Tag: last friends

Bakuryuu Sentai Abaranger review

I thought I’d try watching something different yesterday, so I downloaded the first episode of a sentai show called Bakuryuu Sentai Abaranger (subbed, unfortunately). Actually I’ve had the mp3s for both the opening and ending themes from the show for a while, and I listen to them almost every day. Watching the show itself though, quite an…experience, shall we say?

After the Last Friends debacle, I lambasted the cast for being uniformly terrible actors. Little did I know how truly bad Japanese acting could get. Yes, I know it’s a sentai show. And I know that on some level the actors were acting badly on purpose. But oh, it was so bad! The dialogue (“Fight with your DinoGuts gushing out!! Warriors filled with DinoGuts can never lose!) The actions! The expressions. So, so, so bad. I don’t even know how to describe it without insulting the characters, their mothers, their families and their entire sexual histories since they were two years old.

Abaranger was so bad, in fact, that I watched every single last second with rabid interest and longed for more. So this is the famous “so bad it’s good” syndrome. Usually when I watch a show, I tend to stop every few minutes or so to check something on the net, eat some snacks, type up a couple of e-mails,etc. Only a very gripping show can keep me from switching at least once, and Bakuryuu Sentai Abaranger was one of these. I just had to see how much worse it could get, and it didn’t disappoint me…in a bad way.

If only I could get this show raw I think I could become quite the fan. :-p

On the other hand, I tried to watch Code Geass all over again yesterday and failed miserably. Some shows just aren’t meant to be watched twice, you know? The first time everything is new and moving at a blistering pace, so you don’t have time stop and think too deeply about the story and the meanings of what they’re saying, and of course you don’t know what’s going to happen next so you can take everything seriously. One watch is definitely enough for me. Let’s keep the magic alive, shall we?

I’m going to spend the rest of the day listening to Chage & Aska’s Very Best Roll Over 20th Album on endless repeat.

I can’t go on watching Last Friends

Ummmmm… about Last Friends… I, err, got to thinking eh, and I realized that err, maybe I’m not quite thaaaat desperate to learn Japanese just yet? Like, it’s not supposed to be torture, right? There’s a glimmer of a good idea behind the how, but the actors just can’t get the job done. I’m talking the main two, the Michiru actress and the Sousuke guy. That Nagasawa girl has only 3 expressions: happy bunny, sad bunny and confused bunny. Pathetic. As for Sousuke, he’d be okay if he’d just keep his bloody mouth shut. He makes a decent creepy-abuser guy (though story-wise it was stupid to have his character come out in full-swing right at the start but whatever) but as soon as he opens his mouth he just blows it all way.

So, I’m not going to suffer through any more of this show. 3 episodes is more than enough. For now I’m just going to rip the audio from each episode – waste not, want not – and listen to it or something. And I’ll skip over all the domestic violence bits because they’re dumb and unnecessarily overwrought. The writers should have watched more Lifetime TV or something, they’ll show you how it’s really done (just kidding). At least then they would have had the decency to attempt to explain why Michiru puts up with Sousuke’s nonsense, and no, “her father was a drunk” doesn’t cut it. I mean, the two of them are already dating when the show starts so we have no idea how they met, or what she sees in him or anything. BS. It’s like the writers opened up a manual which said “abusers behave like this” “abused people behave like this” and so they went with it and expect the watchers to play along.

Alright then, so Michiru is stupid (she certainly looks it), fine, but is her stupidity infectious or something? I mean, why would Ruka and Takeru of all people cover up for Sousuke as well? “Oh it’s nothing, nothing happened here,” when both of them are lying on the floor with Takeru standing over them with a chair? They only just met him that day, why make up lies to cover for him? BULLSHIT. Thanks for reminding me why I avoid j-dramas, Last Friends!

Next up… I need a cleansing break. I managed to get a fairly decent cam of Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea. It’s been a while since I watched a cam anyway, lol. I’m almost hoping someone will get up and walk across the screen halfway through, hehe.