Led by sexy actress Yasuko Matsuyuki (star of some of my fave dramas like Riso No Joshi, Africa No Yoru and Nanisama), I knew we were in for a solid movie, but I wasn’t prepared for how awesome Yu Aoi was going to be. I’d sensed her charisma in Honey and Clover, but here was a movie where she was allowed to dominate the scenes, and she nailed down every one! Mumbly and shy, tough and outspoken, sensitive and heartbroken, she assimilated each role perfectly, and, as they say, “I believed”… Yep, I believed every portrayal!

As one of the four motley coal miner’s daughters volunteering for Matsuyuki’s Hula Lessons, Aoi Yu's character Kimiko seemed so steadfast and composed in contrast with the other women… at first I didn’t realize it was the same girl from Honey and Clover! But as she worked each scene, the “Hagumi” character would shine through, and I’d think “Ah! It IS her!”
She seemed a lot more mature than I remembered, too. Then when I finally got to see her perform that “dance routine” that Saburo mentioned, she was so damn sexy doing it, I really started to wonder (read:worry) just how old she was…this was no “little kid”!!!She ROCKED!

The closing scene where the group finally appears onstage and Aoi Yu’s character Kimiko goes all out for her solo routine, all dressed in white, well, that just about did it for me. She looked so “kakkoi” performing , and MAN was she gorgeous, just radiating those good vibrations!!

Needless to say, right after the movie was over, I hopped onto the computer and checked out her Wikipedia stats, which reassuringly declared: Aoi Yu, born August 17th, 1985…

Hmmm…1985. So she was probably around 21 years old when that movie was shot…

WHEW!

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Checked out the 2010 Mirei Kiritani movie “Koisuru Vampire” because a tale of a teenage girl vampire brought up without human interaction who meets and falls in love with a mortal boy and makes it her mission to find him again in the real world sounded like it would yield some interesting story-lines...

Somehow though, once Kiira (Mirei) hooks up with the boy as a teenager, the show turned into a drama about a girl who uses all her love to convince the boy that his singing and guitar playing is awesome and he can win a talent show, if only he'd believe in himself. Yeah, they managed to stick a generic, clichéd storyline into this movie, just like they did with The Girl Who Leapt Thru Time. I mean, they DID eventually get around to the whole “vampire” thing at the end, but by then I almost didn’t care, LOL.

Plus Points for Mirei’s super-cuteness, but I gotta tell you, for a vampire movie, a good 80% of this could have been just a regular teen romance flick! I guess that was the demographic they were going for? OK.

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Watched 02 Oct, 2014
Just finished watching the movie The Snow White Murder Case (Shirayuki hime Satsujin Jiken), and what an awesome film it was! A true Murder Mystery proper, this movie tells the tale of two women, one shy and homely and the other beautiful and dazzling. They’ve worked together for the company that manufactures a popular “Snow White” Beauty Soap, and when the beautiful girl, Miki Noriko (played by pretty Nanao) is discovered dead, having been stabbed multiple times, killed and set ablaze, the case is dubbed the “Snow White” Murder by the press.

I was thoroughly entertained throughout this whole movie, and my GOSH was it stylishly directed! Every shot was done with a very artistic point of view, and the opening overhead scene of the beautiful Miki Noriko laying dying on the forest floor as her slowing pulse sends spurts of blood out of her gaping wounds is an artistic masterpiece worthy of Hitchcock himself!

And I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention how chock-full of beautiful girls there are in this movie! Besides the aforementioned Inoue Mao, Renbutsu Misako, and Nanao, we’ve also got appearances by other fetching actresses, including Tanimura Mitsuki, Ono Erena, and the always scene-stealing Shihori Kanjiya! Ah yes, a flick DEFINITELY worth watching!!!

BTW, it always amazes me how much personality Mao Inoue exudes in her roles. No matter what she does, you always tend to find yourself liking her character, even it that character is the main subject of a brutal murder! What an actress!

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Watched 14 Apr, 2013

So the other day over lunch, my friend was telling me about these weird clips that him and his friends watch on youtube at work from this Japanese Movie called FUNKY FOREST. He tried to describe the show to me, stories of deformed humans with weird powers, etc, which sounds positively cartoony to me. I ask, “Is it Animated?” He says no. “Is it like a Super-Hero type?” He says, “Dude, I just gotta send you the clip. It’s too weird to explain.”

That evening he sends me a clip and it’s of an old guy with extended boobs shooting milk at a girl trying to hit it with a tennis racket, then he starts pulling these alien pod things out of his shorts and begins throwing them at her which stick to her like leeches which are revealed to have humanoid features under their hide…. My mouth DROPPED open in a kind of a "WHAAAAAA!???" as I rubbed my eyes in disbelief at what I’d just seen! What da HELL was I WATCHING??? My friend said that it would be weird. WEIRD!? This is the most BIZARRE freakin’ thing I’ve ever seen in my life! Eccentric Individuals, Electronics with Orifices, Placated Fetal Creatures, Slimy Living Instruments, Secret Space Agents AND First Contact with an Alien Race, this was Japan's Cinematic ZENITH of Nuttiness!!!

And MAN, If I thought I couldn’t be more surprised by the movie’s absolute KRAZEENESS, I was even MORE surprised when I began scrolling through some of the other clips and saw actors I RECOGNIZED in it! And these weren’t unknown b-list actors either- these were some of best-known actors out there, like Rinko Kikuchi, Kaho, Fukushii Kazue, Kase Ryo and adorable Chizuru Ikewaki! What in the HECK were they doing here? Gads, that meant I HAD TO ACTUALLY SIT DOWN AND WATCH THE WHOLE MOVIE, if only to see what exactly the HELL they were DOING here!

Well, in the end, I’m STILL not sure if I ever figured out what was going on, but WOW, WHAT A FLICK!! Not only Did I get to see these actors in the wackiest situations ever, this movie actually introduced me to a bunch of new BABES to lust after, among them beauties like Ono Machiko (whom I’d actually just seen in JOKER Yuzurenai Sasokan), Takahashi Mariko (as a breathy sultry class student named Yoshiko), the adorable Nana Shimoda and Aoi Miura as hapless victims, and ESPECIALLY stunningly gorgeous Erika Nishikado as Notti, the dreamy, nature-lovin’ muse of Ryo Kase’s Extra-Terrestrial obsessed Takafumi!

Girls like this (and the aforementioned Ikewaki et al) were the primary force that made me stick around watching the movie even as the situations got stranger and STRANGER!! Though in any other movie that got THIS wacky I would have bailed, I just HAD to stick around for these girls...And stick around I did- and I GOTTA SAY, in the end, it was a good thing because Funky Forest turned out to be one of the most FREAKIN' FUNNIEST, INNOVATIVE, IMAGINATIVE, and CRACKY MOVIES OUT THERE!!!

I’m not even kidding- though some parts of the movie veered off into long, spacey drawn out intermissions (some musical and some literal, yes, LITERAL intermissions), some of the stories were downright HILARIOUS, especially faves like the “Babbling Hot-Springs Vixens” stories with Chizuru Ikewaki, Kazue Fukiishi and Machiko Ono as non-stop chattering salesladies taking a break at an onsen, where a good story is the goal and a tale with no point gets you a beatin’…

…and the OTHER arc I just DUG was the super FUN “Home Room!!!!!!!” stories where the students are charismatic, energetic and outspoken, and their teacher (played by Terajima Susumu in what may be the only non-Yakuza role I’ve ever seen him in) is the coolest instructor any Hall of Education ever had! Every day a student is invited to tell his or her tale in front of the class and the room reaction is never anything short of explosive!

FUNKY FOREST~THE FIRST CONTACT, or, rather, it’s original Japanese Title Naisu No Mori is an abstract Alien + UFO Speculation Movie of sorts, and that’s about as coherent a synopsis as you’re likely to get- for whatever the bigger story here, it’s for SURE that the ride of GETTING THERE is far more integral to THIS ship than any silly thing like a COHERENT PLOT!! A fun, FUN Movie!!!

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When I sat down to watch the Shibasaki Kou movie Shokudo Katatsumuri (Rinco's Restaurant), the story of a chef who slowly takes the time to prepare the perfect meal for only one select customer a day, I figured it would be a bit eclectic in nature, but I still wasn’t been prepared for how all-out “arty-farty” it was!

First off, It wasn’t quite that she “ took the time to create a perfect dish” for each client, more precisely, if you eat at her restaurant, amazingly, your GRANDEST WISHES COME TRUE! Whoa. A bit more fanciful than I was prepared for, but still somewhat on ground level, at least so far...I thought to myself, "OK, Um... So, this is like a fairy tale, then?" It certainly was SURREAL enough!

As the show progressed, however, the movie seemed to get more and MORE quirky, with zany singalong narration and animated vegetable picking (and of course, all those wish-granting meals) til it finally built up crazier and crazier til I had to stop and pull out a majestic WTF?!

AHAHAHA, Oh well, ya can't say that this movie wasn't entertaining, 'cause it was THAT, FOR SURE!!!

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Though I’m a huge fan of adorable Tabe Mikako, I didn’t feel an immediate urge to watch her latest movie Kimi Ni Todoke at the time I downloaded it, so I put it aside to save for when I had a free weekend or something. And as I mentioned in the above post, it wasn’t until I got interested in cutie Renbutsu Misako that I put it on the HIGH priority list and got down to watching it RIGHT AWAY!

MAN, this was SUCH an AWESOME movie!!! To think I would have just let this one sit on my desktop for weeks... At the time I guess I thought it would be nothing more than a wacky movie, (and with the premise of a girl who looks like SADAKO from RING scaring her fellow students, who could blame me? ) who would have thought that I would find such an UTTERLY SWEET and HEARTWARMING Show? Such an earnest and sincere film, this one really made you feel good!

And HEY!!! Tabe Mikako aside, no one told me this show was gonna be FILLED with SO MANY HOT, SMOKIN’ CHICKS! I mean, I DID. NOT. KNOW. that MIREI KIRITANI was in this show, and I mean to tell you, she was lookin’ fine. Renbutsu Misako plays one of her best characters yet with the tough but loveable Chizu, and I got my first introduction to the sultry Natsuna Watanabe, playing the sexy and cool-headed Ayane (And I’ve got more to talk about HER next time). There were these gorgeous gals all over this film!

KIMI NI TODOKE is the tale of a girl named Sawako who, because of her scary looks, is feared by her students, till an outgoing and cheerful boy named Shota (played by Haruma Miura) takes a liking to the shy, insecure but good-hearted girl, and along with friends..This would be a fine story as is, but what I really, REALLY loved about it was the fact that the heart of this movie clearly centered around the importance of FRIENDSHIP. The way they showed Sawako’s bonding with Shota, Ayane and Chizu is so thoughtfully paced and actually quite believable. When it gets to the point when they think to ask her if they are friends, they realize that they’ve already passed the point where you even have to!

When things like backhanded lying, gossiping rumours, and aggressive attitudes develop in front of them and threaten to tear their friendship apart, it’s that very friendship that they draw their strength from, and you watch this movie truly feeling like, Hey, these kids really love each other!

This movie came as a bright, clear breath of fresh air after the somewhat disappointing HANAMIZUKI which seemed (to me) to be mired in melodrama. While I’m sure (positive, actually) that there are people out there who disagree with me, Kimi Ni Todoke is the way to go- This one is a winner!

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While high on my “Ryoko Kobayashi” fan mode after her terrific performance in the supernatural revenge thriller MAOU, I found she’d starred in a similarly spooky Twilight-Zone styled movie called ZOO in one of its five stories. That sounded interesting, and, happily enough, I was able to acquire a nice subtitled version!

Well, in the end, Ryoko’s story (a tale about a set of twins, both played by her) ended up being so-so, and I’m sad to say that statement rang true for most of the other segments, too. In fact out of the five, I only really liked a couple of them- the story SEVEN ROOMS starring Yui ichikawa as an abducted girl in a mysterious holding cell, and segment Four which, in direct contrast to the other tales, was a short clip that was completely animated...It was this story that TOTALLY MADE THE MOVIE FOR ME!

This chapter was called HIDAMARI NO SHI, a story written and animated by Mizusaki Junpei and featuring perfect voice acting by Suzuki Kasumi and Suwaru Ryu. Hidamari No Shi tells a tale of a Scientist and his Robot Girl creation in a futuristic world not so different from our own...

The great charm of this clip is the pacing. As the girl goes about her daily life, the viewer is allowed to look about and take in the scenery along with her, examining what she is examining, reacting as she reacts. Every action is deliberate and precise, every sentence of dialog meaningful and heartfelt, and as I’ve stated before, the voice talent is just awesome, fully fleshing out the animated characters onscreen and making the girl seem real and believable.

The story of HIDAMARI NO SHI is ultimately a philosophical one, for though the girl’s days are spent doing chores like laundry, tending the garden and fetching the water, there are also rabbits and butterflies in her life to observe and chase, sunrises and sunsets to experience, and the quiet, beautiful sound of wind-chimes as they tinkle in the breeze. Yes, he’s created her to cook and to clean, but beneath it all is the lesson he wants her to learn most, and that is the joy and gratitude of simply being alive.

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