Let's Go Karaoke!
Watched Karaoke Iko!, the live action film adaptation of Wayama Yama's manga. Satomi (played by Saitou Jun), a third-year Osaka middle school boy and the president of the school choir club, is asked by Kyouji (played by Ayano Go), a yakuza lieutenant, to teach him how to sing well for the upcoming yakuza karaoke contest. And Kyouji's go-to song is X Japan's "Kurenai".
The movie expands on the manga and turns up the bromance, albeit the bromance is already there in the manga (in the author's word, not mine -- see the interview). The direction of the movie feels refreshing and delicate, almost subdued; you won't see any exaggerated comedy here other than the karaoke scenes. Underneath the straight face comedy is a youth drama, a "lemon soda in the summer" sort of flavour with a transparent quality to it. I think it's a good one to watch in the summer.
On a more amusing note, I got "Kurenai" stuck on repeat in my head after watching this, or rather, Ayano Go's falsetto voice. Also the Osaka dialect. Cannot unhear it.
I'm also reading one of Wayama Yama's other manga, Onna no Sono no Hoshi, a slice-of-life comedy about the daily lives of male teachers at an all-girls high school. It doesn't reach the absurdity of Sano Nami's Sakamoto Desu Ka?, though it feels like a very distant and weary second cousin to it if it makes any sense -- probably not. It's humour in mundanity.
Anyway, there's an Onna no Sono no Hoshi OVA floating around somewhere. Hoshino Gen voices the title character Hoshi-sensei (the name is probably just a coincidence -- probably) and Miyano Mamoru as his colleague Kobayashi-sensei. I haven't seen it yet. It's directed by Hatakeyama Mamoru, and I must admit I'm curious.
The movie expands on the manga and turns up the bromance, albeit the bromance is already there in the manga (in the author's word, not mine -- see the interview). The direction of the movie feels refreshing and delicate, almost subdued; you won't see any exaggerated comedy here other than the karaoke scenes. Underneath the straight face comedy is a youth drama, a "lemon soda in the summer" sort of flavour with a transparent quality to it. I think it's a good one to watch in the summer.
On a more amusing note, I got "Kurenai" stuck on repeat in my head after watching this, or rather, Ayano Go's falsetto voice. Also the Osaka dialect. Cannot unhear it.
I'm also reading one of Wayama Yama's other manga, Onna no Sono no Hoshi, a slice-of-life comedy about the daily lives of male teachers at an all-girls high school. It doesn't reach the absurdity of Sano Nami's Sakamoto Desu Ka?, though it feels like a very distant and weary second cousin to it if it makes any sense -- probably not. It's humour in mundanity.
Anyway, there's an Onna no Sono no Hoshi OVA floating around somewhere. Hoshino Gen voices the title character Hoshi-sensei (the name is probably just a coincidence -- probably) and Miyano Mamoru as his colleague Kobayashi-sensei. I haven't seen it yet. It's directed by Hatakeyama Mamoru, and I must admit I'm curious.