Dorama Review: Kaseifu no Mita

Feb 032012
 

In the world of Japanese television, new drama shows air on a frequent basis. Every year four separate television seasons air, so there’s a whole different lineup of shows to look forward to every 3 months. With few exceptions, most of these shows are brand new original series and are intended to last for only a single season. Thus, you will see that the biggest stars in Japan have a long resume of TV work, sometimes starring in multiple TV shows every year. This differs from how things work in America, where the biggest celebrities strive to star in big-budget films, and only use television work as a stepping stone towards a cinematic career. Starring in a dozen different TV shows that last only one season is seen as a sign of failure here, whereas in Japan it’s a sign of your popularity and evidence of a long-lasting career. One such Japanese star is Matsushima Nanako (松嶋菜々子), star of many successful dramas and movies over the last 20 years, including Great Teacher Onizuka and the original Ringu. Her latest work, Kaseifu no Mita (家政婦のミタ), may be the most successful endeavor of her career thus far, with it’s finale episode garnering the highest ratings for a dorama in over 10 years.

Here, Mita-san casually sets the record for the fastest Rubik's cube solve ever.

Asuda Keiichi (Hasegawa Hiroki, 長谷川博己) is a newly widowed father of four. His family is understandably in shambles after his wife’s death, which may or may not have something to do with the fact that Keiichi had had an affair with a coworker. With their mother gone, no one is left to take care of household duties while the family is working or at school. Keiichi decides that it would be best to hire a housemaid to take care of these affairs. Enter Mita Akari (Matsushima Nanako), the mysterious new addition to the Asuda household. Mita is excellent at her job. Every task is completed quickly and to perfection. She knows everything. If you need something, she always has it in her purse. She even cooks exactly the same as the dearly departed matron of the family. Her supernatural housekeeping abilities alone are enough to arouse suspicion as to who Mita is, but she hold even more mysteries. She is cold and emotionless, never raising her voice, never smiling. She will do anything that she’s ordered to do, if it’s in the realm of possibility. And anything means anything. When the Asudas find this out, their actions and their interactions with Mita lead to an endless barrage of revelations and turmoil,threatening to tear the family apart.

Here, Mita-san proves that you don't have to be as tall as Nate Robinson to dunk a basketball.

As Mita, Matsushima Nanako is the most likeable character in this drama, even if she has to play a role that requires her to act like a robot. Throughout the series you’re led to believe that Mita is in fact not human. Whether it be her superhuman strength, her encyclopedic intelligence, or that she closes her eyes and “recharges” instead of sleeps, you would think that this was a Japanese remake of the largely forgotten 80′s American sitcom, Small Wonder. It seems to have been a very intentional choice to make Mita seem inhuman, as the Asuda family often treats her as if she were an object to be used for their own gain. Whenever this happens, it always leads to catastrophe, as things continually get worse as the series progresses. Much like the drama The Queen’s Classroom, which was also written by Yukawa Kazuhiko, Kaseifu no Mita really piles on the misery for most of the series until things start to get better. In The Queen’s Classroom, you sympathized with and rooted for the entire Classroom when things got bad. But in Kaseifu no Mita, the misery is piled onto the Asuda family, characters that are mostly unsympathetic. When the family starts to fall apart, and when they try to use Mita as a quick-fix to their problems, it feels like they deserve the negative consequences of their petty actions. Only when they stop treating Mita like dirt do their characters start to become more likeable.

Another likeable character on the show was Aibu Saki (相武紗季, Rebound) as Yuki Urara, the sister of the deceased mother of the Asuda family. Her character is there mostly to serve as the only comic relief on the show, but also to show a personality that is the mirror opposite of Mita’s. Unlike Mita, Urara always shows her emotions on her sleeve and she is always trying to help our the Asudas. She is also pretty terrible at everything she tries to do. Despite her efforts to help, the Asudas treat Urara like dirt much in the same way that they treat Mita. If you’re treated like crap by the crappy Asuda family, it’s safe to say you’re probably a likeable character. That is unless you’re the Asuda’s horrible neighbor, Minagawa Mariko (Sato Hitomi, 佐藤仁美), the only character on the show that deserved a comeuppance more than the Asudas.

America did the "superpowered emotionless domestic robot who will do anything you say" shtick first!

That’s not to say that this series was horrible. Once the Asuda family gets over their own problems they become pretty tolerable, and the show is able to focus more on the life of Mita. That’s when Kaseifu no Mita is at its best. With the immense popularity of the show, there will definitely be discussions about a second series or special episode being made, despite the insistence by the creators that they would only make one season. Whether that happens or not remains to be seen, but it would be interesting to see them try to successfully pull it off. If you enjoyed the far superior The Queen’s Classroom (my favorite drama ever), you will find some similarities here between the main characters. While I didn’t think it was the best show ever, I thought it was worth watching just for Matsushima Nanako. A few of the other characters aren’t the most sympathetic figures, but I think it’s still enjoyable.

Dorama Review: Great Teacher Onizuka

Jan 292012
 

Great Teacher Onizuka (GTO) is widely considered among dorama fans as one of the great Japanese Doramas of the 1990′s. It was a precursor to the many insprational teacher comedy-dorama shows that aired in the 2000′s. If you’ve seen and enjoyed shows like Gokusen and Dragon Zakura, but haven’t seen GTO yet, you will see that the original is superior to them all.

Onizuka-sensei showcases his teaching methods.

Onizuka Eikichi (Sorimachi Takashi, 反町隆史), aka Great Teacher Onizuka, is a former motorcycle gang leader with the dream of becoming a teacher. With a third-rate degree and a shady background, he hasn’t had much luck finding a school that will hire him until his friend tells him about a job opening at the Holy Forest Academy. He quickly makes a bad impression on everyone there by karate-kicking the Vice-Principal in the head. The director of the school is impressed by Onizuka’s passion and quickly hires him, of course. Unbeknownst to Onizuka-sensei, he’s been assigned to teach the problem class*, class 2-4. And aside from the school director, all the other teachers hate him and want him to get fired. One of his only allies is the beautiful Fuyutsuki Azusa (Matsushima Nanako, 松嶋菜々子, Sorimachi’s real wife), and even she is disgusted by his tactics half of the time. Now Onizuka-sensei must earn the trust of his students, one-by-one, while the odds are continually stacked against him**.

(*A problem class of Japanese students is about as problematic as a classroom filled with 24 well-mannered geniuses anywhere else in the world. Aside from the occasional attempts at seducing and/or blackmailing the teacher, nude photoshopping, prostitution, and raping.)

(**Replace a few names and places and that synopsis is identical to the plotline of Gokusen)

That's one way to welcome your new teacher to the school.

There are a few reasons that Great Teacher Onizuka is considered the classic that it is. First and foremost is the great performance of Sorimachi Takashi as Onizuka. Seriously, this guy is the coolest virginal, delinquent ex-gang member, wise, funny, inspirational, perverted character I’ve seen on TV. He may not be up there in the pantheon of the greatest TV guys ever like Agent Dale Cooper, Ron Swanson, Omar, Walter White, and Number 6, but he’s close. And none of those guys have a special condom that they’ve been saving for years until they meet the right woman.

Yes, this is gonna be cheesy, but they ARE too cool for school.

Speaking of the right woman, Matsushima Nanako is also great as Fuyutsuki-sensei, and she has a real natural chemistry with Sorimachi that shines through in their scenes together. She’s also gosh darn beautiful, and it was good to see that she could express some human emotions after watching her (required) robotic performance in Kaseifu no Mita. Also, the show is funny. Raunchy funny. While similar shows such as Gokusen*** take place in saccharine fantasy versions of the world, GTO exists in a more humorous and perverted world that perfectly matches the personality of the title character. It seems like every time that you see a TV or computer screen in the show there’s a porno video playing or a naked woman on the screen. Some might think that’s disturbing for a show about a, inspirational teacher and his students, but it’s all part of the silly mood of the show. Compared to the other teachers at the school****, he’s a saint.

(***Even though every episode and season of Gokusen plays out in the same way in the same dream world, I still love it.)

(****The other teachers are some of the shittiest people you can find. When they’re not busy being bad teachers, they’re beating up their students, trying to rape other teachers, and seducing their students. I hope actual teachers in Japan are better than that! Although they sound just like the NYC teachers I read about in the newspaper every day…)

Um, yeah. I don't think you want this guy to be teaching you math.

There’s also Special Episode of the show after the season ends, as well as a follow-up movie. They’re pretty much more of the same, but with Onizuka solving the problems of students and teachers alike at new schools. I recommend those as well once you’re done with the main series.

So, yeah, if you want to watch something funny, raunchy, and not politically correct at all, then give Great Teacher Onizuka a try. There’s a reason that so many shows have tried to imitate it over the last decade-plus. As good as they may (or may not) be, they haven’t been able to capture the complete package of comedy, drama, and inspiration as well as GTO did. I’ll leave you with Sorimachi’s delightfully cheesy GTO theme song, Poison. Enjoy.

Review: Guilty of Romance – koi no tsumi

Jan 172012
 

I am a big fan of the films of Sono Sion （園子温）. All of his films that I’ve seen have stuck with me in some way, which is more than can be said for 99% of the other films and television shows out there. With films like Suicide Club, Noriko’s Dinner Table, and Love Exposure, his work over the last decade is as good as any other filmmaker’s in the world. His recent film, Guilty of Romance, is also one of his darkest to date.

I will be reviewing the 113 minute international cut of Guilty of Romance（恋の罪）. There exists a 144 minute cut made for the Japanese market that I wish to see, as the international cut excises an entire plot line centered around the detective (Mizuno Miki, 水野美紀, Hard Revenge Milly) who is investigating the crimes this film revolves around.

The Film

A crime scene. Two bodies discovered, posed along with mannequin parts and mannequin faces. Pink paint is everywhere. Written on the wall is a single word. What is the meaning behind all of this?

Guilty of Romance is the story of insomniac housewife Kikuchi Izumi (Kagurazaka Megumi, 神楽坂恵, Cold Fish) and her descent into a world more depraved and primal than she can imagine.  Fearing that his newlywed wife is bored and unhappy sitting alone at home all day while waiting for him to get home (which she is), author Kikuchi Yukio (Tsuda Kanji, 津田寛治) suggests she get a part-time job at the local supermarket.

At work she’s approached by a talent manager who wants Izumi to pose for some potentially risqué photos. Reluctant at first, she agrees to go to the photo shoot. Things get a lot more steamy than she expects, and here begins Izumi’s moral descent and sexual awakening.

This new-found sexual power makes Izumi more adventurous, and leads her to more depraved encounters. One of these disturbing encounters is with a gentleman (Kobayashi Ryuju, 竜樹) who looks like he has seen A Clockwork Orange one too many times. From this meeting, Izumi comes into contact with Ozawa Mitsuko (Togashi Makoto, 冨樫真), an older woman with many dark secrets. As two women both leading dual lives they soon befriend each other, and the veteran Mitsuko begins teaching Izumi how to be like her. Meanwhile, the murder mystery continues to unfold.

Thoughts

Words have no meaning. To have meaning, a word must be made flesh. A word’s meaning is its body.

Like his previous effort, Cold Fish, Sono has again made a film about how far down into the depths of depravity mankind can go. One of my favorite things about Sono is his ability to blend drama, comedy, horror, and anything else he wants to into his narrative, and to somehow make it all work. Guilty of Romance is surprisingly devoid of any trace of the black humor that peppers his earlier works. This one is all darkness. But that doesn’t mean that it is any less of a film.

Kagurazaka Megumi turns in a good performance as Izumi, transforming from repressed to sexually empowered to incredibly deviant throughout the course of the story. The standout performance of the movie is that of Togashi Makoto as the deranged Mitsuko. Behind her warm smile and respectable day job is the desire to bring everyone she meets down to her level. And Togashi is excellent at making you believe that she’s being kind every step of the way while she is slowly destroying you.

Sono is my favorite horror director, even when the films he makes aren’t all technically horror films. Horror isn’t my favorite genre, as the typical fare doesn’t put much fright into me. Sono, however, is a genius at scaring the bejeebus out of me. His horror isn’t blood and guts and surprises and sharp noises. His horror is family. The dysfunctional family scenes he creates seem more real than any supernatural monsters or ghosts that are made up (not that my family is horrible, quite the opposite). In Guilty of Romance he treats us to another standout family scene, which I won’t spoil here. I’ll just say that I won’t ever think of having tea with the family the same again.

The concept of prostitution and the value of your own body is the main thread throughout this film. Sono doesn’t condemn the act, nor does he glamorize it. What he does do is show it in the most brutal of fashions. Being a film about murder and sex, there is plenty of graphic violence and sexual content. There are scenes that can be considered rape, but for a story like this one they are essential to the progression of certain character’s story arcs. A thought-provoking point is made in this film regarding prostitution. If a random man approached a woman and propositioned her for sex, what would be more disheartening to the human spirit: if she had sex with the man for free, or if she asked for money? Which would be looked down upon more in our society?

The music gets more and more intense as the film nears the climax. At one point the only musical accompaniment is the endless beating of a war drum, leading everyone into battle. This all leads into some very insane and intense revelations as the story comes to a close and all the loose ends are tied up.

The events that occur in the film are truly dark and represent some of the lowest levels of humanity. But despite that, I found at the end that it was more a story of survival than anything else. Many references are made throughout the film to Kafka’s unfinished novel The Castle, a story representing a quest to find something, to get somewhere, that you can never attain or reach. Both Izumi and Mitsuko are looking for their Castle, even if they know they will never get there. But so is most everyone else in this world. How we deal with that knowledge is what defines us.

I really would have liked to see the longer Japanese cut of the movie. I want to see how well Sono fits (or doesn’t fit) Mizuno Miki’s character arc alongside the stories of Izumi and Mitsuko, as their two storylines contrasted each other very well. It’s not his best film (Love Exposure and Noriko’s Dinner Table are my favorites), nor is it his most disturbing (the award for that goes to Strange Circus). Still, I found this to be another fine effort from Sono.

Review: The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening DX

Jan 102012
 

The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening DX

One of the best things about the Nintendo 3DS is the Virtual Console store. Presently, most of the games in the shop come from the original Game Boy. In the future it looks like they’ll have more NES games and Game Boy Advance titles as well. They already have a good selection of games for sale, so I decided to put a few bucks into my Nintendo eShop account. The first game I purchased was The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening DX.

Link’s Awakening is known for being the first Zelda game released for a portable Nintendo system. It’s also one of the weirder entries in the Zelda series. It ditches the Hyrule setting for the dreamworld of Koholint Island. At the time, it was the most story-driven Zelda yet. Did you know that one of the greatest TV shows ever created, Twin Peaks, inspired the storyline for Link’s Awakening? Well, it was! I just found out too, and I’m picking pieces of my brain up off the floor. Anything having to do with Twin Peaks automatically gets put into the favorites folder inside my head. So how’s the game itself? Read on, and find out!

The Bridges of Koholint County. <3

The Bridges of Koholint County. <3

The Good Stuff
If you enjoyed the original Legend of Zelda for the NES as well as A Link to the Past on the SNES, then you’ll feel right at home with Link’s Awakening. The version for sale in the Nintendo eShop is the 1998 Game Boy Color special edition, which includes a special dungeon that was not in the original 1993 Game Boy release. The gameplay is nearly identical to its SNES counterpart, and the items are all familiar. The only exception is the feather, which enables Link to jump. His jumping skills come into play surprisingly often, especially in the 8 dungeon levels. Staircases in the dungeons lead to unique side-scrolling rooms, and enemies from the Super Mario games are waiting for you down there! There are many homages to other Nintendo titles scattered throughout the game, such as an evil Kirby that wants to suck you up.

The game has a light, comedic mood, which is a different and very welcome experience in the Zelda series. The lighter tone adds some pleasantness to the overall gaming experience. They make sure to repeatedly tell you that this is all a dream. The whole point of the game is to wake up the Wind Fish, who is sleeping inside of an egg on top of a mountain. Yea, I wonder if the execs at Nintendo thought this game was way too weird, and told the developers to really push that dream angle.

There are plenty of secret items and bonuses scattered throughout Koholint Island, and uncovering them leads to obtaining some very useful items. The Dungeons are all enjoyable, and the difficulty level ramps up nicely. They’re all a nice size, not too big or small, and they do good work featuring the special items that you acquire each level. The game overall has a lot of content, especially for a portable game released almost two decades ago.

Those Nintendo guys always have the best shrooms.

Those Nintendo guys always have the best shrooms.

The Bad Stuff
Unfortunately, the original Game Boy had the same controller layout as the NES. That’s usually not a bad thing. But for Link’s Awakening, it contributed to the biggest annoyance I had with this game: you need a heckuva lot more than 2 buttons for this game. Most every screen in the overworld and every room in the dungeons need you to have specific items equipped to progress through the various environmental obstacles. It’s a real pain having to pause so often. You don’t know if in the next room you’ll need to use your sword, power bracelet, feather, bomb, arrow, boots or one of the other items.

It really would’ve helped if Nintendo did some extra work on this release and added in some extra button functionality. I know it’s very simple to release an old Game Boy game on the Virtual Console if you don’t have to alter anything on the ROM. But Nintendo is charging $5.99 for this release. That’s $2 more than all the other Game Boy games in the store, and the same price as NES titles on sale that have been graphically redone for 3D. So I don’t think it’s too much to ask for some improvements to the control scheme. C’mon Nintendo.

One more minor quibble: some of the NPCs talk for a long time. The text scrolls very slowly, and there’s no way to break off a conversation. A text speed option would’ve been nice. Oh, and that stupid owl always shows up to guide you along in your quest. I hate him in this game and in all the other Zelda games he’s been in. I hate him more than Navi.

Quirky and charming? This game is the Zooey Deschanel of the Zelda series! What's that, her parents worked on Twin Peaks? Woah, dude!

Quirky and charming? This game is the Zooey Deschanel of the Zelda series! What's that, her parents worked on Twin Peaks? Woah, dude!

The End
Despite the limited control scheme hindering the gameplay, The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening DX is still an excellent entry in the series. I actually stopped playing my copy of Ocarina of Time 3D to play through this adventure, which I never got to finish in my childhood. At $5.99 it was definitely worth the price for me. The control problems are unfortunate, and you should keep that in mind when considering this purchase. But this game is too good for the controls to bring the experience down too much. If you’re a Zelda fan, you won’t go wrong picking up this quirky and charming little gem.