Zíza

Weird movie. Twisted. About people who are broken but keep breaking others. Preferably the most vulnerable ones, because it's easy and because they themselves are pretty vulnerable. But maybe they want to break out of that vicious cycle. Definitely therapy through shock, pain, violence, and sex. It's just that even though the characters were complex, it's hard not to get bored with it. Or maybe it just didn't sit right with me. But even days after watching it, the film still resonates with me...

Average performances, interesting premise (but it deeply bothered me how he just snapped his fingers to get rid of the kids, he wasn't even particularly sorry – with his wife I get it, but with the kids?!) and it kind of rolled along nicely. The actors are likable or unlikeable enough (depending on the role they're supposed to play) and nothing is particularly campy; as long as you don’t worry about the laws of time travel, parallel universes, etc. There may be time travel in it, but it's ultimately a Japanese romance at work. Nothing exceptional, but nothing exceptionally bad either. It's a bedtime cartoon for adults.

I started out by watching the anime, but I wanted more, so I started watching the live-action version. Yes, I was once again satisfied because the original material is pretty decent and has a lot to offer, but the anime has a little something extra. The relationships between the characters were more interesting, and some of the events were slightly altered and not as funny (for example, Hori had no idea what Miyamura's first name was and did a pretty frantic search for it; there's no frantic search here). The acting was fine, but it's obvious that a lot of the cast are just starting out, so they have a lot of reserves. I'll repeat what I wrote for the anime as well: this is one of the best high school romances in a while. Unfortunately, the live-action version has a slightly different pace than the anime, which was beautifully fresh, but it's still fun, even if it's more tuned to drama than comedy (there's still plenty to laugh about). It was appealing.

Quirky anime from a school setting focused on relationships. Cliche? We know! What do we do with them! Let's dial it up to the minimum and slide on! The anime is called HoriMiya, i.e. Hori and Miyamura are the main characters, and these two get the most space, of course. The two have acquaintances, friends, and classmates, who we also learn something about, but the anime doesn't go into unnecessary detail. A minus for some, but a definite plus for me, because that's life – not everything has its depth and "final solution". Mostly because of this, the anime flows by briskly, the tender and realistic romance is intertwined with excellent situational comedy, and you have great characters to enjoy every episode with. I'm not saying the whole thirteen episodes is some great diamond in the rough, but I'd definitely call it the best high school romance in a long time. I enjoyed it, it was great on the projector, there were scenes that had me laughing out loud, and I enjoyed seeing Miyamura and Hori pull it off almost from the very beginning and build their relationship. At times it went on too long for my tastes and the opening and ending didn't have much to offer, but otherwise perfect. A strong 4 stars.

Sometimes Kudō Kankurō can pleasantly surprise me so well. Maybe in this case he pulled it off perfectly. I got an incredibly fine show full of great acting and, most importantly, incredibly interesting characters. The acting, as always in Kudō's works, was dominated by Nagase Tomoya – a great guy, a great actor, and Ore no ie no hanashi was a wonderful tribute to his work. Who would have guessed that a story where the main character does both wrestling and noh would entertain me so much, and get me so much in the end. Neither the wrestling nor the noh do anything for me, in fact I found it pretty boring, but I totally didn't care because I got an interesting, warm, and funny show. Kudō did very well with the multitude of characters, not one was left flat, but each had one characteristic that stood out. For me, we were taken through the family travails of a traditional family in an engaging way. Ruggedly beautiful – that's what I would call it. I had a similar feeling with Kazoku no katachi; where this series wins in wit, Kazoku no katachi is again more sweetly sedate. Yes, the series has some flaws, but I forgot them all within two days of watching it and now I just fondly remember all the people, the hilarious story, the quirky characters, the bag washing, the realism combined with the absurd in a perfect combination – just the way Kudō does it. I will definitely come back to them again.

Considering it's an anime about dancing,I was expecting a lot more dynamics, swing, movement; instead I got a lot of static images and a bunch of garbage about nothing. I admit that I didn't watch it properly after the initial disappointment (first 10 episodes or so), I was doing other things on my computer, but I didn't miss anything. You just can't find depth in a puddle (to be clear, I mean an ordinary puddle on a sidewalk that isn't riddled with two-foot holes). Tatara always had that weird expression of his, always hesitating and not knowing, but constantly surprising someone (either pleasantly or rather unpleasantly), his first partner was bland, the second her opposite, but the anime couldn't make anything more out of her, basically the two characters blended together motion-wise. The Standard was great, the Latin American even more so, during the anime I kept thinking of my friend who made it to Stardance, and also of my own dancing. That was probably the most intense thing the anime gave me. Which is not enough. I absolutely didn't care who won, or how they danced, because I found the characters strangely unrealistic – they were flat; as if they had a single characteristic they built them on. Too bad. Dancing is great, just not in this anime. There's a lot more sweat moving around than the dancers themselves.

The past was great, the middle of the present was fine, but it dragged weirdly towards the end until the charm it had on the beach completely wore off and meanwhile who knows how long the running time is. As always the acting was fine, maybe slightly weaker with the slutty teacher, but otherwise kind of the Korean professional series standard. Nothing to complain about. A romantic romp. Once all the secrets are out, it's not as interesting (which is the script's fault). But otherwise a nice relaxing show that makes you laugh. 60%.

I saw the music video for the film on YT, during which I was thinking “This must be one hell of a dynamic film if they want to cram so much stuff into it!" The opposite was true. Everything dragged; it was dull, artificial, uninteresting, grey. Not just the story, the shots, but the acting. Sure, it's not bad, but just terribly uninteresting. I couldn't get into it, none of the characters resonated with me, it didn't grab me by the heart, on the contrary it left me quite parched. It's a shame, I like Sugisaki Hana. A film I'll forget very quickly because it gave me absolutely nothing.

Something interesting was playing out in the beginning. Slightly frivolous, slightly serious, slightly conceptual, slightly reminiscent of The Devil Wears Prada. In the beginning it had a swing to it, it was fun and kind of nice in that everyone was fairly normal in character, i.e. no one was a murderous bad guy who wanted to ruin the heroine's life. It was really a romantic comedy that glided between clichés, bouncing off them but not living through them. It wasn't until the end that it kind of weirdly broke down. It slowed down, it broke up, it changed its mind... It's just that for how the beginning was kind of breezy, good, the end was a dragged-out nothing. Too bad. The heroine's fine, likeable, not a pushover. Maybe a little annoying at the beginning, how she kept wanting to live her life her way, but luckily it didn't matter, it just kind of went on without words. The object of her affection was such a positive simpleton, no one exceptionally gifted or smart, just an ordinary guy with some background. But her boss was quite an interesting character: talented, beautiful, fair, and naively sharp. An interesting mishmash that Nanao managed to pull off. Interesting characters who weren’t just to drive the count included the boss's boss and the heroine's colleague played by Mamiya Shotaro. Both characters were likable, their characters were a bit more fleshed out than the rest of the supporting characters, and there was nothing bad to be said about the acting. The rest of the editorial staff and the family members of either the hero or heroine were more or less just placeholders, flat rather than complex; they just sort of existed. The series suffered quite a bit from this and from its lackluster ending. Otherwise, it's a nice show and I'll certainly be glad to see more series of a similar standard being made in Japan.

Such a relaxing little snack. It's basically about nothing more than eating well. The world is so much more beautiful when you have a full stomach. I've always had it with my meals so I don't starve myself unnecessarily while watching and enjoy it. It was kind of my daily peaceful oasis, where it's not about becoming the best at this or that, or which of the women gets the nice chef, but just the comfort of a restaurant. Basically it lacks a story, a lot of space is given to descriptions of food and arguments about which dish is the best... If you're not into soaps about nothing that are great to switch off to, there's no point in watching this. But if you want to switch off with an enjoyable anime, don't want to shudder in horror or crank out adrenaline, this might be a good choice. A weaker 4 stars.