Liar game season 2 + Movies

WARNING: LONG POST IS LONG.

I know I wrote an entry about Liar Game season 1 yesterday.. But today I will write more about Liar Game, gomenasai! I decided to write it while my memory of it is fresh.

Well, I've just finished watching both Season 2 and the movie Liar Game: The Final Stage. Now, I may sound a little obsessed since I watched season 1, season 2 and the movie in like 4 days or so.. But lemme tell ya..! ..Err ok, I was simply obsessed.

In season 2, we get trolled and mindfucked even more than earlier, we learn that Nao never learns from her mistakes, and Akiyama is still as protective of Nao as always.
I really enjoyed the second season as well and just like the first season, I just couldn't stop watching! (Just ask Dongsaeng..). With this said, in my opinion season 1 was still a tad better and more exciting. I don't know if it was because it was all new then or something like that. I did feel though that some of the games in season 2 didn't give me the same feel of desperation, anxiousty and excitement as the first season games. I thought about why for a while, and I think I may have come up with a conclusion to why. I felt that in the first season, the games evolved more around the money you have. For example, in the resurrection game (err.. I think it was called something like that), Akiyama came to Nao's rescue and helped her get more votes through manipulating people using money and money only.
Anyway, my point is.. I felt that the first season evolved more around how you use your money to manipulate others, and to win yourself. The second season felt more like.. You have to win the games (russian roulette, 17 poker etc) to get the money. But then, there weren't really anything more to it, the one who won the most money simply won. There were not much of bribing or manipulating people with money as before. I DO though think that this may be because of character developement on Akiyamas side. Won't get any deeper into that right now tho.
Anyway, the point of Liar Game is obviously to lie to get where you want (...or.. IS IT ;)), and this remained also in season 2 so I can get over the fact that the money weren't used in the same way. I can just tell ya.. There aint no pure luck in who wins the games. No luck at all. Ya gotta have the brains, people!

Moving on to the movie. The movie picked up where season 2 left off, and the movie evolves around the last stage of Liar Game. Akiyama and Nao wants to put an end to this horrible game, and to win the whole game may be the only way to stop it.
I actually liked the last game (this movie evolved only around this last game) quite a lot! At first it seemed like they couldn't do much to win than to ally with others, but it turned out I was wrong. Many players, especially Akiyama obviously, finds many different ways to make the other players lose that I would never ever have thought of.
This movie also has troll over troll over troll over troll. But yeah, that's what Troll Ga- err, I mean Liar Game is all about.
The end of the movie was pretty nice in my opinion. It was kind of heart-warming and sweet, but I just kind of wanted to know a liiiittle bit more of what happened after the end of the game. After the credits, there was another little scene in the end though. Nao gets another black letter in her mailbox (Liar Game always sends invitations or other information using black letters) so she gets really nervous (me too! :C). But when she opens it, it turns out it is not sent from the Liar Game office, but it contains like, a 1000-yen bill? And a letter. I suppose maybe from Akiyama? Why do I suppose and not know? BECAUSE THE TRANSLATORS DIDN'T TRANSLATE WHAT THE HECK WAS WRITTEN IN THE LETTER T__T *sob*. All I could read out of it was an "arigatou", but there was a sentence before that, that I still have no idea what it said. And IF it is from Akiyama, that means they no longer meet in person, right? But do they keep contact? It sounded like they were going to, before the end credits started to roll.. I have no idea. I've just gotta find out what that letter meant. -_-
I googled it and found out what the letter said! :'D It was not from Akiyama though so we will probably see no more developement on if they still meet each others etc, but it was from someone else, I'm not going to explain it because this entry is already too long, but it's really sweet anyway :')

And one last thing I'll write about in this post that no one will wanna read cuz it's effin long: There is ANOTHER Liar Game movie coming up in 2012. Yay? I don't know..
The Liar Game series has so far evolved all around Akiyama and Nao, them helping each others, them being the only one the other can trust, them needing the other one to win the Liar Game.. Yeah! Woo! I loved this duo, they were really different, yet they- WHAAA THEY ARE CHANGING THE HEROINE FOR THIS MOVIE?
Yeah, Nao will no longer be in the movie. Akiyama will not help Nao in this movie as he has done so far in the series, but there will now be a new female protagonist whom Akiyama is going to help, for a reason yet unknown.
NNNNOOOOOOOOOOOO, it won't be the same without Nao! Th-that's like you would replace one of the Team Rocket members or something! (Bad example is bad 8D)
Even though it was Nao's actor who didn't want/couldn't be in the movie or not, I don't know.. But if she could.. they shoulda used her again right? So did they use another heroine just because she couldn't/didn't want to? In that case, just to make money on the popularity this awesome series, right? :|  Meh, I don't know.
Well, I just strongly dislike removing one person from a duo that you have really started to take a deep liking to, and more or less replacing them with another person. Even though she isn't litterally going to replace Nao, it's pretty obvious that she and Akiyama will work together so she will kind of be in the same spot as Nao..

Okay, I could write about this series for twice as long as I did, but I won't. No one would read it. (I think this entry is far too long as well though lol..)

Season 2: 8,5/10
Movie: 8,7/10
(YES I LIKE DECIMALS, PROBLEM?)

- Hyung 형

Liar Game

Hey everyone.
So, I just finished the most exciting J-Drama I've ever watched! It feels weird calling it a drama since I immediately think of romance and emotions and such, but this drama isn't like that at all. But I'll just stick with calling it a drama for now.

So, the genre can be called psychological thriller, and the feeling I get out of the drama is kind of a mix between Saw and Death Note, lol. Just without the goreish killings and without shinigamis.
Nah, but really, it's a very exciting drama and I just couldn't stop watching! As you can tell from the name, it's all about this game called Liar Game. I won't tell you much about the plot because I suck at that, but basically the game mostly has one basic rule: Steal the money from the opponents, and keep yours safe. If you lose your money, you will be in debt to the Liar Game company-thingy. And we're not talking about 1000 yen or something here, no. The least amount given in the games has so far been 100 million yen. That's a lot of debt if you lose them all to the opponents, if you ask me.

The main characters in this series decides to help each others for various reasons that you will learn by watching the drama. It starts with this girl who is the most easy-manipulated human being on planet earth, who gets together with a guy who just got released from prison and whom is only capable of making one facial expression.
LOL sorry, I just had to hahah. Anyway I actually really like these characters so don't get fooled by how I describe them (even though it's pretty much accurate). They are pretty much the opposite of each others, but that makes it all even more interesting! And wow, Akiyama (err, I think that was his name at least.. sorry if it's wrong) is like, REALLY SMART. And THAT, lemme tell ya, is something you have to be to win Liar Game.
I really got amazed by the writers over and over and over. Not only is the concept really cool and exciting, but the thoughts behind each and every single game. The players come up with ridiculous (in a good way) strategies that makes you go "how the heck did he think of that?!" many times over and over. You can never relax watching this drama, cuz it's.. it's just effin dramatic! D:

Anyway, I have basically no complaints about this actually. Except for the fact that they use a friggin Jigsaw (Saw) ripoff to announce the games and close to the end of the series they introduce a Near (Death Note) reincarnation, just a bit more creepy and not quite as childish.. Just almost. (Hmm, so THIS is why this drama made me feel a Saw and Death Note vibe eh?)
Nah, but actually this didn't really matter to me once I got over it, at all. The rest of the dramas awesomeness totally overshined my small and personal complaints!
There was one thing though that I THOUGHT was going to be a complaint of mine, but it always turned out not to be. There popped up many questions in my head like "aww come on, is that even allowed?" and "that isn't possible right??" or "how can they do that?!" etc. But as usual, I got amazed by the series, because I actually think it managed to pretty much answer every single question that my brain raised. And the answers were always ameeeehhzing!

Anyway, enough with me praising and praising. This is not a drama for everyone, I know that. If you're the kind that only likes lovey-dovey dramas, well, this may not be something for you. Otherwise.. try watching it! If you don't get stuck already at episode 1, then I don't even know! :@
Oh, and just one thing: If you're planning to watch this drama, make sure you bring your brain. You're gonna need it to handle all the mindfucks, lol.
9,5/10
- Hyung 형

1 Litre of Tears

Hello everyone!

I just finished a J-Drama called "1 Litre of Tears" (1 Litre no Namida), and the title pretty much sums up how much I cried during the series I guess. The series follows 15-year old Aya who is diagnosed with an incurable disease called spinocerebellar degeneration. The doctor informs that Aya will be getting a harder time walking, writing, speaking, holding things and soon enough this will lead to her not being able to even stand, swallow food properly and not being able to talk.

The story is extremely sad and seeing Aya get more and more difficulties thanks to the disease is really heart-breaking to see. The most heart-breaking thing about this series is that it is based on a true story. It's based on  Aya Kito (1962-1988)'s book from 1986 called "1 Litre no Namida". This book is her diary over the years of her disease, and we also get to see Aya in the drama write diaries.

In the end of each episode some pictures of Aya Kito, the writer of the diary, are being shown. This makes the story feel even more real and it's extremely sad to think that, "wow.. people actually goes through things like this..".

As I already said, it was a really heart-breaking series and I recommend anyone to watch it! I really want to read the real thing as well, maybe I will someday. This series at least helps Aya Kito to share her story.

- Hyung 형