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I think my biggest problem with this series is how little the plot changes. The players still need to work together in order to beat the game but no one wants to. It's frustrating. It also makes the game's result obvious. In the end, I liked the series. I just would have liked it with a little more variety.
This season picks up awhile after the first season ended. Even though there are new players and new challenges, the outcomes are still the same. Since the advertise the Final Stage movie in the very beginning of the show, we already know that Akiyama and Kanzaki will advance to the next rounds. Luckily, the different challenges keep the show entertaining. I wonder what the movie will be like.
I absolutely loved this show, up until the final episode. Toda's acting as the naive Kanzaki was adorable. She really made you believe that the world would be a better place if everyone was honest with each other. Meanwhile, Matsuda was able to bring forth both the cynical and caring sides of Akiyama. The two of them got me hooked way faster than the plotline, which isn't awful but can get a little tedious at times.
The annoying part was that the final episode was so long. They recapped the entire series and added little snippets of what some of the off-screen characters were doing at the time. The additions made the long episode bearable but I don't think we really needed an entire recap of each level of the game. I wanted to fast forward through most of it but I was afraid I would miss an important piece of information.
In the end, that final episode didn't ruin the whole series for me. Not only did I enjoy it immensely, I am anxiously waiting to watch the second season. I hope it doesn't let me down.
While I'm normally not an overly emotional person, I found myself brought to tears a few times during this show. The passion and dedication that Tanaka Aiko (Kanno) has for her job and her patients is awesome. I think it was that character that made me cry more than anyone.
I don't want to say too much about the show because, really, everyone should watch it. There is no romance so don't expect hearts in anyone's eyes. For those of you that are squeamish, there is a little bit of blood but nothing overly gorey. It's just good drama.
This show both annoyed and amused me. Parts of it were absolutely awesome. Unfortunately, most of the beginning episodes are terrible. Also, the show could have ended at episode 7 with no problems. Instead, they dragged it on for another four episodes. The ending was still surprising and funny but it seemed tacked on. Would I watch it again? No. But I'm definitely going to try to track down more of Matsuoka's dramas!
I heard amazing things about this show. Knowing how hardcore fans can get rabid about "awesome" shows, I can reluctant to watch it myself. I'm sorry I waited so long!
The show mostly revolves around Osawa. It flips a little between her personal life and her extraordinary detective skills. I'm happy that they didn't delve too far into either arena. The show would have sucked if it was based on "You can't get a husband." On the other hand, I think it would have been too dry if it focused solely on the detective work. It was a great balance between the two.
I'm not going to go into each of her subordinates individually because that would take way too long. I enjoyed seeing the transformation of Kimoto Mami (Toda) from a stand-offish loner into an actual part of a team. Since there is a second season on the way, I hope to find out a little more about Iwai (Kendo) and Yamamura (Nukumizu). They were great secondary characters but they seemed to get tossed out to make room for everyone else. I'd like to see them make their own transformations.
This is most definitely a must see. Don't wait!
Kawamura Tamaki gets rejected from every job except one. A customer service representative for a travel agency. Basically, she answers the phones and hands out complimentary tissues to passers-by. When her boss tells her that, as a new hire, she needs to learn everything, she mistakenly takes a task as a tour guide. Kawamura receives rave reviews from the customers and, as a result, gets a promotion. One of the perks of her new job is a company cell phone. Shortly after receiving her phone, she bumps into the company's number one employee, Tamaki Saori, and accidentally ends up switching phones with the woman. The company president thinks he is calling Saori to present a tour to an important foreign company when he is actually talking to Tamaki. Tamaki, thinking that he really is calling her, takes on the task.
Saori, on her wedding day, sees an old boyfriend, Kusaba Fumiya (Okada Yoshinori), and spends a majority of the day in her bridal gown running after him. Okada, as a representative for the foreign company, thinks he is supposed to have a business meeting with Saori instead of Tamaki. It all comes to a head when Saori arrives, still in her wedding dress, at the agency and the president rushes her off to the conference room to hold the presentation. Tamaki, knowing that the foreigners will be bored with the current presentation, shows up with a brand new one featuring photos from tour guide, Inoue (Gekidan). Saori hands the reins over to Tamaki, whose presentation is a smashing success. In the end, Saori gets married to her fiance and is about to have a baby, while Tamaki takes over many of Saori's tasks in the company.
With only two episodes, I figured Chance! would either be amazingly awesome or completely awful. Luckily, it is not awful. Horikita Maki plays the clumsy newbie very well. There wasn't a single moment where I didn't believe her circumstances, no matter how unlikely they were. Kuroki Meisa's character, Tamaki Saori, is very important to the story but she spends most of it running around in a wedding dress. Though, I suppose, we don't really need to know a lot about her since the story is all about Kawamura Tamaki. Fortunately, comic genius Gekidan Hitori is along for the ride as tour guide Inoue. Despite being a very short show, I found it extremely enjoyable. This is definitely something you should watch.
I was definitely excited when I heard that Shun, Mao, and Hiroki were doing a drama together. They are so awesome. Considering it had the "Dolittle" title, I expected some sort of animal talking thing. There wasn't any. It's simply a nickname because Tottori is good with animals and his name kinda sounds like Dolittle. Ah, well. Onto the review:
I have to admit that, for the most part, I enjoyed the series. It took me a long time to warm up to Tottori but, if you pay close attention, you can see that he's an ass because he cares for the animals so much. He thinks that their human caretakers are idiots and, most of the time, he's right. In one episode, a girl allowed her ferret to run free in the house. The ferret chewed on her slippers, swallowed some rubber and almost died. Yet the girl refused to take responsibility for it and when the ferret was well enough to go home.....yup, she let him run free again and the ferret got sick again. It wasn't until the ferret almost died a second time that she realized her selfishness. So, yeah, I felt that he had every right to be an ass to her.
On the other side, you have Hanabishi. He is very popular and works well with people. Yet he can't overcome a past trauma, stopping him from being able to operate. He does get along with Tottori so I'm not sure why the two of them didn't form a partnership. Hanabishi could diagnose the problem and deal with the customer, while Tottori operated and cared for the animals. I think that if they joined forces, they could have been way more successful than they would be separately. Instead, Hanabishi keeps shipping animals off secretly to Tottori's clinic to be operated on. The whole thing kinda makes me want to bang my head on the table.
Tajima is right in the middle of this. In the first episode, Tottori heals her prized horse. She can't afford his fee so, after failing to get hired for any of the jobs she applied for, she goes to work for him to pay off the debt. During her tenure at the clinic, she finds her purpose in life. Of all of the characters, she is the one that grows the most throughout the series. To be honest, without her, the show wouldn't have been nearly as good. There is a hint of romance between her and Tottori but not enough to overwhelm the series. At the end, I was glad that she realized that she wanted to go to school to become an animal nurse.
As a whole, the show is a little slow. There are a variety of animal patients so it was nice to see them work on more than just dogs and cats. However, there is a ton of politicking going on. That part annoyed me. Everyone was all "Let's help the animals!" but then would stop something because it was against an agenda. Granted, that is how things can be in real life. But this is a television show. It's not supposed to be too real!
Anyway, if you can look past Tottori's arrogance and Hanabishi's want to please everyone, it's a decent series. It's more about conservation and helping animals than it is about the humans. The best part is that it's different from most of the other shows I've watched lately. It was refreshing.
Yes, I watched another KimuTaku show. Sometimes I think these will kill me.
Once again, parts of the series are awesome. The final two episodes had me hanging on the edge of my seat. (Even though I really knew deep down that Takuya wouldn't lose.) Unfortunately, out of 10 episodes, at least 6 of them are completely unnecessary. The information has already been given to us but the story takes forever to relay it to the important characters. I would have liked the show better if they took the final two episodes and made those the focus of the show. Instead, we get way too many scenes of Shinkai wandering around the hangars' metal buildings. I get that Ayumi works there and he wants to see her. But you don't go wandering around those places!
ARGH. I need a break from KimuTaku for awhile. Hopefully, Oguri Shun will help ease my pain.
This show made me absolutely hate KimuTaku for the first 5 or 6 episodes. Since this is only an 8-episode series, that's an awful lot of time hating the main character. He does redeem himself, of course. It just would have been nice to see that change start around episode 4 or 5.
Shinohara Ryoko is awesome as designer Maemi. She made me feel so bad for her character, even though she didn't want anyone to feel sorry for her. I think she totally made up for the crapfest that KimuTaku was.
Poor Kitagawa Keiko got robbed though. Onuki Yuzuki is completely a throw away character. She has no real importance to the show. Even when she tries to make big reveals, the information has already been given by another character. She's convenient but unnecessary.
Now onto Lin Chi Ling, who, in my opinion, takes up way too much time. I'm pretty sure her role was to show what a hardass Hazuke is with everyone, even those he claims to love. But all she really did was take away from the awesomeness that is Maemi. However, the interaction between the two women was nice. I guess that is one redeeming value.
This show absolutely depended on the actors and their characters. There wasn't a big plot to reign the characters in. If the characters failed, the show would fail as well. For the most part, the characters are annoying. It isn't until the last few episodes that anyone shows any redeeming values. I didn't think the show was horrible. It was just meh.