Autumn 2016 Doramas and Anime Wrap Up
You can see the list of those I intended to read here. I completely stuck to my list this time and didn't watch anymore nor anything else! (<< as in 2016 Autumn releases) Some were absolutely amazing, but there were a few disappointments.
I shall do the doramas first:
1. Lady DaVinchi [7/10]
This was a surprise. I was only watching it for IkeP (Ikeoka Ryouske) and while I am disappointed with the lack of screen time he had, I was pleasantly suprised by everything else in this dorama. Firstly, the story; I really don't like hospital/medical doramas so when I started this I was very unsure if I could even watch it. BUT turns out it's more about the characters themselves and their relationships and lives rather than the medical problems and they never really showed surgery which is a HUGE plus for me. Also it's not just a dorama with medical and scientific themes, but it was also a mystery. At the beginning we see the main characters daughter and we also see our protagonist in an accident of some sort; so we spend almost the entire dorama wondering if:
- her daughter is real
- her daughter is alive
- she's imagining people
- she's got a mental problem
- she's got a brain tumour
- her daughter is a ghost
It's a great mystery which helped this dorama become more than I was expecting. Also the fact it's ALL actresses and the characters are ALL women is very interesting and I loved how different all the characters were and I loved how strong the characters were and their relationships with each other! It's a very good pro-women, pro-feminist dorama. I enjoyed the polt structure where we would get the patient experiencing their medical problem and then we follow the doctors discussing and trying to figure out what's wrong and (sometimes) just when you think they've sorted it, the patient developes another problem or turns out it was the wrong diagnosis and every episode the doctor write a list of ALL the possible diagnosis' they could give the patient and you learn just how many medical problems there are in this world and how similar many of them can be so it's difficult to give diagonsis' sometimes.
Another thing was twitter; the people on twitter who tweeted alongside me as the episodes aired was so much fun! It was great to be a part of something and being able to tweet and interact as it went on and it was great with everyone having different theories on our protagonists 'problem' and theories on the patients problem etc. It really added to me enjoying this series even more.
So yes I really enjoyed this, it was a good cast, great story, good mystery, I really enjoyed it and as I already said, the only negative is the lack of IkeP xD he was a nurse though <3
2. Cain and Abel [3/10]
This bored the crap out of me. I watched it because my friend loves Yamada and she wanted to watch it together with me. But I ended up missing weeks and had to marathon like episodes 3 to 8 in one go so I never actually live tweeted her about it at all. Luckily she enjoyed it because of Yamada but unfortunately he was not enough to keep my interest. This plot is so stupid. It couldn't decide if it wanted to be a business focused dorama or a romance focused dorama; it kept flipflopping between the two. And while the romance started off good and I was still onboard about episode 7; the end result was so stupid. Can I spoil you? Okay here:
So Yamada's character Yu falls in love with his brother's fiance who's in the same department as him at work BUT in the beginning (for like 4 episodes) he doesn't know it's his brother's fiance. But obviously because she is such a nice person, he can't not fall for her more and there's one moment where they go on a business trip together and he turns to her and says he likes her and he's wants to be with her and at the time her fiance (his brother!) has already run out on her once, already run away from home once, and has already fucked up the company, AND on top of that he tells her to QUIT her job once she marries him and she LOVES her job(!!!!) whereas Yamada's character is successful at work, he's very positive, he gets along great with everyone, and he's a sweet guy who you can tell would never be as jealous, as stupid, as power hungry as his brother, so it's like COME ON WOMAN! YOU CAN DO IT! But in the end she's like 'ooooh but I love your brother and I plan to stay with him' what the actual fuck. AND to make it worse(!!!!) on their WEDDING DAY he doesn't turn up and AGAIN runs away!! And she STILL fucking ends up forgiving him and marrying him at the end the dorama because 'she loves him' what the fuck seriously. Maybe it's my age, maybe it's because I'm too young to understand, maybe it's because I don't know nor have experienced marriage or a long term relationship, and I can understand forgiving your fiance after he runs away the first time so long as he explains him (I would forgive him), BUT to run away for a second time and (what's worse!) on your wedding day?! I would storm out of that place so hard and tell him to never come back. Not only is it immature, but the whole point is that as an almost-married couple, you're supposed to go through everything together, you're supposed to be there for each other through the good and the bad but you're choosing to keep it to yourself and feel that running away is the better option than consolling in the person you're supposed to spend the rest of your life with?!?!?! I really can't, I'm so angry about that. Also Yamada's character ends up with his childhood friend who he pretty much ignored for the entire dorama and only every went drinking with her and in the last 5 minutes of the dorama he realises that he likes her and that he should be with her and he kisses her?! <<< that's way too unnatural and it drove me insane. You would not come to that conclusion so fast and you wouldn't do what he did and you certainly wouldn't get over the woman who you'd been pining for for almost 10 full episodes so quickly either! Ugh...
I hated this show. I was gunna write more but my rant has put me in a super bad mood for this.
Theme song was good.
3. YowaMushi Pedal [8.5/10]
Of course I'm going to be bias about this. I loved this! They were ONE HOUR episodes full of stage actor favourites and the story and characters themselves were super interesting! It was SO good that after finishing this TV series, that I started the anime and I marathoned that baby AND it's second season in like 3 days! Yowamushi Pedal as a series/product is SO good and so addictive! Ogotan was/is the perfect Onoda <3 I definitely enjoyed Tatsunari's performance as Imaizumi <3 And let me start on the precious, precious, precious Fukazawa Taiga as Naruko and he is the perfect Naruko! He's so good. And of course seeing Baba Ryoma and Naoya in it was great <3 I also greatly appreciated the implied three-way romance going on between Onoda, Naruka and Imaizumi, I loved their "friendship" and totally shipped it completely xD And how could I EVER forget Ue-chan (Ueda Keisuke) <3 he's the perfect Manami also <3 So I took some amazing screencaptures also:
Those legs o_O <3
MANAMI!!!! <3
This beautiful romance hath begun <3
More beautiful romance blooming <3
Told you there was a three way romance!!
I really enjoyed this dorama and it started a beaitiful obsession I now have with Yowamushi as a whole production <3 Yowamushi is great. I highly suggest you watch the anime first though!
4. Doubutsu Sentai Zyuogher
This is still on going but I'm about 36 episodes in and this is enjoyable. It's simple, it's cute, it's definitely a step up from the previous season, the plot development is decent too but it's nothing amazing but it's definitely good to watch. The Halloween episode was great preciated xD This series might finish before the winter season is over (it normally runs like Feb to Jan every year).
5. Kamen Rider Ex-Aid
This is also still on-going and this is a lot of fun! I really like the plot and I like the characters and the budget for this show is huge compared to the previous series because of the amount of CGI they use every episode! Also; all the boys are so cute!!! I'm definitely (and surprisingly) loving Snipe and Laser (<< oh jesus they're all younger than me including these two!!) so much! They're great and I swear to go if they kill them off; I'm rioting! xD I say this because in (about) episode 11 we already got out first character loss so I'm glad this Kamen Rider also isn't being kind as usual and isn't being child proof which is always appreciated. I have to say the weakest out of them all is Emu! Once again we have a Kamen Rider where the main character is the weakest part of the series! I really like him BUT I feel the personality switch he's supposed to have when he starts playing games just isn't prominant enough and it's not obvious enough. Finally, surprisingly Hiiro is growing on me and it all started because he likes cakes and sweets <3 his backstory really helped me understand him also. So yes, enjoying it and having a good time with the characters!
I'm done with the doramas! What did you watch and enjoy? And now for the anime:
6. Show by Rock Season Two [2/10]
Another one that was just bad...The plot this time got introduced at the beginning and sounded really good but then they ignored it slash didn't even mention it again until we were half way through and then the last episode was super rushed and the boss battle was over in like 10 minutes! Furthermore, it became obvious that this is probably more geared towards a male audience because of how many cute females we have in this and I found every single one of them boring as hell - Tsurezure was somewhat interesting. I am/was really into this for the guy bands and unfortunately there's only three-ish of them and they get no where near as much screen time as the other bands/characters! We did get a good backstory for Acareafact but it was too short and Shingancrimson once again were only used as comic relief and only got about an epsode worth of screen time. I don't even think or remember Trichronica being in this one! The story is non-existent, the MCs are boring, the plot development and pacing is bad and my favourites get no screen time. So I hated this and will never continue even if they do.
7. Touken Ranbu: Hanamaru [9/10]
Firstly; if you don't play the game, then you won't like or understand it. A lot of people who'd never played the game (or thought the character is blue was a girl so was expecting some haren-reverse romance anime) watched the first episode and shitted on it SO hard because this IS very aimed at people who've played the game and therefore know and understand the concept (because they don't explain anything about the characters (<< in terms of what's explained in the game) or where they live or their jobs really to the audience) among other aspects of Touken Ranbu.
I really, really enjoyed this! At first I was a little confused because they weren't showing the battles but I soon learned this just purely about developing the characters and showing us their daily life when they aren't fighting. It was great getting to know these characters in so much more depth, and apparently it's all canon too!! And it was absolutely hilarious! I laughed every episode! I also cried a few episodes too! It was funny, interesting, visually beautiful, touching. I loved this anime so much that every sunday I would rewatch that week's episode (or two) just before the new episode came out! So technically I've already all seen the episodes like 3 times! Also I'm SO happy at how much Manbachan (Yamanbagiri Kunihiro) we got and how much development and how much we got to see of his character. I originally only liked him because MakiChan was playing him in the stage but after seeing this, I'm glad I genuinely DO like the character! xD he's so funny in an unfortunate way and totally cute and adorable!! I'm also surprised at how funny they made Hasebe because I loathe that guy but he was actually interesting in this! I hope they do a season two! And soon!
8. Yuri no Ice [10/10]
Oh my god you guys! This year THIS is THE anime! This anime was so popular and so interesting and so good that even international fans were clawing to get their hands on it asap every Wednesday night! And do you want to know why this anime was so popular? Not only was it beautiful and accurately animated to match actual ice skating techniques, but it was also influences by past and present ice skating champinions AND we had at least TWO homosexual leads where the homosexuality was treated COMPLETELY normal; they never had to state their sexuality, no one every questioned when the characters got together, no one even pointed out that they're two guys together, it was all just treated as it should be; a non-issue. And that is another reason why this anime got such international as well! Also every week the anime surprised us and every week we thought 'how can they one up this' and they freaknig did. Every. Single. Episode(!) The characters are amazing too!! Yuri's character development throughout this first season was amazing to watch as he transformed from this shy, no confidence boy to this person of such confidence and swagger and sexual confortability and just an amazing transformation. The side characters also are wonderful! His beautiful fiance Viktor <3 he adorable rival Yurio <3 his best friend Ptchit who loves hamsters(!) <3 he also has a mini rival but also huge fanboy supporter back in his hometown who's also an ice skating champion <3 and even the weird ones like JJ and Chris were hilarious and fun to watch! I really hope we get a season two and I really hope we get more amazing side character and more of their development next time too! I already want season two!!
I watched a lot of other things this season that didn't come out this season so I'll so a separate post about those! But those have been my Autumn 2016 doramas and anime!
I shall do the doramas first:
1. Lady DaVinchi [7/10]
This was a surprise. I was only watching it for IkeP (Ikeoka Ryouske) and while I am disappointed with the lack of screen time he had, I was pleasantly suprised by everything else in this dorama. Firstly, the story; I really don't like hospital/medical doramas so when I started this I was very unsure if I could even watch it. BUT turns out it's more about the characters themselves and their relationships and lives rather than the medical problems and they never really showed surgery which is a HUGE plus for me. Also it's not just a dorama with medical and scientific themes, but it was also a mystery. At the beginning we see the main characters daughter and we also see our protagonist in an accident of some sort; so we spend almost the entire dorama wondering if:
- her daughter is real
- her daughter is alive
- she's imagining people
- she's got a mental problem
- she's got a brain tumour
- her daughter is a ghost
It's a great mystery which helped this dorama become more than I was expecting. Also the fact it's ALL actresses and the characters are ALL women is very interesting and I loved how different all the characters were and I loved how strong the characters were and their relationships with each other! It's a very good pro-women, pro-feminist dorama. I enjoyed the polt structure where we would get the patient experiencing their medical problem and then we follow the doctors discussing and trying to figure out what's wrong and (sometimes) just when you think they've sorted it, the patient developes another problem or turns out it was the wrong diagnosis and every episode the doctor write a list of ALL the possible diagnosis' they could give the patient and you learn just how many medical problems there are in this world and how similar many of them can be so it's difficult to give diagonsis' sometimes.
Another thing was twitter; the people on twitter who tweeted alongside me as the episodes aired was so much fun! It was great to be a part of something and being able to tweet and interact as it went on and it was great with everyone having different theories on our protagonists 'problem' and theories on the patients problem etc. It really added to me enjoying this series even more.
So yes I really enjoyed this, it was a good cast, great story, good mystery, I really enjoyed it and as I already said, the only negative is the lack of IkeP xD he was a nurse though <3
2. Cain and Abel [3/10]
This bored the crap out of me. I watched it because my friend loves Yamada and she wanted to watch it together with me. But I ended up missing weeks and had to marathon like episodes 3 to 8 in one go so I never actually live tweeted her about it at all. Luckily she enjoyed it because of Yamada but unfortunately he was not enough to keep my interest. This plot is so stupid. It couldn't decide if it wanted to be a business focused dorama or a romance focused dorama; it kept flipflopping between the two. And while the romance started off good and I was still onboard about episode 7; the end result was so stupid. Can I spoil you? Okay here:
So Yamada's character Yu falls in love with his brother's fiance who's in the same department as him at work BUT in the beginning (for like 4 episodes) he doesn't know it's his brother's fiance. But obviously because she is such a nice person, he can't not fall for her more and there's one moment where they go on a business trip together and he turns to her and says he likes her and he's wants to be with her and at the time her fiance (his brother!) has already run out on her once, already run away from home once, and has already fucked up the company, AND on top of that he tells her to QUIT her job once she marries him and she LOVES her job(!!!!) whereas Yamada's character is successful at work, he's very positive, he gets along great with everyone, and he's a sweet guy who you can tell would never be as jealous, as stupid, as power hungry as his brother, so it's like COME ON WOMAN! YOU CAN DO IT! But in the end she's like 'ooooh but I love your brother and I plan to stay with him' what the actual fuck. AND to make it worse(!!!!) on their WEDDING DAY he doesn't turn up and AGAIN runs away!! And she STILL fucking ends up forgiving him and marrying him at the end the dorama because 'she loves him' what the fuck seriously. Maybe it's my age, maybe it's because I'm too young to understand, maybe it's because I don't know nor have experienced marriage or a long term relationship, and I can understand forgiving your fiance after he runs away the first time so long as he explains him (I would forgive him), BUT to run away for a second time and (what's worse!) on your wedding day?! I would storm out of that place so hard and tell him to never come back. Not only is it immature, but the whole point is that as an almost-married couple, you're supposed to go through everything together, you're supposed to be there for each other through the good and the bad but you're choosing to keep it to yourself and feel that running away is the better option than consolling in the person you're supposed to spend the rest of your life with?!?!?! I really can't, I'm so angry about that. Also Yamada's character ends up with his childhood friend who he pretty much ignored for the entire dorama and only every went drinking with her and in the last 5 minutes of the dorama he realises that he likes her and that he should be with her and he kisses her?! <<< that's way too unnatural and it drove me insane. You would not come to that conclusion so fast and you wouldn't do what he did and you certainly wouldn't get over the woman who you'd been pining for for almost 10 full episodes so quickly either! Ugh...
I hated this show. I was gunna write more but my rant has put me in a super bad mood for this.
Theme song was good.
3. YowaMushi Pedal [8.5/10]
Of course I'm going to be bias about this. I loved this! They were ONE HOUR episodes full of stage actor favourites and the story and characters themselves were super interesting! It was SO good that after finishing this TV series, that I started the anime and I marathoned that baby AND it's second season in like 3 days! Yowamushi Pedal as a series/product is SO good and so addictive! Ogotan was/is the perfect Onoda <3 I definitely enjoyed Tatsunari's performance as Imaizumi <3 And let me start on the precious, precious, precious Fukazawa Taiga as Naruko and he is the perfect Naruko! He's so good. And of course seeing Baba Ryoma and Naoya in it was great <3 I also greatly appreciated the implied three-way romance going on between Onoda, Naruka and Imaizumi, I loved their "friendship" and totally shipped it completely xD And how could I EVER forget Ue-chan (Ueda Keisuke) <3 he's the perfect Manami also <3 So I took some amazing screencaptures also:
Those legs o_O <3
MANAMI!!!! <3
This beautiful romance hath begun <3
More beautiful romance blooming <3
Told you there was a three way romance!!
I really enjoyed this dorama and it started a beaitiful obsession I now have with Yowamushi as a whole production <3 Yowamushi is great. I highly suggest you watch the anime first though!
4. Doubutsu Sentai Zyuogher
This is still on going but I'm about 36 episodes in and this is enjoyable. It's simple, it's cute, it's definitely a step up from the previous season, the plot development is decent too but it's nothing amazing but it's definitely good to watch. The Halloween episode was great preciated xD This series might finish before the winter season is over (it normally runs like Feb to Jan every year).
5. Kamen Rider Ex-Aid
This is also still on-going and this is a lot of fun! I really like the plot and I like the characters and the budget for this show is huge compared to the previous series because of the amount of CGI they use every episode! Also; all the boys are so cute!!! I'm definitely (and surprisingly) loving Snipe and Laser (<< oh jesus they're all younger than me including these two!!) so much! They're great and I swear to go if they kill them off; I'm rioting! xD I say this because in (about) episode 11 we already got out first character loss so I'm glad this Kamen Rider also isn't being kind as usual and isn't being child proof which is always appreciated. I have to say the weakest out of them all is Emu! Once again we have a Kamen Rider where the main character is the weakest part of the series! I really like him BUT I feel the personality switch he's supposed to have when he starts playing games just isn't prominant enough and it's not obvious enough. Finally, surprisingly Hiiro is growing on me and it all started because he likes cakes and sweets <3 his backstory really helped me understand him also. So yes, enjoying it and having a good time with the characters!
I'm done with the doramas! What did you watch and enjoy? And now for the anime:
6. Show by Rock Season Two [2/10]
Another one that was just bad...The plot this time got introduced at the beginning and sounded really good but then they ignored it slash didn't even mention it again until we were half way through and then the last episode was super rushed and the boss battle was over in like 10 minutes! Furthermore, it became obvious that this is probably more geared towards a male audience because of how many cute females we have in this and I found every single one of them boring as hell - Tsurezure was somewhat interesting. I am/was really into this for the guy bands and unfortunately there's only three-ish of them and they get no where near as much screen time as the other bands/characters! We did get a good backstory for Acareafact but it was too short and Shingancrimson once again were only used as comic relief and only got about an epsode worth of screen time. I don't even think or remember Trichronica being in this one! The story is non-existent, the MCs are boring, the plot development and pacing is bad and my favourites get no screen time. So I hated this and will never continue even if they do.
7. Touken Ranbu: Hanamaru [9/10]
Firstly; if you don't play the game, then you won't like or understand it. A lot of people who'd never played the game (or thought the character is blue was a girl so was expecting some haren-reverse romance anime) watched the first episode and shitted on it SO hard because this IS very aimed at people who've played the game and therefore know and understand the concept (because they don't explain anything about the characters (<< in terms of what's explained in the game) or where they live or their jobs really to the audience) among other aspects of Touken Ranbu.
I really, really enjoyed this! At first I was a little confused because they weren't showing the battles but I soon learned this just purely about developing the characters and showing us their daily life when they aren't fighting. It was great getting to know these characters in so much more depth, and apparently it's all canon too!! And it was absolutely hilarious! I laughed every episode! I also cried a few episodes too! It was funny, interesting, visually beautiful, touching. I loved this anime so much that every sunday I would rewatch that week's episode (or two) just before the new episode came out! So technically I've already all seen the episodes like 3 times! Also I'm SO happy at how much Manbachan (Yamanbagiri Kunihiro) we got and how much development and how much we got to see of his character. I originally only liked him because MakiChan was playing him in the stage but after seeing this, I'm glad I genuinely DO like the character! xD he's so funny in an unfortunate way and totally cute and adorable!! I'm also surprised at how funny they made Hasebe because I loathe that guy but he was actually interesting in this! I hope they do a season two! And soon!
8. Yuri no Ice [10/10]
Oh my god you guys! This year THIS is THE anime! This anime was so popular and so interesting and so good that even international fans were clawing to get their hands on it asap every Wednesday night! And do you want to know why this anime was so popular? Not only was it beautiful and accurately animated to match actual ice skating techniques, but it was also influences by past and present ice skating champinions AND we had at least TWO homosexual leads where the homosexuality was treated COMPLETELY normal; they never had to state their sexuality, no one every questioned when the characters got together, no one even pointed out that they're two guys together, it was all just treated as it should be; a non-issue. And that is another reason why this anime got such international as well! Also every week the anime surprised us and every week we thought 'how can they one up this' and they freaknig did. Every. Single. Episode(!) The characters are amazing too!! Yuri's character development throughout this first season was amazing to watch as he transformed from this shy, no confidence boy to this person of such confidence and swagger and sexual confortability and just an amazing transformation. The side characters also are wonderful! His beautiful fiance Viktor <3 he adorable rival Yurio <3 his best friend Ptchit who loves hamsters(!) <3 he also has a mini rival but also huge fanboy supporter back in his hometown who's also an ice skating champion <3 and even the weird ones like JJ and Chris were hilarious and fun to watch! I really hope we get a season two and I really hope we get more amazing side character and more of their development next time too! I already want season two!!
I watched a lot of other things this season that didn't come out this season so I'll so a separate post about those! But those have been my Autumn 2016 doramas and anime!