#doi nobuhiro

The level of craft in this is awards-worthy. It seems like a magnum opus, the the creators had to have spent years developing. Every script is chock-full of wordplay, running gags, and excellent monologues, all consistent with and further building on fascinating characterization, and all within strong episodic structure. Every shot is meticulously framed and timed, and the show's comedy chops are second to none. Recognizing a lot of the comedy techniques only made them funnier, and helped me finally get a few more. (And the running gags! It's unbelievable how great the running gag work is. Really next-level shit.) And that characterization! This just might be the most perfect use of 1-cour (10 eps) to fully develop and evolve 8 very different characters. The show explicitly explores all of their relationships with each other, (that's 36 different dynamics) and uses all of those relationships thematically. Anime rarely handles large ensembles with grace, and western live action is always chasing more episodes, so it lives in the slow burn. But with the confidence that comes with having a predetermined length, Love Shuffle maxes out its conservation of detail with style. Favorite Luv-Sha: Reiko Actor evaluation: Though Kanjiya Shihori (Mei) and DAIGO (Yukki) have the most thankless characters, Yuriko has the hardest acting job, as Kairi. And unfortunately, I dont know that she should be playing stoics. Kairi only comes to life when she's allowed an actual attitude to play, and before the back half, we didn't get much of it, to maintain the character's enigma. Pity. Everyone else is hands down 5 stars. I feel like a lot of people on Tumblr will resonate strongly with Yukki's particular brand of awkward, possibly even headcanon some forms of representation in his portrayal. Content warnings: A lot of anime and Jdrama takes the subconscious stance that micro-aggressions don't matter in the grander scheme of plot-based actions. This is how you'll find people defending characters in ecchi series as strong female characters, etc. So there are a lot of gender essentialist throwaway lines in this, which the show doesn't acknowledge, because overall, the characters are happily doing their own thing with full agency, albeit within the cultural environment. (For example, there's a little of taking the "women compete against each other" power structure for granted.) There's some potentially icky age gap stuff. Mei and Kei start dating when Mei was in high school, and Kei was either in college or graduated college. Kairi is 19, and Ojiro is definitely way past that. Given that the age of adulthood in Japan is 20, these could count as statutory rape, unless you go with age of consent, instead. (Doesn't help that Kairi is played as infantilized in a few scenes.) But it doesn't bother me too much because the fact of their characterizations show that the troubling power dynamics that make age gap tricky are not present here. The worst part of the show is a bit where they play the "Depraved Gay" card. There are bits where I think the show was trying to mitigate that, laying the seeds of the "not really!" reveal, but there are other bits that play it straight, and it feels lazy for the writing to play those. It's one step up in severity from the gender micro-aggressions, and when you add the cultural baggage, I'm not sure the respect it gives the bisexual character otherwise is enough of a counterweight, unlike with the female characters. None of the above is enough to stop me from declaring Love Shuffle the best RomCom media I've ever watched, next to Geore Cukor's Holiday. It's definitely the best RomCom TV ever. Just a fantastic show. Also, I've had fucking Fantasy stuck in my head for about 16 hours now. Yay, panda.

And man, the dialogue writing is just next-level. The structure of each scene and the overall episode of ep. 1 is very stageplay, in the best way. The camerawork is pretty creative for what could have easily degenerated into talking heads, too, and the characters are so vibrant off the bat. Not many closeups, so that everyone's distinct body language is always supporting their facial expressions. The only one who's holding back is, obviously, Kikuta, although it's interesting to see how Kairi is rather different. (Man, sometimes I can't tell if Yoshitaka's acting is actually good or not, and strongly suspect I'm giving her way too much leeway. At least in this episode, she doesn't have a handle on the character yet, and is way outmatched by the rest of the cast. Not buying her gravitas at all.) Otherwise, the seeds of everyone else's appeal and future development are all planted, both naturally and overtly. That kind of Conservation of Detail is something I really like in all of the my media, but the "scene after scene of monologuing motivations" style is normally something I don't like. However, it doesn't bother me in this case, both because of the stageplay style, but also because they match the telling with showing, the very delivery of their speeches distinctly characteristic. Plus, most instances of monologuing that I don't care for in western live action is that it's when characters drop their casual speaking affectations to be serious for a moment, to reflect how they're finally dropping their normal performative veneers to vent their true inner thoughts. This, unfortunately, means that most monologues end up a bit homogeneous, (more like author's mouthpiece than character's) and risk the feel of OOC. Love Shuffle's speeches are still within the rhythms of their banter, so it doesn't have that problem, and is consistent with the normal flow and pacing of the rest of the episode. And then all of the wordplay. Man. I can come up with a good turn of phrase, sometimes, but wordplay is beyond me. The way it's dropped at such a zippy pace in this show is so good. (The zippiness is a good contrast to the usual Jdrama/anime tends to dead-horse-beat these kinds of gags, too.) The superb use of the soundtrack also plays a role, in that a much more limited set of tracks are used again and again, becoming characters in their own right, but also thus lending another layer of character to the monologues. Where a few western shows can have strong character themes, the Love Shuffle soundtrack is closer to the anime aesthetic, with each new dialogue sequence defined and differentiated by the backing track tonal shorthand even more than the cinematography. And the continual use of track-drops as their own punchlines is iconic, just getting more hilarious as their own running gag. Finally starting to pay more attention to the locations, styling, and lighting, and oof it's so good here, even off the bat. Just overall, this episode is so self-confident and stylish, much like how the pilot of Leverage was, as well. Their other similarities, as fast-talking, breezy pacing, and use of music associated with the heist genre, (heyooooo EW&F and The Bangles) obviously points to how much this is tailored to my tastes. Lol two shirtless Matsuda scenes. Mmmmmmm shameless fanservice be much appreciated.

It's really difficult to choose just five films, but there they are.  If you want to delve deeper, check out the works of Iwai Shunji (All About Lily Chou-Chou), Kitano Takeshi (Kikujiro), Koreeda Hirokazu (Nobody Knows), Sion Sono (Love Exposure), and Kurosawa Kiyoshi (Tokyo Sonata).  They are great contemporary directors, and those films in parentheses are some damn good movies.   I sincerely hope that more people can come to enjoy Japanese cinema as an art form–mainly those films that veer away from the mainstream.  There is great material in Japanese cinema for perspective on independent, low budget, and original film making.  Enjoy.