Showing posts with label yoshikawa ai. Show all posts
Showing posts with label yoshikawa ai. Show all posts

Wednesday, July 17, 2024

Furitsumore Kodoku na Shi yo~ A Suffocatingly Lonely Death~

Furitsumore Kodoku na Shi yo (A Suffocatingly Lonely Death) is a Suspense/ Murder Mystery drama focusing on a Special Investigative Task Force hunting down a serial killer with at least 19 victims to his name. The story:
6 years ago on a routine investigation of an abandoned house, a police detective named Jin Saeki (Ryo Narita) and his team stumble upon a basement which seems to be suspiciously chained up. 

Delving inside, they find a decrepit area that looks like it once housed children. And at the back of the basement, they find a strange octagonal symbol painted on the wall…and a huge pile of skeletal remains heaped below!
Once tallied, the remains come out to 19 victims of very young age, and a bulletin is immediately put out for the owner of the house, a man named Juzo Haikawa (Fumiyo Kohinata). Though they try, Saeki and his team (Meisa Kuroki, Taiki Sato, Toru Nomaguchi) are not been able to make any kind of headway with the case.

Things turn when one day, a beautiful young woman shows up at the precinct and declares she has information about Haikawa and the mysterious abandoned house. Saeki runs down to interview her at once!


They expect her to give information of an evil, twisted person, however, the man this woman is describing seems more like her light and savior. Her name is Kanon Hasumi (Ai Yoshikawa), and a as a child, was severely abused and neglected by her mother, to the point of starvation. That is when the mysterious Juzo Haikawa came into her life, showing her not only how to think and act quickly in shoplifting to survive, but also by eventually inviting her to live with other children just like herself, at his home.

So grateful to this man are they that they call him “Father”, not in the blood related sense but of that whom a father should be- protective and nurturing. That is until one day he disappeared, leaving the now growing up teens to leave the house and scatter to the winds. They have not heard hair nor hide of the man in years…not until his name and the house came up in the news.
Kanon Hasumi wants to help Saeki and his team, and provides not only a photograph of Juzo and all the children that resided there while she was a tenant, but the names as well. Through this the detectives are able to identify some of the remains at the house and they are also able to locate some of the other children, now grown ups themselves.

Despite all of the former roommates of the house swearing only loyalty and innocence to Juzo, he is eventually  tracked down and apprehended by the police, and the serial killer case is seemingly over.
Fast forward to present day, where a woman named Toko Mori (Mizuki Yamashita) who tracks runaways and homeless teens, has made a chilling discovery when trying to locate a particular teenage girl who has gone missing. 
She tracks down Jin Saeki, who has given up detecting and is eking out a life as a traffic guard, to show him what she has found:
In a photograph of the girl taken before she disappeared, she is seen with a tattoo of a octagonal design on her arm. The same design sprayed on the walls of the death basement and carved into Juzo's palm. She believes that the serial killings may have begun again, and wants Saeki to come out of his self imposed retirement and help close the case for good.

As some of you know well, I have not been a big fan of Japanese Drama murder mysteries because they ALWAYS follow the same darn cliches: the shady boss, the turncoat best friend, the sordid politicians and of course the corrupt cops, etc, and I really was going to pass on this one- except for the fact that this was Actress Meisa Kuroki’s return to dramas, and as a HUGE fan of hers, was determined to check it out!
WELL,  I don’t know how this drama is going to go, and for all I know we’ve got yet another cliched by-the-number slog of a mystery, but as far as the first episode goes, it was STELLAR, and I’m dying to see more!

Tuesday, May 7, 2024

Undead And Loving It: My Undead Yokai Girlfriend

Been blazing through the wacky and totally zany Amazon Prime drama series “Boku no Itoshii Yokai Girlfriend”, the story of a hapless gaming dork who summons a youkai from another dimension to be his girlfriend and then has to deal with the fallout as she binds herself to this plane and begins executing the gods who have imprisoned her.
Starring actor Hayato Sano (last seen by me as the humble Manabu Taira in “Trillion Game”) as the unwitting college student Takashi Inukai, this is a guy who'd do ANYTHING for a girlfriend...
enough so that when his buddy Tanuki (Anthony) finds a supposed ritual online to supposedly summon some sexy goddess to him, he leaps at the chance!
Haphazardly performing the seance by night according to the vague instructions on the web, he doesn't REALLY think this thing could work...
...but is shocked out of his mind when the next day, a portal opens up in the sky and a commanding warrior woman steps out from the time rip to confront him!
She is IZUNA (Ai Yoshikawa) , a yokai who has travelled across time to this timeline and, as her 
summoner", immediately announces she must "consummate" their bond with him so she can anchor herself to this reality!
Though Tadashi finds this demonic woman attractive indeed, he's too chicken and nervous to pursue any hanky-panky with her, and ultimately thinks it best if h left this girl alone to her devices! But no matter WHAT, Izzy continues to show up in front of him, in school, in his room, at parties....Tadashi has to wonder just WHAT he's gotten himself IN to!
Though Tadashi is the main character of the show, the real star HAS to be the vibrant Ai Yoshikawa as the bloodthirsty demon yokai Izuna “Izzy” Imiki! WOW, Ai really shines here and it’s just fantastic to watch her go through the ropes, seducing her hapless mortal boyfriend, slaying the undead opponents as they appear…and still managing to go on dates and experience the wonderful foods of this time!
Watching her drink Coca-Cola for the first time or experiencing a sugary crepe, there are times Tadashi feels like she could be a regular, human girl suitable for dating....
...But then he'll come home and find her showing off the severed head of her latest KILL!
!!! Things have GOT to change!!!!
LOLOL, Clearly a very lowbrow comedy, I’m actually surprised how many BIG names are attached to this drama, not least Takashi Sorimachi (!) as the detective in charge of investigating Izzy's strange murders…not only is he determined, but we will find that he's also Takashi’s FATHER!
Also featuring Anna Ishii as Sorimachi’s goofy assistant, Nico Suzuki, a real "comedy relief" character if there ever was one! Ishii looks like she's having a BALL here!
We also have Naoto Takenaka as a mysterious billionaire who may have descended from the same demons plaguing Izzy...also Yukiya Kitamura and Yoshihiko Hakayamada as his sinister agents.
Another actress I really love is Yuna Taira, here as an occult specialist named Arisa Renjo. She helps out the boys as they go about the sticky business of taming their resident yokai!
She's very helpful...though it seems even SHE has secrets no one can know about....We'll have to wait to find out more!
Like I said, this drama is off the rails with silliness, yet I just couldn’t stop watching it! As it's an Amazon Prime series, the whole thing is up and ready to watch, so i just DUG IN! And I gotta say, Ai Yoshikawa does it again! SUCH a cutie!!!
PS: By the way, there’s no doubt that this is an Amazon Prime drama, all right- every episode is just PEPPERED with characters talking about all the fun stuff they’re going to order off of AMAZON.com, surely one of the best bits of advertising yet!