Isekai Izakaya Nobu: Japanese Food from Another World

 This is an anime I started watching because a) it's very food oriented, b) the episodes are 15 minutes long, so good if you don't have a lot of time. 

This one is very, very light. Basically, there's a restaurant -- Izakaya Nobu -- and it's a normal place...except that the front door opens into another world called Atheria. It seems to be a fairly medieval / Germanic place where they eat a lot of potato and have bad water you have to boil to be able to drink it. There's a castle and palace guards and glass is a rarity. Meanwhile, the Izakaya is modern day-ish with all the regular amenities that come with that -- running water, being able to pop out their back door and go shopping, serving ale chilled in glass.

So, cue lots of pure joy as the various denizens of the parallel world experience Japanese food for the first time and learn how to use chopsticks. It's all very pure.

At the end of each show, there's also a bonus "Nobu Plus" where you get either a young chef that shows you how to make a variation of one of the dishes in the show or an older performer guy who tours restaurants and eats the dishes in the real world. As they even give out the addresses of the places, it all feels very like it is put together by the Japan Tourist Board. It might be, honestly. 

And I'm okay with that. It's just a frothy bit of foodie fun and hey, if I ever go to Tokyo or wherever, I'd look up some of those restaurants. :-) 

There is, actually, a fair amount of character development too, though literally NO questions are answered about the how/why there's this parallel world connection. A lot of the story is around a couple of palace guards named Nicolas and Hans. But, really, you're watching this one for the food. Everything else is secondary. :-) I'm about 5 or 6 episodes in (maybe 7?) and it's just a happy-making little show that makes you hungry.

Edit: I finished the Flower Boy Next Door, so I'm back to this one now. I'm around episode 15? Still enjoying it--though sometimes I wish they'd switch up the Nobu Plus thing so I can get some of the other recipes! 

Edit: I finished it! It was charming throughout and a great light (yummy) show to watch. I'd watch it again even, maybe with little dude. There's not masses of plot or development, but it's a sweet show.

Flower Boy Next Door

 I've been watching more anime than live action lately (will be blogging more on that soon...I'm very behind) but today I felt like I needed to watch something with actual, you know, people. And since the new Internet line was put in, I can actually get Wifi out in the shed where the elliptical is...which means I can watch things on Viki again. AND Flower Boy Next Door finally popped up as available in my region and that decided me.

It's an older show -- 2013? And from a series of unrelated Flower Boy shows (including Flower Boy Ramen Shop). It stars Park Shin Hye, who I've seen in You're Beautiful (and in about a billion other clips--she was in Heirs & Pinocchio). In this one, she plays a reclusive young woman who has been spying on (& living vicariously by doing so) on her neighbour across the way after she fell in love with him at first sight --Han Tae Joon (played by Kim Jung-San).

Though, perhaps strangely, I don't think he's actually one of the Flower Boys that's got a main part in this story. In fact, if I had to guess, I think the guy she probably will wind up with is Oh Jin-Rok, played by Kim Ji-Hoon (who I haven't seen in anything before). He's a webcomic that lives next door to Ko Dok-Mi and has obviously been paying attention to her, even though she barely ever leaves her apartment (he's been drawing her on the sly and has now proposed a new webcomic based on a reclusive female who has a Flower Boy Next Door...). He seems a decent sort. No idea how he's figured out so much about her (like realising the chances of her getting into the elevator with them is nil) when she barely comes out of her place, but no worries. I do always like the stories where the guy notices things first.

His roomate/ work partner is Yoo Dong-Hoon (who I saw, in the few episodes I watched, in Strongest Deliveryman...with really, really bad hair). Don't have much of a handle on his character yet. I'm guessing kind of comic relief? He'll probably be the resistant one?

Yoon Si-Yoon, playing Enrique Keum, who is returning to Korea after being away in Spain (where he has dual citizenship), is the catalyst for the story. He has come to stay with Han Tae-Joon (and there's some drama where the girl that he maybe likes loves Tae-Joon?). He's a sorta famous game designer. Very flashy and over the top and cheeky. The puppy with a bark. He catches Dok-Mi spying and goes to confront her (which is where episode one leaves off).

Watanabe (played by Kouki Mizuta) is a character we're barely introduced to as he is just moving in to the building (though cute intro when Dok-Mi opens her curtains to see him outside her window on a cherry picker, basically). Guessing he's some kind of chef or baker or cook from Japan and he'll definitely be one of the Flower Boys. He's got one of those super smiles, and I'm guessing he'll be the smitten one?

Anyway, that's enough re-cap-ish-ness. 

So far...I really like it! Actually really looking forward to continuing it tomorrow. Acting all seems solid. I like the premise. It's actually the most excited I've been to watch a drama in a while. I still have so many shows that are in progress and even though I was really enjoying Mystic Pop Up Bar, I knew it was about to go into the angsty part, and I just haven't felt up to that. Too much horribleness and angst in the real world. Which is probably why I've been watching a lot of anime instead. Here's hoping this doesn't go all crazy and dark.

Edit: I've seen 3 episodes now and still really enjoying it. There is a level of dark (in the past) where Dok-Mi was bullied in high school (by a girl who has just shown up and is trying her best to attract Jin-Rok...because she thinks he's rich? Unclear...but something is going on there...) and possibly even tried to commit suicide (or at least thought about it).

Enrique has had the majority of the screen time with Dok-Mi and is very much bringing her out of her comfort zone, but we do learn that Jin-Rok is the one that has been leaving her doodled post-it notes (that she thinks are from the milk delivery guy). Watanabe just so far seems like a smile-y pleasant guy, but no idea about him beyond that. Dong-Hoon is apparently a bit of a ladies man, but in rather a sleazy way. 

I'm looking forward to the next one.

Edit: Up through 6 episodes now and it's interesting. It hasn't gone exactly like I thought and now I'm not entirely sure whether Enrique or Jin-Rok is the end game. They are both going about things in completely opposite directions (and Enrique, fresh off the death of his first love, doesn't even really seem to be consciously wooing her), so it's interesting to watch it develop. He's all about pulling her out of her shell and her comfort zone. He prods, he pushes. Whereas Jin-Rok would probably have kept watching from afar for another 3 years.

As for the other flower boys, I have no idea why they've even included Watanabe. He's had no place in moving the plot forward at all so far. I mean, the actor seems okay, but I don't know why he's in this story. Did they just want another pretty boy? Dong-Hoon is there mostly for comic relief and to push the plot forward in very small ways and honestly, I've not a lot of use for him. But I get why he's there from a story perspective at least. 

Anyway, still enjoying it. Would honestly like to watch more than one a day, but I'm keeping it to my exercise time.

Edit: Finished it. I rather wish I'd blogged at the midpoint and when almost done, as I've had some changing feelings on this one. But maybe just as well that I didn't. Words, words, so many words...

Basically -- around the middle...me: oh! Look! It's gonna be the cute goofy guy for once! No way! Aw, how refreshing! I am glad I watched this one! 

Then: Oh, FFS is she seriously gonna try the whole Noble Idiot Martyr thing and pretend to go for the other guy (that likes her too and is really sweet, so ffs why would you do that to him??) to try and drive cute goofy guy away and then there'll be the stupid forced separation thing and...AGH

Then: Well, okay, at least they nipped that in the bud. Sort of. Though they still did the stupid separation thing but at least they didn't fall out of touch and he was constantly in contact. And he didn't leave because of any stupid Martyr stuff. Why these people don't ever get an on airplane for a long weekend, I dunno.

Okay. Anyway. Am I glad I watched it? Yes. I'll even give that an unequivocal yes because even when they hinted at horribly annoying things at the end of an episode, they dispelled them fairly quickly in the next. And they *didn't* have second lead dude wind up with the horrible friend from the past AND they didn't really give her a redemption arc...that is, she did get a little better, but they didn't try to redeem her completely. 

I did not get why they did these little weird time skip-y sliding-door things periodically. Added tension? That they immediately revoked? I dunno. Not sure why they did that. 

I liked the actors. Enjoyed it overall. Quite happy that it was the non-stereotypical lead that got the girl. End was reasonably satisfying. Quite crap no motion kissing for the most part, but heartfelt story-wise, it was good. That could be because of how old it is though; the stiff kissing things seems better in more recent stuff. 

March Comes in Like a Lion

 After we moved, I needed a shorter show for a bit as there was so much going on. March Comes in Like a Lion had showed up on Netflix (it had been on my Crunchyroll queue for ages, but you can't download things on there) so I thought I would give it a go. Someone had told me eons ago that I'd like it based on other shows I loved.

Well, they weren't wrong. I've actually now gone through the entire first and second seasons and now I'm a bit bereft because there isn't a third one yet AND the manga has not yet been translated into English. Sigh. 

It's a bit of an odd show. A bit slice of life, a bit "coming of age,", a wee bit of romance. So. Rei is a 17 year old professional shogi player living on his own. He's quiet and lonely, due in part to the rest of his family dying in a car wreck when he was young. He'd always been an introspective kid, but when his aunt was ready to dump him in an orphanage instead of taking him in, he jumped at the chance to live instead with a friend of his father's. 

It was a man who had often played shogi with him and it's quite clear that the reason he took Rei in is because of that. He's a professional player himself and sees promise in Rei. However, his two biological kids are a mess, in part because of how their dad treats them. The girl, who is older than Rei by 4 years, is the one that has the longest impact on the poor kid -- she's bitter and jealous and also wildly inappropriate (in an abusive kind of way and in ways that make it obvious she never sees Rei as a brother figure). So poor dude has some hangups. He becomes a professional player in middle school (only the 5th in history to do so at that age) and moves out on his own as soon as he can. He internalises a lot of guilt even though literally nothing is his fault. He's just a good kid (there's a scene late in the second season where he visits the "adoptive" mom and it's obvious she sees it -- her kids aren't good, not like he is and she doesn't know why). 

Anyway. The bright spot in Rei's life is that he's been "adopted" again -- but by three sisters. They are also orphans, though they have each other and their grandfather, who runs a wagashi shop. There's Akari, the oldest, who takes care of everyone. Hinata, or Hina, is in middle school at the start and she's usually unflappably positive. And Momo, who is a toddler and adorable in the same way as Poco from Poco's Udon World. They are exactly what he needs in life. Their relationships together are what family is about and the slowly developing (given their ages; by the end of the second season, Hina is entering his high school) romance/love between Rei and Hina are my favourite parts. He supports them (even though he often discounts his contributions) and they support him. 

There's also the other side of his life -- the people he plays shogi with, including Nikaidō, who, when you first meet him, think he's going to be the mean bully in Rei's life but it turns out he's Rei's biggest cheerleader and probably his only friend his own age. There's another father figure in Shimada, an older man who beats Rei in a tournament but later befriends him and teaches him. There are a couple of comic relief types (love the guy who adopts the kitten). A crazy leader. And Gotō -- another top player in his 40s with a wife in the hospital that Rei's mentally unbalanced adoptive sister is trying to have an affair with. That whole storyline is very frustrating.

At this point, since I've watched all I can watch, I don't want to go and re-cap everything. There's a lot. 44 Episodes! There's a whole bullying arc with Hina (where Rei does his best and begins to really come out of his shell in hopes of helping her), some great bits with the teacher Hayashida (who really supports Rei), the crazy scientist club at the school...I'd have to write a book to cover it all.

So...to sum up, it's a lovely show. I learned a lot about shogi and wagashi. The cats are hilarious. It's a bit slow-paced and there were times where there wasn't enough with the sisters, but overall it's really just a great show. I adore Rei and want to give him a hug. He needs it. 

There's also a live action movie version that I wonder if I should try to watch, though from the summary, it goes on past the point in the anime. I'm assuming it follows the manga? I dunno! Since the manga is still ongoing, I'm not sure. I don't want to spoil it. It's just a treasure.