„I want you to become a butterfly“ - A Paradise Kiss Review

Originalname:	パラダイス・キス | Paradaisu Kisu
Also known as:	-
Release Date:	4. June 2011
Director:	Takehiko Shinjo
Writer:	Ai Yazawa (Manga), Kenji Bando
Producer:	Takero Hisamatsu, Toshiaki Muramatsu, Takeshi Onoda, Hiroaki Kitano, Toshiya Nomura

Cast:

Keiko Kitagawa, Osamu Mukai, Yusuke Yamamoto, Shunji Igarashi, Kento Kaku, Aya Omasa

Plot

So we start with a... HOLY SHIT, IS THAT WARNER BROS.?!

Anyway, Yukari is a girl that tried to please her mother her whole life and doesn’t have any self-confidence. She has a love interest, Hiroyuki Takumori, played by Yusuke Yamamoto (He is our new sweetheart get used to him)

Well, destiny strikes as she’s being stalked by a punk called Arashi (No. Not the band.) She faints and wakes up in a room with Arashi, a cute girl, Miwako, and a transvestite, Isabella, who ask if she could be a model for their graduation fashion show. But she doesn’t have any interest since she has to study for the finals. When George, the designer, arrives, she takes her leave.

George shows up in her school the next morning and make her skip class because he wants her to get a new haircut as an “apology”.

Well, at least Hiroyuki likes the new haircut, as he states in the next morning, when Isabella appears and takes her away to take her measurements. Which are not needed because Yukari turns out to be his muse.

Yukari decides to move out because she can’t cope with her mother anymore and moves in with George.

He shows her his “special room” (Why are you laughing? It’s just a room with clothes he sewed himself...)

One day Yukari discovers that this project will be  their last as “Paradise Kiss” as George will go to Paris after that, and so the day of the fashion show arrives.

There are some problems and Yukari decides that she wants to give hundred percent for George on the catwalk which she does and ends up getting a lot applause for it. And George kisses her.

So he leaves for Paris without saying goodbye and some time after he sends a package with a key and an address.

She goes there and finds  all those clothes which were in his precious room and cries.

THE END. I would’ve loved to see the 3 years after, but o well... you shouldn’t force your luck! 

... Yeah okay, it isn’t finished! Well, Yukari is angry and wants to see him and in NY she finds out he has designed clothes for a musical and they end up meeting his apartment and kiss. SCREW THIS!

Conclusion

I love this movie (not like my sister). I think the ending was great and the whole plot was well paced. I mean everything went so smoothly. In other asian movies there were many dialogue scenes and things felt rushed. Not with this one. Okay, some things were cut out like the conflict with the mother. Demochild was really disappointed because in the Manga and the Anime this was very important. But for me, for the fact that it’s a movie, it wasn’t such a waste. And of course there is the thing with the ending. I liked it. I liked it a lot. I thought it was deserved. But Demochild hated it. For her the Anime Ending was the best. No pairing, just pure loneliness and an open ending. Yeah, it would be interesting but it’s such a shoujo/women movie. It’s a must to have a happy ending. Okay, it would be refreshing. But I have to say, that moment which Demochild chose for the ending (it’s the crying in the clothes room) would also have been a great ending.

I loved the cast, too. They played really good. But I was surprised the most about Shunji Igarashi, our Nyah-chan from Rookies. I didn't recognize him xD
Ah, and not to forget Aya Omasa, who play the main role in Perfect Girl Evolution. Here she played a bright, naive, with a high voiced girl.

And one thing, totally out off plot: What’s wrong with the kissing in this movie? After the runway she looks like she is being raped. And then The Aragorn Kiss at the end xD For all who know LOTR Trilogy. Watch the last movie again and focus on how Aragorn prepares to kiss Arwen. It’s really funny. And this last kiss in this movie reminded somehow of it. How George takes a deep breath and... yeah. You know what follows ^^

Finally, I would like to say one of our personal favourites and we totally recommend it. We even recommend to buy it. It’s really worth its money.

„You’re cute! – No, you are!“ A Princess Princess D Review

Originalname:	プリンセス・プリンセスD | Purinsesu purinsesu D
Also known as:	-
Release Date:	28. June – 13. September 2006
Director:
Writer:	Mikiyo Tsuda (Manga)
Cast:	Kenta Kamakari, Rei Fujita, Takeru Sato, Osamu Adachi, Takumi Saito, Yuichi Nakamura

Plot

In an all boys school the three boys Yutaka Mikoto, Shihoudani Yuujirou and Kouno Tooru are chosen to be princesses. They have to dress like girls and cheer on the clubs.

But one day the new student Hanazono Otoya arrives and he wants to ruin this tradition. He wants to destroy the princess system and he wants to be the new schools president.

First, he forms a new princess group called the “Dark Princesses” with the help of Minamoto Kurou and Mori Ranta. Slowly they push the Princesses away and overtake the students.

Then he builds a new students council. The present student’s president Arisada Shuuya accepts this declaration of war but anything he tries it gets worse.

One night, Mikoto gets locked up in the basement with Otoya and they start to talk. At the end Mikoto thinks that he isn’t a bad guy. Afterwards rumours come out that Mikoto dropped to be a princess and after his friends wanted to know if it’s true (he said it’s not but he didn’t want take place against Otoya again) he gets thrown out. Now Mikoto, who always hated to be a princess, is free. But he can’t enjoy his freedom. He misses his friends.

So, the election days come with every day nearer and for the help to win Arisada flies a spy in this school to find a weakness of the “Dark Princesses”. Kujouin Haruka makes his researches and helps Arisada but when it comes to the election day he is on the same side as Otoya.

When Arisada was moving out of his council room Otoya comes in and asks him how he feels and if he can understand him now. (TWIST ALARM!!) It comes out they are siblings. (WHAT?!) When Otoya was nine Arisada left him in the wilderness and since then Otoya wanted to take revenge.

So, Otoya is now president and there are new rules: No princesses and no former school council – traitors will be punished. Yuujirou, Tooru and Sakamoto (class’ head and good friend of them) are hiding in the school’s basement (another room I think). Once Yuujirou and Tooru sneek out and on the roof they hear that Mikoto refuses to be on Otoya’s side. He understood what it means to be a princess and finally he can put his man’s pride aside and embraces his role as a princess. They rescue him and after apologizing they make out a plan how they take the school over again.

The next day the “Dark Princesses” make a live stage and then Yuujirou, Tooru and Mikoto will attack. Don’t panic, they just sing. The “Dark Princesses” want to save the situation but the lost Arisada and his team are back and Otoya has to admit his defeat.

At the end we find out that this was Haruka’s plan from the beginning. It’s a happy end after all. The school is back to the normal system and the siblings, yeah, I think they can talk to each other again in a normal way.

Conclusion

Yeah... the drama was really fun to watch. But if I’m honest it’s not really good. The characters are lame. They aren’t well –thought-out. It’s like they writers picked those characters from the beginning of the Manga story (yeah, it was a Manga story) and didn’t develop them. The actors tried their best to give the characters a little spirit but it doesn’t help.

Another thing that bothers me was the fact that the princesses weren’t the main character if you look closely. I mean the whole war was between Arisada and Otaya. Okay, you can say the princesses were like the soldiers or something like that. But they didn’t really do something. They looked only cute in their dresses and they argued with each other.  But at the end they become more important.

And there is also a point that caught my eye. What was the budget of this thing? Only in the last episode, there were a lot of students. During the drama we only see three regular students. Not more. And sometimes the lighting was just weird. To be honest it looks like someone did this movie in his first year of film school.

The only good thing in this drama were the jokes and the running gags which personified the character like Mikoto is running away or Yuujiro wrestles with Mikoto and wins (the “Give up?- No! [a little bit later] Rooope!!” –scene).

So, if you want to see guys dressed in Lolita-clothes, that’s the right thing for you. But don’t go in with any expectations.

„Bee, you’re super-duper jerk!“ – A New Perfect Two Review

Originalname:	新天生一對
Also known as:	Perfect Two
Release Date:	20. January 2012
Director:	Chu Yen-Ping (Kevin Chu)
Writer:	-
Cast:	Vic Zhou, Ella, Mini Yang, Xiao Xiao Bin

Plot

We begin with a man gluing the poorly drawn face of a woman everywhere (and I mean really EVERYWHERE!”)

This man is Ah Bee a superstar motorcycle racer, who quit after he had an accident and started gambling and drinking now. And the women on the picture, well, that’s his ex-girlfriend Jiawei, who he abandoned.

Of course he’s surprised when she suddenly turns up and tells him to take care of his son Binbin, whom he never knew he existed. She has to do some business stuff.

They live a while together and Binbin gets to meet the people Ah Bee hangs out with: Maniu (who looks a lot like Katie Holmes did in her earlier years) and her younger sister. Maniu looks after Binbin when Ah Bee isn’t around and comforted him when Ah Bee did something mean (and yeah, it’s not only one time).

There is a sub plot with loan sharks (it’s annoying as hell and doesn’t lead anywhere… But there is a funny beating scene with fists and slingshots and fire extinguisher )  But on the same day, after Binbin told his mom that they had a fight, Jiawei wants that Ah Bee brings her son back.

Jiawei tells Ah Bee, when he brought her son back, that she wants to take Binbin to America and Ah Bee should say goodbye to him. He comes and tells Binbin it in the most horrible way (He doesn’t even look him in the eyes. Binbin! Don’t you see that he loves you? Don’t cry!). But because Binbin wanted that he start racing again (yeah they hat a little road trip where Ah Bee got challenged), he starts it but he loses the race.

But it seems that Jiawei made the decision to let Binbin stay for the summer (I think it was because Binbin annoyed his mother to see Ah Bee again ;)). And we have a happy ending with the most awkward dance sequence ever!!

Conclusion

Where do I start? The movie isn’t bad. Actually, it’s cute. But, yeah, it’s predictable after you watched the first few minutes.

I think the actors did a good job. Where the movie had to be funny, it was funny; where the movie had to be serious, it was serious; where the movie had to be heartbreaking, it was heartbreaking. I really fell into this world.

But there was something that confused me. When I searched for a movie to watch, then it was said “New Perfect Two” was Comedy/ Romance. But where was the romance? The focus was really only of the relationship between father and son. Don’t get me wrong. That’s good. But you shouldn’t call a movie romance when there isn’t one. Yeah, at the beginning after the two women appeared, you ask “Who will it be? The hot chick or the tomboy?” (I was for Maniu) But the movie doesn’t develop this story line. Yeah, there was a declaration of love and giving the old clothes from the ex-girlfriend but that’s not enough to call it romance. For me it’s clearly a family genre.

But what I really liked was the cinematography. They were really well done (not to say amazing).

So… I can recommend it. It deserves it to been watched.