Nobunaga no Chef Ep 08 Review

This episode of Nobunaga no Chef (信長のシェフ) is mainly about the main character Ken (Tamamori Yuta) attempting to save Mori Yoshinari (Ukaji Takashi). That’s a bit odd, because Mori Yoshinari died in 1570 and Nobunaga dies in 1582, yet we spent the last episode worried that Mitsuhide (Inagaki Goro) would betray Nobunaga (Oikawa Mitsuhiro) when it’s at least twelve years too early? Does this mean we’re not going to get the climactic struggle between Mitsuhide and Nobunaga because including it would mean aging Ken by twelve years?

First things first, we last left Ken in the embrace of the other person who has traveled back in time from the Heisei era – his beloved Youko (Kashii Yu).

Or is she his beloved? He admits to not remembering anything about their past, which would have been fine if Youko also had that amnesia. Instead, she seems to have her memories intact, and the news that Ken doesn’t know anything about their history leaves her distraught.

Last Hope Ep 04 Review

Last Hope is a medical suspense drama centered on a team at a biomedical research and innovation institute that serves as the last hope for patients with life-threatening conditions. The members of the team all have their own particular issues, and we mainly find out about these issues through flashbacks. The flashbacks are so frequent that instead of writing “there was another flashback” or something similar every time, I’m just going to put “Flashback (Character, Year):” to keep things tighter.

For the first time in this episode, we actually start away from the hospital, with a character we don’t know (played by Ishida Hikari from Beginners!). She seems to be in charge off a design shop, and barely gets through telling her staff off . . .

. . . before she collapses.

I think starting the episode by giving us some sense of the patient as a human being is important. They haven’t done nearly enough to win the viewer’s sympathy for the patients in previous episodes because so much of the attention is on the doctors. The result is that we don’t end up caring whether the patient makes it through or not – only whether the doctors will be vindicated.

Actually, I can’t say the show really gets us to root for the doctors, either. After all, the first time we see one, it’s the completely distasteful Takagi (Tanabe Seiichi) trying to pick up another woman.

Biblia Koshodou no Jiken Techou Ep 06 Review

The last episode of Biblia Koshodou no Jiken Techou (ビブリア古書堂の事件手帖 – Biblia Rare Books Case Files) left the drama’s main character – Shinokawa Shioriko (Gouriki Ayame) – on the ground in the rain, kicked down a staircase by an unknown assailant.

Well, that’s definitely a way to whet my appetite for this episode. But can they capitalize on that effective cliffhanger?

Shinokawa wakes up in a hospital bed with wounds on her face, and her brother Fumiya (Jesse), Shida Hajime (), and eventually Daisuke (AKIRA) looking to her needs.

At least we have a solid mystery already – who assaulted Shinokawa? And this is the first time the case has involved violence, so it’s a major step up in the tension level.

By the way, Fujinami (Suzuki Kosuke) is also in the hospital room – it turns out he was the person who called the ambulance. In my book, that makes him the prime suspect (but if I’m ever in need of medical assistance, I hope that mystery-based logic won’t make someone hesitate to call an ambulance for me).

Himitsu no Arashi-chan 2013.03.21 Review

Okay, so here it is: the last episode of Himitsu no Arashi-chan (ひみつの嵐ちゃん). Naturally, all five members are present, and it’s just going to be a flurry of memorable scenes from the show’s five years in service. In fact, with something worth a screenshot popping up every second, I didn’t get nearly all the images that deserved to be included here. They went through everything quite quickly, going for breadth and mostly trusting that the viewers would remember the moments.

Of course, they decided to use the share house set for this last gathering, but it’s totally empty – they’re moving out, and have their bags packed.

Ohno-san doesn’t seem to have much to carry.

Sakurai-san decided to bang his luggage down the stairs instead of carry it down. What’s up with that?

Up in the top right corner, it says we can expect final messages from the Arashi guys started at 10:38 p.m., but it beats me why they tell people this – maybe they think that if viewers suspect it’s just a highlight episode they’ll change the channel?

Drama Ratings Update – to Mar 24th

With the end of the season so near, I’m going to post the averages so far and the most recent episode ratings instead of listing the ratings for every single episode. Only four of thee dramas I’ve been tracking have actually ended, though Last Hope might be wishing it had finished up too, considering how its ratings are falling like a rock (episode 8 – 11.4%, episode 9 – 8.3%, episode 10 – 7.4%). To be fair, Last Hope was up against the Monomane Grand Prix, which I would have probably preferred to watch myself, but the monomane special only drew 11.8%. Biblia Koshodou was up against both the Shabekuri 007 Special (14.4%) and the Otameshika! & Qsama!! Special (17.9%) and still managed 11.1%. The sudden drop in Last Hope’s ratings actually brought it below Nobunaga no Chef, so it is now number three among the dramas I’ve been keeping track of.

The ratings presented below are from much more complete articles on TokyoHive – the latest one of which is available here.

Prime Time Shows

Biblia Koshodo no Jiken Techo – (Season Avg.) 11.65%, (10) 11.1%

Nobunaga no Chef – (Season Avg.) 10.84%, (Finale) 11.0%

Last Hope – (Season Avg.) 10.77%, (10) 7.4%

Nakuna, Hara-chan – (Season Avg.) 10.2%, (Finale) 10.3%

Share House no Koibito – (Season Avg.) 9.4%, (Finale) 10.2%

Karamazov no Kyoudai – (Season Avg.) 6.3%, (Finale) 6.3%

Late Night Shows

Shinryochu -in the Room- – (Season Avg.) 2.1%, (11) 2.0%

Kodomo Keishi – (Season Avg.) 1.5%, (09) 1.4%