Sean Akizuki's East Asian Drama and Movie Blog

This week's Kamen Rider Gaim has Kamen Rider Gemn's identity getting revealed to the others. Kuroto Dan revealed his identity as Gemn first to the audience then to the protagonist riders. While he appears to be a nice person but he's really a sadistic madman who gathers Game Data of Death from others to create what could be a Resident Evil type of game called "Dangerous Zombie". This reminded me of one villain from Abaranger. If you haven't watched Abaranger yet then I suggest you do.  Imagination Station has already finished subbing it. I know it's already 2016 but it's still a fun show nonetheless. One of Abaranger's villains is also a professional doctor known as Mikoto Nakadai. He's bored and wants to have some excitement at the cost of other people's lives. Mikoto accepted the dangerous power of Abare Killer and had Top Galer as his companion. He's always making everyone's lives miserable for both the Abarangers and the Evo...

I find it funny how Japanese Tokusatsu could click so fast to certain Asian countries but they decided to localize Japanese Anime and Manga into live shows. Just to make it clear, according to Globalization and Language Association this is what localization means: Localization (also referred to as "l10n") is  the process of adapting a product or content to a specific locale or market . Translation is only one of several elements of the localization process. In addition to translation, the localization process may also include: Adapting graphics to target markets Modifying content to suit the tastes and consumption habits of other markets Adapting design and layout to properly display translated text Converting to local requirements (such as currencies and units of measure) Using proper local formats for dates, addresses, and phone numbers Addressing local regulations and legal requirements The aim of localization is to give a product the look and feel ...

Is it me or am I showing my guilty pleasure of extreme favoritisim? So it's just been eight episodes of Kamen Rider EX-AID and I think my mind is already getting taken over by this show. I may have never been a fan of medical shows but I enjoyed the Taiwanese drama "The Hospital"... I didn't expect myself to get EX-Cited for the next EX-AID episode . So what's with the plots? It's not going to be easy as the Bugsters and the whole Rider Game may have something bigger involved. Sure it has cartoony designs but that's just the package. So what's up with Taiga Hanaya beign an ex-doctor and what's the whole story why he got fired? I think there's going to be something either predictable as malpractice or unpredictable as a frame-up. I don't know. the show should still be allowed to do its moderate pacing. Why is he after all the Gashats and what will happen to the winner of this game? How many more Kamen Riders will appear? Emu Hojo and ...

One of my most nostalgic moments was when I actually took a momentary break from Tokusatsu. It's something to think about that back in my College days, I still think about the moments I wanted to take a short break from Tokusatsu as a whole. There was a time I wanted to see more Tokusatsu even as an adult. Later, I thought that sometimes taking a short break from what you like is necessary when taste fatigue develops. Super Sentai has been there for 40 years and after some time I wanted to focus on nothing but Super Sentai (even I didn't want to check out more Kamen Rider whether it was Showa or Heisei) but the inevitable arrived. It's Super Sentai taste fatigue. Eating too much of one's favorite food can develop taste fatigue you know. The first time I took a rather short break from Tokusatsu was so last decade. The invasion of Taiwanese, Japanese and South Korean TV drama was a huge hit. I remembered watching Meteor Garden and I got magnetized into TV dramas th...

It's already 2016 and yet I still can't forget why I really don't bother to rewatch most of Kamen Rider Decade except for the crossover with Shinkenger. Decade felt like an interesting concept. It's the tenth entry of the Heisei era of Kamen Rider hence its name. It was going to feature other Riders but instead we have Alternate Reality. The more I watched the show the more I just wanted to think about it, "Well Saban's Masked Rider made its return with a sequel. It's got better acting, special effects, action scenes and it's no cheap flick. On the other hand, the writing is almost as bad if not it's just as bad as Saban's Masked Rider!" That's why I love to call Decade as the pseudo-sequel of Saban's Masked Rider. The only redeeming point the show has had is with its crossover with Samurai Sentai Shinkenger and nothing more. I almost didn't watch it because I thought Mako was going to get sick. Fortunately, she wasn't s...

It's no joke that Kamen Rider EX-AID gets me EX-cited (pun intended). I started the first four episodes and it's pretty standard with all the necessary introduction and, "Buy our toys." At the same time, there's this mysterious black version of EX-AID known as Gemn who's aligned with the Bugsters. The show introduced newer concepts with Kamen Rider such as combining video game skills with saving patients while the show's theme is to save patients without using continues. Because in real life, there are NO continues.   The show addresses the medical field. It presents the moral dilemma from cop shows and medical shows. The latest episode features Hoji Emu's being too soft while his rival doctor Hiryu Kagami/Kamen Rider Brave is too focused on getting the job done. I feel that both Hoji and Kiryu are meant to display different principles to why people are in the medical field. Hoji has a lot to learn on what it means to balance one's life as...

I've just finished watching Uncontrollably Fond while waiting for more releases of the weekly Zyuohger, Kamen Rider EX-AID and hopefully more Changeman, Flashman, Timeranger and Janperson subs will be coming out. But I could talk about the 20 episode series with each episode ranging up to one hour. The plot of Uncontrollably Fond involves Kim Woo Bin as Shin Joon Yong who does a pretty good job playing as a stuck up jerk who still has some goodness left within. Joon Yong has brain cancer and he's doing his best to survive. He's estranged from his mother who has some mental issues, trying to keep all her feelings to herself and his biological father has no idea that he exists. Suzy Bae plays Noh Eul a producer who tends to be money hungry just so she could support her younger brother. I admit though letting Suzy play a 28 year old character when she's only 22 feels awkward. It's like as if Samhwa Networks could have phoned Maaya Uchida for a little more age accura...