how to write Heisei Riders. The way the multiple forms are introduced. Kuuga avoided the being too episodic and decided to focus on introducing these forms in a way that is more "realistic". Yuusuke doesn't immediately learn to use these forms and plus, each form carries a plot tied to the story better done than when it was during the days of Black RX. Each of the forms were handled in a J-Drama fantasy style for me. So pretty much, Arakawa doesn't want the hero to be "high and mighty", rather to be "more human" which I think is good, so pretty much the template left by Black RX with multiple forms was put to good use. The allies are far more involved. Okay we got that introduced in Black RX but it was a rough draft, Kuuga had its time to let the allies become more involved as a better mold to th...

I haven't seen the Nodame Cantabile anime or the Manga written by Tomoko Ninomiya to make a comparison and even if I did, I won't write it here.  Now for my first review this month is on the J-Drama that reminds me of my passion for classical music though I am no musically inclined person myself.  So it's just a short drama but worth its watch if you are a lover of comedy and classical music.  It focuses on Chiaki Shinichi and Noda Megumi who study music, to which each episode focuses on different pieces of music and some comical characters that make this short J-Drama memorable.  Every episode of it gets me higher with all the wonderful classical music.  The opening and ending as arranged by Hattori Takayuki So the story starts with Chiaki who was trained in Europe of all places to become a champion musician.  So he's pretty talented, good thing he is or he'll just be a laughing stock.  So one day he does return to Japan where he becomes a conduc...

Ryuki so far has the most number of Kamen Riders in one show.  Now moving on... and I'll include the two possible fates provided by Kobayashi and Inoue. Shinji Kido/Ryuki- As the main character, I would say he's pretty much idiotic, idealistic yet he has noble goals.  Hmmm with his position as a journalist, I thought of him as a parody of Spiderman in some way.  So he and Ren just keep getting into squabbles because of his idiocy and the other is a jerk.  For a character, I thought he always has his moral dilemmas and his reason to be a Kamen Rider is nothing personal, he just wants to protects people from the threat of the Mirror Monsters.  So a pretty tragic hero to the point in the original continuity, he even died after fighting despite all his injuries, in the "second chance" timeline he becomes an idiot again.  In the alternate ending by Inoue, he and Ren don't forget each other and decide to finish the last remains of the Mirror Monsters together ...

Compared to most of the Heisei riders, this is where it pretty much departs from Rider tradition of monster of the week, instead we have the ever-growing conflict of the Kamen Riders that must fight in order to get that one wish.  So we have Ren who's pretty much a jerk and Shinji who's an idiot who gets dragged into the Rider Wars.  So how do yo become a Rider here?  You get a Contract Card, make a contract with a Mirror Beast and you become a Rider.  However the consequences of breaking the card means death.  Ren's already Knight in the beginning with a bat-like beast Darkwing, Shinji becomes Ryuki thanks to Dragregger the dragon.  There is also a limit to the time being a Rider, so pretty much I guess that's the rule of thumb of henshin probably to avoid straining the user.  So this might be Yasuko Kobayashi's love it or hate it work with the help of Toshiki Inoue (who had just finished with his greatest work Agito and later wrote the screwed up Fa...