Started Promising but Ultimately Falsely Advertised.

I enjoyed the first episode of this so much, so much so I immediately messages my friends and forced them to watch it too. The first few episode of this show are absolute gold and seeing Haru and Gaku's friendship build and grow was wonderful to enjoy. The fun rivalry with Kirihime had a great introduction too! But unfortunately, by episode 4/5 this show very quickly moved away from Haru&Gaku's friendship and development, and Haru&Gaku versus Kirihime in a "mutually respectuful rivalry that could very well turn into a great powerful friendship", and ended up being a "let's super rush through this company's growth progression on max speed in becoming a media giant" and by epispde 7 I was so incredibly disappointed and bored with this show.

To say Meme (Haru's actor) is the main person on the poster and is pushed as the protagonist, there have been whole episodes where he's only been in it for like 5 minutes - he's always working behind the scenes and especially in the beginning we never see what he's doing or where he is. He is hardly in it. Dear TV show runners: Don't push the show as a Meguro Ren show if his character is disappearing every episode for massive chunks of screentime.

And then they started pushing 2 "romance storylines" midway through episode 9 (the second to last episode!) which was so stupid - if they had introduced romantic feels from around episode 4, I would've supported both without complaint but suddenly pushing them in the second to last episode was awful.

I regret telling me friends the first episode was amazing and getting them to watch it.

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There better be a 5th movie!

I'm going to keep this short and snappy but this was AMAZING! And I only have three points to make:

1. Every year a Kingdom movie comes out, and every year I am reminded of how damn attractive and talented Yamazaki Kento is!

I watch these movies every single time in the cinema and it trully is the best way to consume these movies. Seeing the scenery and battles and everything on the big screen just makes the whole experience and the movies even better!

2. Also, they better announce movie 5 soon because the ENDING to this one!!!!! OMG I NEED MORE! We are definitely no where near finished with any arc, plot, or story. And this movie definitely raised stakes by A LOT for Shin and company.

3. Every single movie in the Kingdom series just gets better and better with each installment! 9/10!! GIMME MOVIE 5 NOW ALREADY!

I would happily watch another 3-5 movies (2 and a half hours each at this point) come out over the next ten years of this series. It's SO GOOD.

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After my second time watching it, I'm making a review. This first time I saw it was when it originally aired and it got a 10/10 for me. It was one of the first doramas I saw so I thought I'd rewatch it again now, seen as I've watched over 200 doramas since, and my god it's stood up. 10/10!
The story is amazing and touching.
The music is cryable (every dang time that theme tune comes on I wail like whale!).
The interactive between both characters and the actual actors themselves is so amazing and their friendship both on and off screen can be see and is so tight knit!
The tumbling is amazeballs of course!
You just can't not watch this drama and not feel like crying from sadness or from utter joy!

As you can tell; this is the dorama I cry at every 10 minutes!!

It is truelly an amazing and touching story <3

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Story: Not as good as the dorama and a little long but besides that the story is interesting and the comedy is funny (there is an especially funny part I found towards the end) and the part after the credits is good too. A good ending for Makoto kinda. I either wanted him to do that job or be a policeman xD

Cast and Characters: All the good cast and characters back such a the main Makoto, Masa, King, G-Boys and the police guys minus Yokoyama xD I love how there is still rivalry between the East and West side in this.

Music: There are whole music parts in this film, easy to listen to and kinda acted like a break as it was such a long SP.

Overall: Good but not as good as the dorama.

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This is the 3rd/4th time I'm watching this so naturally my review is positive xD Overall; LOVE IT! It's hilarious, enjoyable, unboring, fun! I really love the dorama version (more than the anime!), all characters and acting awesome. Love that they made it 'fake' like with the use of CG massive words! haha And I love how it's more obvious who likes Haruhi in the dorama also as I had no idea in the anime haha I'm blonde like that ><

Story: A little different to the anime but only minor changes. Still fun, hilarious, enjoyable and still the same story line.

Acting/Cast: I loved many actors in this dorama before I even saw it (Yamamoto, Daito, Chiba) and then those I didn't know, I loved by the end of it hahah They all did a great job. Hilarious Tamaki, amazingly sexy and mysterious Kyoya, lovable Honey, intriguing Mori and incestuously captivating twins xD

Music: The music is cheery and gets stuck in your head in a good way and it very fairytale like.

ReWatch: Like I said, I'm on my 3rd (I think) viewing of this dorama. LOVE IT! I'll probs watch it again in future xD

The downside? I find Haruhi annoying (and I like the actress!), and I'm upset she used a wig instead of actually getting in character and cutting her hair. Some scenes from the anime were changed in the dorama which made my a little sad e.g. The biscuit twin/Haruhi scene and the lightbulb scene in episode one is slightly different. Not much to say that's bad about it really, just nitpicks xD

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My original review is a lot longer than what MDL will allow me to post, so I'll make this as short and simple with definite reason as possible.

A lot of people have been saying that it is a dorama that:
- Has been one of the best in a long time
or
- Has been the best dorama of the season (AKA Spring 2012).

I thoroughly disagree and will say why.

The dorama began with the potential to be really amazing and could've become a total 'blow your mind with tricks' dorama, but it didn't. It fell to a mediocre standard that was ultimately predictable, which a lot of people have said "O the ending it totally not predictable!". Yeah it might not be 100% predictable but it's end is not exactly a 'OMG THIS DORAMA IS GENIUS!' ending, it was more of a 'O that happen? Meh, don't care' kinda ending, for me at least.

Let's go to categories.

STORY:
As said previously, it set out to have become a potentially amazing dorama(or maybe I expected too much as I've seen quite a few doramas that have left me heartbroken and totally mind blown - thank you JDoramas, you are me life! anyways...) but shortly fell flat. The story was predictable. Not straight away, but you could've guessed what was going on quite a bit before it/all was revealed.

So yeah that's why it gets a 6 from me, had potential but didn't reach that potential. The dorama is from a book so they pretty much had to go by the book ne? haha

ACTING/CAST:
Yes another low number and another 6.
The cast is great. You have well known actresses and actors; Takei Emi, Kiritani Kenta, Terada Minori, Gouriki Ayame, Takahashi Issei, Fukuda Saki, Takeda Kouhei, the list goes on, but I feel that none of them were really challenged in these roles. I think the only challenge was for Takei Emi really, having to play two different types of people. So I feel like the lack of challenge, really made them all look like they were doing mediocre acting.

Takei Emi: Like I said, seems to be the only one challenged and there were time when you could the difference between her two characters but besides that, I honestly think her acting went down in this dorama =/ Sorry to Takei fans, she is gorgeous and all but I feel her acting dropped in this dorama.

Kiritani Kenta: Very sexy in it! It would've been nice to have him get more screen-time and let the audience understand where his character is coming from.

All the other actors/actresses were the same: not very challenging roles, and seemed like mediocre acting because they weren't given a challenge, nor enough screentime, nor able to show who their character was or be given character development.

MUSIC: The ending theme song is pretty good actually and the music in Mascaraed is catchy but I can't really remember the rest of the music. Hence a 6!

REWATCH VALUE: The only reason I would want to watch this again would be to drool over Kiritani Kenta but he doesn't get enough screentime so the chance of me rewatching it is practically 0%.

OVERALL: In my opinion, W no Higeki was not an amazing dorama, was not the best dorama of the season, was not the best dorama in a long time and was very predictable, partially boring, had an unsatisfactory ending and is the ONLY JDorama I've NEVER cried at.

The best part of the whole dorama? Seeing a sexy Kiritani Kenta and maybe the ending song and how well Terada san did playing a creepy old grandad. Saki's acting was at it's worse although I feel Gouriki's had improved slightly. Takei Emi's acting fell too.

Hence my 6/10. Sorry if I broke anyone's hearts!

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Saw this on opening day yesterday. Before I go into my review, I will warn you: My expectations for this film were very, very low. Also I cannot stand Miura Haruma. But let us get into the details!

The positives:
The CGI was way beyond amazing for Japanese standard! You can tell the budget was HUGE on this!
Replacement Levi - he isn't the Levi we want but he's close and I like his twisted mind xD
The ending song is amazing &lt;3
The blood and violence - holy crap the sound of bones crushing and barrels of blood everywhere!!! &lt;3 a couple of times I had to think if I felt sick or not! So that was awesome &lt;3
The overall changes - while I much much much prefer the original story, I quite liked the changes they made in this and (besides the romances) found no change that would infuriate me.

Negatives:
Slow - this film could've easily cut out the first 20 minutes or so. The film makers know all we wanna see is the giants so why you spending AGES setting everything up. I highly doubt people who've never heard or know anything about the anime are gunna watch this so just cut to the chase!
Too short - it felt like we were only JUST getting development and BAM credits - ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?!? GIVE ME MORE!!! Could've EASILY gotten 30 minutes or more into that movie!
The added romance couples they added - there's 4 'couples' and romances in this that aren't in the anime and by god I hated everyone of them bar one.
Shake camera during fighting scenes
Miura Haruma - he can't act and was especially cringe worthy to watch when he was doing his screaming scenes -_-

Overall: It was better than I expected and cannot wait for the second installment where it looks like it really is gunna be 180 degrees different to the anime! o_O

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[2015.03.14 ReWriting now that I've calmed down]

I've stopped 20 minutes into episode 3.

Positives:
-The location(s)
-The entire cast (bar the main female) is amazing in their roles
-Kamenashi Kazuya
-The actual messages of the dorama

Negatives:
-Misadvertised: pushed as an 'adult love' drama but really it's just a jdrama that happens to have lots of kisses and sex scenes in it and that's called 'adult love'. There appears to be nothing adult like about it e.g. telling each other all your problems, discussing serious things, personality over looks (< which is the basic difference between a child's love and an adult's love).
-The main female lead is a 14 year old immature girl in a 35 year olds body.
-Cringey sex scenes
-No real chemistry between the leads.
-Hella frustrating to watch because it's such a childish relationship and unrealistic of an actual adult relationship.
-Relationship built on sex alone and there's nothing really dense or meaningful about their relationship except 'I feel shit about myself, you feel shit about myself, let's like each other and have sex' is what is appears to just be.

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Story: Not the best KR story line I've watched/seen. Didn't make me question or get confused or excited.

Acting/Cast: Pretty good. Fukushi Sota did an amazing job as Gentarou, he was hilarious!

Characters: All likeable, none you could hate really. They all had flaws too which was good ^_^ My favourites were Ryuusei and JK =]

Music: Pretty good! I especially liked the Battle music ^_^

ReWatch: Nahh once was good enough for this season for me. I'd only ever rewatch it if Yoshizawa Ryo doesn't get any roles in the future.

Overall: Plain story and the comedy is the only thing that bring it along really. The comedy is the best part about the show! I was dying of laughter every episode xD

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Started off Promising then Nosedived.

Spoilers right from the get go but:

We could've had a nice mafia family winning for once. We could've had a refreshing KDrama where ACAB and the "good guys" lose. I was loving the Mafia Boss adopts Child and is actually a big softie trope that went on for most of this drama. Why couldn't we have just ended with her going off to live by the beach after all he did for her.

But no, half way through Episode 6 they just had to ruin it and make it a generic, predictable mafia story.
And the sudden romance in Episode 8? Please get out of here. I genuinely thought they were gunna be best friends. But of course KDramas just HAVE to have a straight main romance *pukes*

This drama started off so well and for the first 5 episodes to the point I was bawling with tears during episode 1 and 2, it was solid and amazing. It really nose dived the last two and half episodes to the point I really did not care in the final episode and sighed just watching it. What a shame.

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Male MC deserves nothing.

This man deserves nothing! Absolutely nothing. He is the worst.

He wants to change the past because he hates his wife, hates his life, completely stressed (see how selfish he is?) and only after changing the past realises he's been the terrible one and terrible to her; doesn't pay attention to her, doesn't communicate with her, is over focused on his work, assumes she hardly does anything, throws assumptive stuff at her "don't do any more hours, it's too tough with your housework, right?" without even getting to know her or what she does.

But then he does the EXACT same thing with his new wife in his new timeline; no communication, throws in surface level assumptions ("You're the goddess of the uni.") without actually getting to know her, ignores her in favour of giving his previous wife attention -- because all of a sudden she's happy again, and working and successful so he's interested -- EVEN THOUGH IT'S HIS FAULT BOTH OF THE WOMEN HATE HIM.

He could've at least gone back to his original timeline and try to sort his relationship with his original wife. It feels such a cop-out that he gets the one that wasn't ruined by him in the end.

I cannot stand him. He deserved NOTHING.
Both women and his work friend were better without him completely.

I wish it hadn't taken 10 episodes to go back to changing and playing with timelines, I would've preferred seeing different versions every other episode or something. I was so bored from the middle to the end. It was obvious what the problem was, he wasn't changing, he was making the same mistake in his new timeline, ugh it was so frustrating to watch.

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