Zettai Kareshi Finale Special

Zettai Kareshi (aka 絶対彼氏, aka Absolute Boyfriend)
Fuji TV, Original Series 2008, Finale Special 2009
Drama Wiki

Reviewed by Gaz, 9:24pm (Pacific), Wednesday, August 5th


I just watched the 2-hour finale special to one of my favorite J-dramas, the entirety of which I've watched at least twice through (although it's only 11 episodes long, so that doesn't say a whole lot).

Once again, I'm going to copy/paste from my twitter, because that's still my first instinct when reacting.

http://bit.ly/4FJyg I cried.

oh god I cried so hard

this whole show AND the 2 hour special is just one big lake of tears for me

OH MY GOD EVEN THE ROBOT IS CRYING

even just hearing the opening strains of the end theme make me tear up.

:'(

For some context, the premise of the show is that this shy girl working at a big pastry company somehow ends up with a robot programmed to be her ideal boyfriend. Hijinks ensue, a love triangle develops with her very good-looking boss, the robot develops emotions and a sense of self, long story short the robot breaks and she and mr. gorgeous leave for Paris so she can study to become a pastry chef.
Now, cut to three years later, when the finale special takes place. Little miss so-and-so and Sir Hotpants return from Paris, engaged! Oh-hoh-hoh, dear readers, but some new scientist revives the robot loverboy and more heartstrings are pulled as we experience the love triangle all over again.

Yatterman, part deux!

Yatterman (aka Yattaman, aka ヤッターマン)
2009, Dir. Takashi Miike
IMDb

Reviewed by Gaz, 9:43pm (Pacific), Tuesday, August 4th, 2009


Megavideo is finally cooperating, so here we go!

the name of the squid robot is actually イカタゴサク which, as far as I can tell means squid...タゴサク anyone else care to contribute, be my guest

sorry, I'm not being as funny now. I'm mainly focusing on listening to the Japanese (the reason I'm watching this in the first place [aside from the fact that Sho is adorable and the theme song has been stuck in my head all day])

oh no! the cute flying robot disappeared

I'm not sure, but this plot might somehow involve time travel

these comments are probably a lot funnier since I can't understand most all any of what they're saying

Yattawoof may have been destroyed, but here comes his successor made from his spare parts-- Yattaking!

who is too big to fit through the doorway

Yattaking is also silver and thus bears less of a resemblance to Clifford the friendly dog

quite a design flaw, Gan-chan, building a robot that, in addition to being too big, makes its pilots carsick

in the vein of オジプト (Ogypt, the fake Egypt), we have ハルプス (Halps, the fake Alps)

can it be?? the abominable snowman?

oh, no, it's just a giant underground... gate... thingy... made of gears

man, Sho is super cute in this movie. I want to either snog him or snuggle him

I have a feeling the Big Bad is revealing the main plot points right now, but I have no idea what he's saying

Yatterman's weapon is a kendama (Japanese ball-in-cup toy) that turns electric when he says the words へんなマジック！ (hen na majikku!) which means weird magic

The villainess just revealed herself to be somebody's daughter. damned if I know who, but it's probably important

Sho, you're doing a pretty crap job of protecting Ai-chan from the evil energy blast if you're on the opposite side of it.

ところで (btw), I love the way Japanese people say "energy" エネルギ (eh-ne-roo-gee [hard G])

In Japan, pigs say "bu! bu!" In English, they say "oink! oink!" In France, they say "groin! groin!"

stop giggling, infantiles

aaaaand Yattaking is down

and his mega-ultra scooby snack is too heavy for Yatterman to throw into his mouth

for a guy whose day job is making robotic toys, Gan-chan kindof sucks at mechanical engineering

you wasted too much time slow-running, Yatterman! you gave the squid robot time to recover!

let's see what kind of crazy robots Yattaking barfs up!

the squid robot has a perverted-looking flowering belly button that squirts out spring-footed shark robots to do battle with...

...the flying fish robots from Yattaking? at least, I think that's what they are...

they fly, anyway

actually, I don't think the bad guys are sharks after all, they're like bass or some lameass fish like that

but they transform into mecha bass!

to be specific, they transform into "出世魚" which my online dictionary translates as "fish that are called by different names as they grow larger" wow, I'm SO glad I looked that up

and it's too bad, so sad for the flying fish

so what do they do? they go all teary eyed and kamikaze the enemy, of course

the 出世魚, not yet tired of fighting, turn on the giant squid robot and TEAM DORONBO IS BLASTING OFF AGAAAIIIN (skull-shaped cloud)

wait, what? the skull-shaped cloud is sentient? and is actually the Big Bad himself, the skull headed monster that face-raped the guy back at the start?

he does a little dance like he has to pee... and he's dressed in this black stringy garment that looks like he has film strips hanging off of him.

he also just fell down the stairs. why are Japanese villains always so cartoonish??

wait... I'm talking about a cartoon. nevermind.

girl: "Otousan!" Yatterman: [...pause...] "eh!?"

so, when it looked like Big Bad was raping the dude in the face what he *really* was doing was absorbing his body... by sitting on his face.

oh no! Baddie is going to unite all the pieces of the evil glowing skull rock thing!

...that apparently has been the whole point of this movie

girl: "Otousan! stop!" Baddie (with dad's face): deeeeenied! *punches her in the face*

oh how touching. the daughter of the possessed guy is able to get the guy ...unpossessed. like that doesn't happen every friggin time there's a story involving possession

except the one I'm writing, of course!

she's now pulling her dad out of the Big Bad's open skull by his teeth

poor Waluigi is in love with the villainess. them and the pigman make up the ever-phail TEAM DORONBO

when Ai-chan is pulling villainess out of the shiny-evil-timespace-continuum, I can't tell which of them is making the strenuous grunting noises

GAH! 12 minutes left and it's still buffering

apparently it's now time to play volleyball with the glowy-evil-skull-rock-that-was-the-whole-point-of-this-movie

aww, Yatterman and Yattergirl are making the shape of a heart! destroy evil with love, kiddos. love in which the male partner has been hitting on at least two other female characters during the course of the movie. that's an evil-destroying kind of love.

btw, the dude who was face-raped possessed by the Big Bad is actually the Japanese version of Indiana Jones, whip and all

except, of course, that Indy wouldn't have let himself get face-raped

OH! Yatterman and villainess share a knowing look, hinting of future "accidental" kisses to come! bad news for Yattergirl!

To clarify, Gan-chan transforms into Yatterman No. 1 and is played by Sho Sakurai from Arashi. Ai-chan, who is supposed to be his girlfriend and isn't played by anyone important enough for me to know, transforms into Yatterman No. 2. Yatterman and Yattergirl are just easier to write.

oh! character designs in this movie were done by the same guy who worked on Cutie Honey and Blood: the Last Vampire! One of which I want to see, the other of which might be my next Real-time Review

the poor piggy robot is left at a dark crossroads (literally) saying "kowai! bu! kowai! bu!" (Scary! oink! Scary! oink!)

OH GOD THE GIRL IS CLIMBING DOWN THE MOUNTAIN FACE FIRST IN A FLOWY DRESS WHY?

Hooray! the end credits are set to Believe, by Arashi, aka the song that's been stuck in my head the whole day and what gave me the idea to watch this tonight.

That was fun! Hopefully this idea will take off!
It would certainly make taking notes for cinema class screenings a whole lot more interesting, anyway.

Yatterman

Yatterman (aka Yattaman, aka ヤッターマン)
2009, Dir. Takashi Miike
IMDb

Reviewed by Gaz, 8:21pm (Pacific), Tuesday, August 4th, 2009

watching a crappy bootleg of Yatterman to see how much I can understand without subs.

holy crap, is this a kid's movie? it's got boob grabs and a laser-shooting robot penis bigger than the one in Transformers 2!

AND a closeup of a crotchburn (like a rope burn, but on a crotch)

also, I'm pretty sure that monster is raping that guy's face

A MOUNTAIN OF HIGH SCHOOL GIRLS IN UNIFORM!

a robot called Virgin Rotor with steam powered boobies!

they fight the bad guys with their giant robot version of Clifford!

oh god this is too funny. I wish I were watching with with other people around

hahaha he's sucking the scorpion venom out of her inner thigh

and the lady hero looks jealous

オジプト? What the hell is Ogypt?

oh noes! here comes the Virgin Rotor!

the good guys' robot is called Yattawan, which is basically Yattawoof

and it pretty much sucks as far as giant robots go

it needs a scooby snack before it can pwn the bad guys

it's big attack? barfing up tiny robot ants

Virgin Rotor, being torn apart by the killer ants, literally says "Oh yeah, I'm coming!" (in English) while Yattawoof dry humps... something

she then bleeds motor oil out of her eye...

maybe I should find another venue for my live-tweets of movies, I feel like I'm spamming you all.

And then, http://www.real-timereviews.blogspot.com was born!
(now, back to the review)

the robots are having awkward robot sex...?

these bad guys are very "Team Rocket's blasting off agaaaiinnn!" except with an explosion cloud shaped like a skull

aaand, the lackey just got pantsed

he's wearing, of course, an evil metallic sumo thong-type garment

now I think the lackeys are confessing their gay love for each other. ...(no, seriously)

oh, I thought we were going for a boobie faceplant, but instead it was the typical faint-onto-your-lips kiss

I smell a love quatrilateral! or maybe some other polygon

IT'S A BOMB! *insert bad Schwarzenegger impression here*

they hold funerals for their smashed up toy robots. How very Japanese

At this point I wonder if adding some screenshots might improve these real-time reviews...? Maybe when I'm reviewing a movie I can actually take screenshots of.

If I continue with the theme of reviewing ridiculous Japanese movies based on old school animes, maybe I'll do Cutie Honey next.
(back to the review)

closeup on her sudsy feet and pink/black painted toenails in the bath?

conveniently placed bubbles strike again!

for some reason, shit keeps vanishing out of existence-- a blimp, a roller coaster track, all of Mt. Fuji (except the snow), a suspension bridge (plummeting the cars and godzilla on it into the river), then the "pa" in a Pachinko sign

run fatty, run! I can see your panties!

to raise money, the bad guys sell wedding dresses and giant sushi with color-changing plates for ¥100,000 apiece

what crazy robot will they build next? Why, a giant squid robot, of course!

at this point the movie froze because Megavideo is annoying and only lets you watch 72 minutes at a time. I have to wait half an hour until I can try again.