Tag: Japan

[EXPRESSO] Rental Family (2025) | Gacha Gaijin

Brendan Frasier is back in Hikari’s second feature lenght (the first being 37 Seconds), Rental Family, playing an american actor, Phillip Vandarplough, that has been living in Japan for a lot but now, despite some of his old commercials being very successful, struggles to find work and so takes on menial side roles in various shows and auditions for basically everything.

One day he finds himself hitched to play a role… at a funeral.

Where even the dead isn’t actually dead, just there in classic japanese funeral clothes, happy as a clam.

Turns out he accepted a bit part for an agency called Rental Family, that basically offers actors to impersonate a family member or friend by request, “renting” them for occasional performances, which of course sounds strange to Philipp, but has become a market niche in Japan due to various cultural reasons, including stigmatization of mental illness, meaning instead of going to teraphy, sometimes someone will hire you to be their granpa or soothe their shut-in life by calling you over as a friend to play videogames, among other things.

The company boss, Shinji, invites him on board, as they need a “gaijin” for the catalogue, and Philipp, more out of desperation than curiosity, decides to join them. After an almost botched first job, he gets the hang of it, but when he has to play the father of a japanese-american girl, Mia, for 3 weeks so she can get in a good school, Philipp does find himself more emotionally involved than the “farce” requires…

It’s a canned expression to say “the feel good film of”, but Rental Family does perfectly succeed in that, being inspiring, funny, emotional, and also properly tackle a modern, real problem, the evergrowing societal “loneliness epidemic”, without going for an unrealistic, overly positive ending.

I.K.U. (2000) [REVIEW] | LGBT Robosexual Runner

While i most likely won’t be reviewing the new Wuthering Heights film adaptation, to prove my platonical love for you, the audience, i will review this film i found on DVD in a flea market, and no, it wasn’t on the porn section.

I know i had to get it, it was like, 5 bucks at max, and with a title that screams “CINEMA” as IKU gets a IGN certified “10 out of 10” just for reference-pun combo that is the subtitle “I, Robosex” added in the Italian DVD release.

Sometimes i get to find import DVD copies of weird state sponsored video art when i go thrifting, sometimes i pick up fully localized and officially distributed “technically not porn” like this.

So, the hell is this?

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[EXPRESSO] Alice In Borderland (Season Three) (2025) | Mistaah Jay

So, it’s one of those cases, as season 2 teased a “joker” card at the end, implying a continuation, despite the events seemingly having been wrapped up for good.

Fine, i guess, i assumed there were more volumes of the manga to draw from… there were not, Season 2 adapted that fully, and apparently this third season it’s not a direct adaptation of the sequel series, Retry, nor the prequel Border Road, though it (allegedly) takes some elements from those.

Years have passed, the survivors of “Borderland” have come back and forgot about the death games, moving on with their lives, but someone is bringing new people into that world, like a professor obsessed with the afterlife, while also stringing survivors from previous games back into the fray, including Arisu and Usagi….

It’s not even bad, but even just going blind into this third season there’s this air of contrived cop-out, it just feels like this wasn’t planned but imposed upon from the higher up that demanded another season of the show regardless, and so the writers had to wing it because “the content must flow”.

And to their credits, the new games (aside from the bullshit one with the fire arrows) are fun enough and do feel in line with the show, some of the new characters are somewhat interesting, but that and the crumbs of worldbuilding about “Borderland” aren’t enough to sustain or incite much curiosity, not helped by the timeskip that allows for some convenient off-screen characterization.

It just feels mostly unnecessary, existing because the series (allegedly) keeps breaking its own viewership records, and while it being shorter than the previous seasons is most likely for the best, i’m not gonna praise them for it since the ending teases a fourth one taking place abroad.

The Spooktacular Eight #31: Dante’s Inferno: An Animated Epic (2010)

As an Italian, it always tickled me silly how back in the late 2000s EA’s idea for competiting with Sony’s God Of War franchise was to pillage The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri and basically transform it into a power fantasy action game about saving a damsel in distress, which happens to be done by traversing Hell as described by the Tuscanian poet.

I guess because it was a well known public domain literary work that would also work as a quick and dirty band-aid to feign some refinement, and to be honest everyone was jumping on the hack n slash action game bandwagon at the time, so of course EA would have tried their hands at it.

Still feels fuckin random because they could just have made a Roman Empire themed hack n slash, but i guess they couldn’t push a marketing campaign literally encouraging to “go to hell” and the “sin to win” marketing shizzle.

I’m not even offended because this is so fuckin american it’s hilarious, i mean, sure, it’s based on Alighieri’s first book of The Divine Comedy as in it has the concept of venturing through Hell, it has a guy named Dante, a gal named Beatrice, and The Devil(TM) sure, it’s the same thing.

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Pokemon Scarlet/Violet DLC: Treasures Of The Area Zero (Indigo Mask and Indigo DISK) NSWITCH [REVIEW] | Ogremaxxin

Figured i’ve write down my thoughts on the DLC for Pokemon Scarlet/Violet, i said it would take me a while because i wanted to wait for patches before even considering paying for the expansion pass, alongside any news on Pokemon Legends ZA, which i will cover in an EXPRESSO review soon enough and will do a full lenght review at my own leisure.

I’m gonna do a single review because unlike with Pokemon Sword/Shield, the DLC content is actually structured to be two parts that follow up on each other, instead of unrelated new locations in the map with their contained story and actitivities, but i’m gonna split the review in two, for the sake of argument and critique more than utilitarian observation that – once again – it not like you can pick and choose to buy either part; if there is DLC for a Pokemon game, you either buy it all or none, this has been the recent trend for the Game Freak developed mainline titles so far.

Before that, i will comment that i honestly i barely notice whatever the patches have done, aside from less crashes and weird glitches, but i was already lucky on that regard, and i haven’t revisited thouroghly the main base game world and its locations to notice any big change or fix, apparently there are less NPCs in some hub areas or cities now in order to improve framerate, which is pathetic. It is.

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[EXPRESSO] Demon Slayer Kimetsu No Yaiba: Infinity Castle (2025) | To Mega Therion

So the first part of the Demon Slayer Infinity Castle film trilogy finale is out, after debutting a couple months ago in Japan, continuining the story from the finale of Season 4, with Muzan countering the Pillars/Hashira assault on him by using his Infinity Castle to trap all them in alongside his legions of demons, especially the strong “Demonic Moon” elite units.

The Pillars and the other members of the Demon Slayer Corps then scatter to find Muzan and finish him, despite the endlessly shifting living labyrinth that defies logic of the castle itself…

Definitely it’s a step up from the compilation films they kept making, and i will say ufotable didn’t skimp on the animation, it does look incredible, properly made to take advantage of its cinematic nature and deliver an incredible, stunning spectacle, and it mostly manages to properly balance the frantic shonen action with some character development and the expected tragic flashbacks for both heroes and villains, some of which were teased

I say mostly because towards the final act the “tragic emotional flashbacks train” kinda overtakes the action and the rhythm suffer, even though i understand why it does so, and simply wouldn’t have felt kinda exhausting if if spaced out in episodes… which it can’t because they have to go through an entire seasons worth of material in 3 movies that each are almost 3 hours long.

On the flipside, it doesn’t feel overburden, there’s a lot going on but it never feels too much, this is supposedto to be the final decisive assault on the enemy’s stronghold and it feels as such, the battles are cool, and Zenitsu also gets some character development that makes him less the one-note annoying comedy character you had to tolerate.

If nothing else, it’s good battle shounen fun.

One Piece: Grand Battle PS1 [REVIEW] | East Blue Smash Stone Brothers

As announced, we’ll be reviewing a handful of One Piece videogames this August, basically the entire Grand Battle sub-series… at least the games that got localized or released westward as well, so logically enough we’re starting out with One Piece Grand Battle, the first one, released for the PS1 in 2001 and brought to Europe in 2003.

It’s so early that it’s ALMOST the first game ever based on One Piece (that would be an action RPG-card thingie for the WonderSwan, never release outside of Japan, like the console itself), but it is the first game ever developed by Ganbarion, which will be handling a majority of the One Piece videogames for more than a decade (and also come back to developed One Piece World Seeker), alongside other anime related/based project for Namco Bandai, like the beloved Jump Super Stars for DS, Dragon Ball Fusions for the 3DS… and also Pandora’s Tower for the Wii.

Being this early in the One Piece anime it means it mostly depicts the “East Blue Saga” ensemble of arcs and basically the prelude of the Alabasta one, though here it stops even before Whisky Peak (due to some characters appearances), hence before Little Garden, so it’s kinda of tease, not gonna lie, but what can you do, it was pretty early in…

At least it has the classic “WE ARE” opening from the anime (kinda), might as well since the original japanese titles puts the “From TV Animation” well before the actual name of the game.

I didn’t play this one until i finally was able to find a copy for a reasonable prices years ago, i did actually play the PS2 game also called “One Piece Grand Battle” well before, so i was expecting a Power Stone clone, just less refined since it’s obvious a far earlier iteration on the idea…

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Suicide Squad Isekai (2024) [REVIEW] | Through The Unlooking Glass

Why i am reviewing this, you may be asking yourself.

Just for the trash factor? Just because its seems like “easy prey”?

Not quite, it’s more due to how since its debut (and even then, i learn this was gonna be through the collaboration with V-tuber and singer Mori Calliope, as she composed the ending theme) i never heard a single peep online about it, not even to shit on it, which worried me even more.

Also i learned after searching that it was being streamed in my region via a sub-channel on Amazon Prime Video, absolutely zero marketing had been spent to even make people know it was legally available on a commonly used streaming platform (FIY, there’s no HBO Max or Hulu here).

But still, this looked and sounded like like the kind of trash Twitter (not calling it X) loves to shit on weekly, just for the hell of it, but the only thing i saw on there was someone else befuddled by how the internet decided to skip having any discourse on it all together, that it was likely not even worth that kind of engagement, as nobody bothered, not even for the finale…..if anyone knew this series was a thing to begin with, that is. No one using the new Joker and Harley designs for their profile pictures, it was THAT much ignored or just never actually marketed properly after its announcement.

Continua a leggere “Suicide Squad Isekai (2024) [REVIEW] | Through The Unlooking Glass”

[EXPRESSO] Godzilla Minus One (2023) | WW Zilla

I was kinda apprehensive going into the new Godzilla movie (which is getting limited weeklong screenings everywhere outside of Japan), weirdly enough, due to some disappointed early feedback, so i decided to ignore most coverage after that and just go see it.

And i will address that indeed, after Shin Godzilla, going back to a period piece story set during WW II feels like a convenient move to avoid tackling modern political issues… but i will say that Godzilla Minus One does earn your attention and investment, thanks to one of the closest attempts at recapturing the spirit of the original Godzilla, to the point it’s almost a remake-prequel, and a great damn one that focuses on the human characters with great drama, punctuated by action scenes involving Godzilla (not the other way around), while also making Big G itself menacing again.

The premise follows Koichi, a man designed as a kamikaze pilot that, during the final years of WW II, fakes a malfunction of his airplane, and lands on the small island of Odo . There he is one of the few that survives the encounter with a giant dinosaur the locals call “Godzilla”, and with great shame, he comes back to the bombed ruins of his parent house, takes in a homeless woman and her foster daughter. In time the reconstruction begins, Koichi is on the verge of finally putting his nightmares of war to rest, but then Godzilla shows up again….

Honestly, even if not trying to push new boundaries, at all, Godzilla Minus One it’s a greatly compelling story with good characters, a solid period war drama at its core, and while the monster is CG, they pulled off a miracle with the effects looking so good for the tiny budget of 15 millions.

Highly recommended.