Sean Akizuki's East Asian Drama and Movie Blog

Well it was really some time to adjust to watching some new school Chinese drama considering that most of my new school preferences as of late are on Kamen Rider, Super Sentai (and I'm liking this year's Lupinranger vs. Patranger and last year's Kyuranger was a fun rocket ship ride) or not to mention I've got the K-Drama craze going on. It was a huge adjustment though I ended up watching O2O Romance. Just hearing that it's one of the most watched Chinese TV series made me want to check it out. Okay, I usually prefer action-based Chinese drama filled with all the super crazy fight scenes while I think watching some love stories can be a change of pace. At first, I just decided to watch two episodes per night to discipline myself. But I ended up trying to speed up the pace -- maybe it's because Mary Sue meets Gary Stu. Such people are a hard find in real life. Xiao Nai is good looking, good in sports and academics. Wei Wei is pretty inside out and she's ...

Sorry for not really updating on Kamen Rider Build episode by episode these days -- especially some new passions have caught into me or that it's actually "easier" if I focus on Super Sentai episode reviews (but that may be gone soon depending on my mood and real life situations) but I thought this was pretty interesting. Just right now, we found out from Sawa that Ryuga is NOT human and this is one bizarre flashback... So some unknown life form manned the spacecraft and reached for a human woman. She got pregnant for only two months and delivered a healthy baby boy -- that would be Banjou. I think this is really some nightmare fuel. I really thought of a couple of creepy films like Humanoids from the Deep (which really scared me especially with the mutates impregnating human women) or The Blob. This seems to be a tribute to Hollywood films of the weird 80s. With this in mind, we also discover that Ryuga can somehow influence the Pandora's Box because of his ...

I have to admit I have been VERY OUTDATED with new school Chinese entertainment. Maybe, it's because I tend to think these days that Korean and Japanese is superior to Chinese -- until I get an overdose of either which. I admit, I've been more caught into other new school stuff Super Sentai (after having a momentary taste fatigue), I tend to look forward to most new school Kamen Rider, some Korean TV series and now I think about rekindling the one thing I got obsessed with when I took a Toku break -- Chinese TV series and movies whether it's from China, Hong Kong or Taiwan (which I support over China). Right now, I want to start with watching Love O2O which was shown last decade. Here's the plot and it's worth 30 episodes with 45 minutes each: Bei Weiwei (Zheng Shuang) is the campus goddess, who also excels in her studies. She aspires to be an online game designer/engineer, and goes by the alias of Luwei Weiwei in the online role-playing game A Chinese Ghost Sto...

Well, I guess this caught me off-guard and it's been some months since I watched Kamen Rider Stronger (and didn't find it that enjoyable except for the opening song). What I didn't notice was that actor Akira Hamada (who's currently turning 77 years old this year) is freaking Mr. Titan's human form from Kamen Rider Stronger. He plays the role of Juzaburo Nanba of Nanba Heavy Industries but I had no idea he was also part of the struggling Showa era Kamen Riders! What does this mean to me? I don't feel much of a feeling for old school era Kamen Rider  so the cast doesn't mean much to me either (maybe except for Hiroshi Miyauchi because of his involvement in Winspector, Solbrain and Ohranger as a mentor) but it's nice to have some old school actors give their support for new generations. Kamen Rider Stronger was pretty much mid 70s show but it was nice for Hamada to appear in new school Kamen Rider. This also gives me a bit of of my crazy imagination ...

I remembered writing a post on Sawa Takigawa as Seito's spy  but it turns out to be she's sabotaging her supposed side of the fence after all. How is that happening? While she did the data of the Rabbit Form to the side of Seito but it turned out that she was trolling everyone -- whether it'd be the audience or her friends. Oh yeah, Sento himself was also trolling everyone with something that we never expected. She seemed to have betrayed everyone when she sent the data. But it turned out that Sento allowed it to happen. Sento built the Rabbit Form and the Tank Form to defeat Gentoku/Kamen Rider Rogue. At first, Kamen Rider Rogue detected the Rabbit Form's movements but was overridden by the Tank Form when it appeared.   The writers felt like trolling everyone with Sawa's role in the Nanba's Children group. After she was saved, it felt like was still there to work for Nanba. Yet it turns out that she and Sento deceived everyone (including the audience...

As I was watching Kamen Rider Build, I wanted to give a thought on who the spy from Seito. So is it surprising? Not really. Then here's me thinking WTF is Sento thinking of still hanging her around after she was convicted as a spy. Or two, is she some gold digging whore after older men? I can't say but there's some flashbacks that may explain her tendency to switch personalities. It's revealed that she's part of Nanba's Children so her indoctrination is still intact. I guess it's a side effect of being brainwashed that even if she wants to get out -- she still has the tendency to betray people in favor of Nanba. So is this brainwashing still effective for her? It probably is and I wonder why is Sento still keeping her around? Honestly, I even want to imagine her as someone with a split personality. Maybe, she was once a happy go lucky stupid girl. But the years in the Nanba's Children camp gave her another personality which may reveal why she ...

I was reading through Shougo B'Stard's blog and I am inspired to do this post. So I would tackle on the MAIN Kamen Riders -- and not those others that just come and go (and I don't know if I'll write on evil Riders such as Kamen Rider Ouja, Kamen Rider Gemn or Kamen Rider Chronos some other time) but I could talk about the general designs of the shows. Hmmm... what amazes me is that we're near 20 years of the Heisei era assuming a new era hasn't come in yet in Japan. So what's thoughts? It's no secret that I prefer new school Kamen Rider over the Showa era -- though I haven't really drawn a line between last decade and this decade. For instance, I think about how the current riders are trying to smooth things up (ex. Kamen Rider Gaim vs. Kamen Rider Ryuki). So what's my thoughts? Let's begin, shall we? Kamen Rider Kuuga This is no doubt an ambitious plan to revive Kamen Rider from its 11 year hiatus -- which has to be the long...