Looks like I’m not to only person to shove listening practice into my cardio! I tend to do mindless rom-coms then, or rewatch shows I’ve already seen - also as a way to not waffle over what to watch.
I had this too, with a show from the 1980s, セーラー服反逆同盟 - it’s all the ridiculous big-hair long-skirt fighting school girl nonsense I could want, but my copy had such poor audio quality I was barely catching a word. 
Oh that’s awesome; I love Suzuki. Such a unique artist. One day when I’m better I’m really looking forward to rewatching the Taisho Trilogy in full Japanese.
I’ve finally managed to settle some things down for the time being and get back to listening a little more. And I’m quite happy to say I’ve been seeing pretty big gains recently in my ability to follow along with subtitles! It probably helps that my main reading practice as well is a largely voice acted visual novel. Going without is still a bit distant, and it does frustrate me that so many Japanese movies I want to watch have no subtitles or they’re hard to find. All the same, this is a clear step in that direction!
I again have to thank @pocketcat ; I just finished watching Risky and definitely felt like I understood a great deal of it; the missed lines were incidental and generally easy to follow the general idea of. I appreciate these relatively short miniseries lengths – I’ve tended in the past in general to gravitate towards movies over TV in part for TV feeling bloated. Risky is a real rollercoaster of some new drastic thing happening every 10 minutes as a result of only being 7 episodes, but I enjoyed it. It’s a little silly (I mean, the twists and whatnot, the actual content gets pretty dark so warning about that), but on the fun side of it for me. Overdone in that way where I’m just thinking “yes, keep piling on the nonsense.”
I also on a whim decided I wanted to try that new game, Ghostwire Tokyo, and in Japanese. I’m generally not a big fan of open world games (which it seems to follow the formula of super closely), but I was really enticed by that beautiful recreation of Japanese city environments and the way the game draws from the surrounding culture. It’ll be some fun virtual tourism if nothing else. So far I’m happy to say I am following the dialog to a satisfactory degree; most of it has been pretty simple between the main character uttering variations on the classic “what is going on why is the world all messed up,” to having a semi-disembodied partner that barks straightforward orders at me, to a villain vaguely talking about saving people.
It’s actually amusing to me how this is probably my first experience finding reading harder than listening (of course, with my beloved JP subtitles), but it makes sense. The tutorials, various scattered notes, and upgrade descriptions can be a little dense with unfamiliar words, especially because there’s so much kanji I don’t know related to spirits, purification, that sort of lingo. I’m hanging in there though, and doing better than I expected on the whole with the notes. I hope I can hold out. I really want to just casually do things like play games in Japanese but up to this point my own irritation at missing anything has held me back from doing much. So I pushed myself to just go do it, and it helps that I don’t anticipate this game’s writing being anything too special so I’m more ok with the gaps, heh. There are apparently a lot of cultural notes around and I’ll be a little bummed if I can’t make out a lot of those, but it is what it is. At a certain point I just have to go out there and fail a lot at a thing I want to do if I’m ever going to reach the point of succeeding at it (I know those lines are nebulous but bear with my binary shorthand), and I’m hoping with this newfound improvement I’m at the threshold where it’s time to throw myself out there more when possible.
So I have been somewhat productive in my listening goals:
Finished ドクターホワイト. The bonus last episode (最終話のその後) was basically a lil bit of plot with lots of “revisiting” past episodes. Pretty boring, recommend skipping it. Overall not the most exciting or interesting series, but I enjoyed it as something light and it gave me a lot of practice with medical terminology. I had pretty low comprehension during some especially medical jargon heavy scenes, but comparing it to watching something like ER I was probably about on par. 
Watched with JP subs.
Watched デスノート Light up the New World pretty much because I had it, and I tried watching it a year or two ago and couldn’t hack it. I’ve never read / watched the preceeding movies/tv show/manga. Well, I did watch the first episode of the anime and thought it was hilarious, but I suspected it wasn’t supposed to be a comedy. The combo of no JP subs and no familiarity with the movies that came before made this honestly pretty tricky to follow. I think I did alright but there were definitely some plot points where I wondered if I was missing it due to not catching some words or due to not having any idea of the backstory they kept referencing. 
It was fun though, I recommend it.
I watched all 4 episodes of 妄想彼女. It’s dumb as hell. I enjoyed it a lot. Basically about a dude who writes a blog about his fantasy girlfriend, and then one day she turns up for real. No JP subs available, but it was a romcom so easy to follow.
I watched the first episode of the TV adaptation of ロクヨン. It is, for lack of a better word, ダサい. Looks like it was filmed in the 70s or 80s (it’s from the 2000s…), super weird camera angles, way over done dramatic scenes. Like scream-crying while running through the snow. 
I was laughing at completely inappropriate moments because of how ridiculous they were (unintentionally) making it. I also have the movie adaptation, debating if I should finished the TV version first or not. I’ll note that I semi-recently finished the book these are based on and loved it, and it is a very dramatic story so it will be nice if the movie can do it justice although I’m enjoying the chaos that is the TV show. Also no JP subs on this one - it’s a bit harder to follow, but familiarity with the story is helping. There is a preview/trailer available here but you’ll probably need to be either in Japan or on a VPN to view it. Same story for the movie trailer, available here. Gives a pretty good idea of the different filming styles, though.
And finally, I finished ミステリと言う勿れ AND I LOVED IT. Totally set it up for a second season with that last scene, I hope they deliver. In the meantime I will continue to read the manga.
I also stopped listening to the audiobooks for HP5 and 屍人荘の殺人 pretty much because I got bored and now I’m relistening to スマホを落としただけなのに and 夏へのトンネル until I either find another interesting audiobook in my listening sweet spot (much lower than for reading 
) or my listening skills go up further.
This all puts me at 104 hours for the year, or 26% of my goal.
I came across and mined this word a day or two ago, so thank you for the impromptu review. Very impressive on the time spent, too 
While I’m here… my attempts at listening have been a little chaotic and marred by some technical problems which I don’t feel like going into, but on the plus side, I do continue to try whether it’s working out or not.
I noticed Netflix added はじめてのおつかい, a show that just follows very young kids around as they go out and perform some errand like shopping for the first time. Honestly, pretty cute. The opening tends to talk a little about the area in Japan where they live which is sketchier for my comprehension, but otherwise… it’s a show commenting on kids buying a fish or making some juice so it’s not too bad on the listening side, haha.
End of March update!
I did my Johnny’s group immersion challenge (Snow Man) and watched 10 variety episodes or behind the scenes videos, a drama (below), and a concert, plus some music.
No big complaints about this show! It was sweet and short and the kids were cute. Hashimoto was by far my favorite. This seems like a very good show to practice listening comprehension to, with everyday topics (often repeated) and language.
I also finished two other dramas:
恋です
Quality: ★★★★
Enjoyment: ★★★½
Ease of understanding: ★★★★
ミステリと言う勿れ
Quality: ★★★★
Enjoyment: ★★★★
Ease of understanding: ★★★
恋です started very strong and by the end was pretty good, and I’m glad I watched it. Not quite as easy listening-wise as 消えた初恋 but not far off.
ミステリと言う勿れ was one I really enjoyed but can’t evaluate well because of my manga bias. It was good, though! I hope there’s a season two, but I also hope they wait until there is enough manga material for a season two instead of writing their own. Very vague spoilers–> They have two big stories they can still do (the inheritance one early on and another interesting one later) and I think at least a couple small stories. I thought they’d still have my favorite of the small stories, but they squeezed it into the last episode, hooray! (The one with the coded picture letters.) For the first season (fingers crossed), I consistently found the music overdramatic (though pretty), and part of me still wishes they’d cast smaller names as the main character and kind of the other main character, because I’ve seen them both in so many things and they really stuck out to me, and plus are not quite the right age, either of them, though I can get over that… however, both of them, particularly the main actor (菅田将暉), were really good, so I won’t complain too much. And then they beefed up one of the side roles and gave it to one of my favorite actresses, 伊藤沙莉, which is wonderful, but for a while they were doing a weird implied love triangle thing with her that was out of nowhere? BUT she was still amazing and they did better by her in the last few episodes.
… I didn’t think I’d say that much about it, but to sum up, I’d say it’s on the harder side listening-wise. Lots of fast talking and subject changes and content difficulty at times.
I’m looking forward to trying dramas in the new season!
Finally, I still didn’t make much progress with my audiobook, so I’ll have to push more on that in March April.
By other main character do you mean 永山瑛太? I thought I hadn’t seen him before but apparently he was in the 2002 drama リモート which I did see Or do you mean 門脇 麦 in which case, yes, she seems to be in everything lately. I like her, but all her acting feels very one-note to me.
管田将暉 did an excellent job though, even though he’s also in everything. I was cracking up watching the Death Note movie where he’s wearing the skinny suit with slick, straight hair. A total contrast to his look in ミステリ!
伊藤沙莉 is super charming and a good actress so I hope I get to see her in more things! But yeah the romance aspect seems out of left field. Where I’m at in the manga (only on volume 3) if anything I’m getting BL vibes from 我路 and 整.
Yes, 瑛太! I’ve seen him in several things and he is so very memorable in all of them (particularly のだめカンタービレ, ラッキーセブン, and リコカツ–three very different roles). He brought great intensity to his character here. I thought 門脇麦 was really good in this, but it did feel like a role particularly suited to her and purposefully kept to limited screentime for character reasons, so I could see a different character or more time with this one being something that would make me like her acting less. 管田将暉 I feel like I’ve seen everywhere, too, and I’m enjoying that Death Note contrast imagery, lol, thank you. I think my favorite drama he’s been in is Dele. 伊藤沙莉 is just delightful. For other dramas she’s in, I particularly recommend これは経費で落ちません and この世界の片隅に. 
Oh gosh, for all the dramas I watch I haven’t seen any of those! But I do lean heavily towards crime shows. A friend once teased me that I only knew actors who played criminals or detectives.
門脇麦 might just be type cast. This is the ~third time I’ve seen her in a role where the primary attribute of the character is looking neutral/sad and delivering lines in a very emotionless way for effect. Then again, I just looked her up and she apperantly was a main character in トドメの接吻 (questionable youtube trailer) which looks unlikely to cast her like that, so perhaps it’s just been bad luck that those are the roles I see her in. …that drama also has 菅田将暉
Heh, in ラッキーセブン he’s a detective! The whole main cast works at a detective agency. It’s not a serious type of crime show, but rather a popcorn sort of show that I enjoyed watching.
Funnily enough – the day of that reply I had just finished watching a Seijun Suzuki movie! And this was the first post I saw after finishing. Finishing the Taisho Trilogy is next in one of my backlog queues! (I’ve only seen Zigeunerweisen). That 恐怖劇場アンバランス episode is worth seeking out if possible and curious! Seeing 監督：鈴木清純 was a funny mix of “What!” and “you know… that makes sense” since it was a lot more Zigeunerweisen than the Ultraman-adjacent tokusatsu I was expecting going in!
The Seijun Suzuki movie I watched is 探偵事務所23 くたばれ悪党ども (Detective Bureau 2-3: Go to Hell Bastards!)
I picked it up because It’s directed by Suzuki and stars Joe Shishido, and I’ve seen Branded to Kill which involves both of those people and… is memorable.
This one is a Nikkatsu genre movie from before Suzuki started doing the stuff he’s well-known for, so it’s quite straightforward, but I enjoyed it! A lot of shootouts, to the point of a chaotic vibe coming through, and it features Shishido doing a song and dance number which is… a sight to behold. 瞳の中の訪問者 kinda made me forget he’s a charismatic leading man! But he’s fun here, in that way where the whole cheek situation is still distracting (I gotta admit though, the surgery worked – I saw A Colt Is My Passport randomly in middle school and still remember that guy’s face). The titular Detective Bureau is staffed by a surly scandal-seeking tabloid journalist and the guy she makes fun of – the expert on the special features was dismissive of them as not being funny and I mean, they aren’t really, but I still liked them!
This was discouraging listening-wise… I tried without subtitles but I didn’t pick up anything anyone was saying and restarted with (English) subtitles. At least that sold much better the ‘fast-talking crime movie’ vibe better than it woulda been just in English from the start!
Apparently there’s a less well known sequel, but it seems to be in the ‘only available if you have amazon prime in Japan’ category…
Since then, I’ve watched a bunch of other movies!
探偵物語 was a really nice surprise! I had picked this up in Japanese blu-ray form knowing nothing about just because the line it’s in (“Kadokawa The Best”) is relatively cheap and I’d watched and enjoyed a few movis from it (The Obayashi movies ねらわれた学園 and 時をかける少女 as well as セーラー服と機関銃). I had just kind of assumed from those that this would also have Japanese subtitles… but it did not!
I ended up completely making do without though, and it was encouraging in a way that made up for the previous movie! I definitely didn’t catch 100% of everything said in dialogue-heavy scenes, but I felt like I followed the gist of everything, emotionally and mechanically.
It’s not a gigantically formula-breaking movie, so that I think both made it easier to follow and meant that the surprise language test aspect enhanced it and made it feel extra special in a way it might not have otherwise.
But it’s a fun story anyhow! About a rich girl (played by 薬師丸ひろ子, the actress from Sailor Suit and Machine Gun) and the detective hired to keep her in line by her absentee parents (or something - like I said… didn’t catch exactly every detail). I was pleasantly surprised at how she’s the center of the movie – the title is less about him and more about her discovering an enthusiasm for solving crimes, I think. And it’s not too creepy with the romance angle, thankfully. I think the one kiss at the end followed by immediate goodbye is a good way of balancing acknowledging chemistry while also acknowledging that it was never going to be a thing. And you get a decently fun little mystery and a yakuza finger-chopping scene. Pretty neat all around! I had a good time.
江戸川乱歩全集 恐怖奇形人間 (Horrors of Malformed Men)
This one I watched quite late at night with no subtitles… and honestly, I kinda loved it?
As the Japanese title sort of explains (and the English one very much does not) – it’s sort of like… an Edogawa Ranpo remix album? It’s not faithful at all to any one Ranpo story, but even not having read all that much Ranpo, it’s stuffed full of elements full of all the Ranpo that I have read, including (mainly) but not limited to パノラマ島 and 孤島の鬼. There’s a guy faking his own death to replace enough guy, a stiched-together mixed-sex conjoined twin, a scene about crawling around in the rafters dripping poison down on people which I could swear I remember from a short story, and hey even a human chair makes an appearance (although I did not pick up on the context). And it adds up to something that feels very true to the feeling of Ranpo - a mix of creepiness, eeriness, and bewilderment throughout.
I didn’t super well follow the exact details about what was happening, but I feel like I’d read just enough Ranpo that it felt like I was tracking anyway just because of the familiar elements. And also, to be fair… I was fairly drunk at the time… I would be curious to watch this one again. I also wouldn’t be surprised if elements I didn’t recognize were also themselves pulled from Ranpo stories - like the manji scar on the sole of the foot.
I really gotta wonder how this one plays to English-speaking audiences not familiar at all with Ranpo’s work.
ガメラ対大悪獣ギロン (Gamera vs. Guiron)
This is one I definitely - definitely - remember watching an MST3K version of many many years ago… It’s a film with imagery that will not leave your head. Wonderful, love it, A+ and I’m very happy to watch it in its own right and language now – great for listening practice too since it follows the same format of the last movie where most of the dialogue is two kids woodenly reacting to the strange things they’re seeing.
メトロポリス (Osamu Tezuka’s Metropolis)
Before watching this I read the book (I guess I’ll talk about it in the other thread) - I still really like that I can do that with Japanese movies now, no questions asked. The two are very different it turns out! Almost 60 years after the comic, the movie is more of a respectful riff in its own direction than a direct adaptation of the original.
The biggest positive is definitely the visuals – the movie constructs its world so well, blending Tezuka’s style with the 1920s Metropolis movie, and making something all its own not quite like anything else I’ve seen. All the moments with 3D melding with 2D are especially spectacular.
Story-wise, I didn’t really love the changes from the original - in particular, this is much more of a straight romance, and particularly the kind involving an ‘extremely powerful but naive sci-fi girl who might doom us all or save us’ which is an element I definitely feel like I’ve seen enough before to be tired of. The android in the comic felt more the main character to me, and had a switch that let them change gender which is a positive in my book as well. But it executes extremely well for what it is, with a very memorable soundtrack and again, spectacular visuals.
I watched it with subtitles off and felt like I followed pretty ok!
Oh man, gotta add this to my list. Sounds amazing.
I’m pretty sure I have a backlog of Gamera films to watch as well…
Oh boy! It’s been a while, but I watched that with English subtitles in the past. I have no real familiarity with Ranpo and personally I was very much into it, but I seek out the weird and avant garde so I’m pretty happy to handwave not understanding what a movie is up to.
A lot of my focus has remained on reading (and times have been a little taxing in general), so while I have been listening, a lot of that has been falling back once again on certain Twitch streamers and stuff like that. My comprehension is sketchy but I enjoy them and I don’t think it’s a total waste. Sometimes I want the path of least resistance.
That said, I mentioned it in a reading thread as well, but I’ve started doing exactly what pocketcat recommended with the audiobook listening, then reading, then listening again strategy, with the book スマホを落としただけなのに. Only one section in, but so far so good on both following the general idea at first listen and then doing quite a bit better on the relisten after reading.
I also just wanted to throw out there that I’ve been reading the VN Umineko for a while now, but that’s in English because my fiancée and I read it together. We’re both loving it. While for any real practice I avoid adding English at all, I do have the Japanese voice acting for all dialog, and it has to be worth something that I pay attention to that alongside it, heh. This sort of experience always emphasizes just how much I theoretically know, because with an English guide I can follow big chunks pretty well quite often. It’s just significantly harder when you don’t have that guide to prime your ability to pick out particular words. Again, I know this is mostly incidental exposure and translations necessitate differences (though what I’m noticing is this one is overly direct to the point of some clunky English for sure), but it’s something. I’ve picked up new words here and there that get repeated a ton. Not a lot, but I’ll remember something like 先代 forever. What’s better is this might be the first time ever that I learned a word through pronunciation and then immediately made a guess at what the kanji would be, which turned out to be right.
I watched some more movies!
鉄男II BODY HAMMER
This is the sequel to Tetsuo, and the second Shinya Tsukamoto movie I’ve seen. It’s interesting! The stunning and unusual visuals are still definitely there, although I’d say this sequel loses a bit of something compared to the original. It’s in color (although still with a square aspect ratio), and on the whole it feels to me like it hits the beats of a conventional superhero story much more directly. The presentation is still bizarre and outlandish and full of metal and gears and body horror and allegory. But on the face of it, the beats of “guy beset by villains endangering his family → guy manifests powers → guy fights villains to save family” are there. So it felt a little less like lightning in a bottle I guess is what I mean. And it would probably be unreasonable to expect a new soundtrack as stunning as the first movie’s… but I was still kinda disappointed that the music didn’t blow me away.
But I mean I’m totally here for a weird superhero-ish movie with Shinya Tsukamoto’s sensibilities and stunningly unique effects and Tomorrow Taguchi mugging through his scenes! So I ought not compare it to the original and be very positive about it!
A detail that sticks in my head for some reason - the muscle guys.
As listening practice – well these movies are definitely vibe and visual focused, so there isn’t a giant amount of dialogue to catch and I have a hard time now even remembering how well I did. The first Tetsuo was one of the first Japanese movies where I tentatively turned off the subtitles entirely though, so it’s kinda fun that now I wouldn’t really question turning them off.
電柱小僧の冒険 (“The Adventure of Denchu-Kozo” in this English edition - but I have no idea why you wouldn’t just go with The Adventure of Utility Pole Boy, it’s way way clearer)
This was included with the Tetsuos on the (extremely cool) Arrow set I have of a selection of Tsukamoto’s movies, so I watched it, and counted it as a full film because hey, 45 minutes is almost feature length, and there was probably more dialogue than Tetsuo II…
I actually really liked this one! It’s a predecessor to Tetsuo and… it’s like… Tetsuo + a corny tokusatsu show. It’s about a boy who has a utility pole growing out of his back for no particular reason, getting catapulted into the future and having to fight vampires played by the cast of Tetsuo, basically. The more parodic element (mixed with again, Tsukamoto’s unique and stunning visuals), give the effects much more of like a fun, “sweding” vibe than they do in Tetsuo, and I like the tokusatsu and gag manga influences on display. Although it does also come across as juvenile and silly - it certainly shows promise and the novelty is pretty stunning considering how early a work it is for those involved.
I don’t know exactly how much I caught, but I watched without subtitles and didn’t mind it. It does seem like I missed some an interesting detail or two? I don’t think I picked up the historical associations with the future vampires… it sounds like they’re labeled the Shinsengumi in some way?
徳川女刑罰史 (Shogun’s Joy of Torture)
So… I was very curious to see more movies Teruo Ishii had directed after seeing Horrors of Malformed Men, since he’s a cult director with a very long and prolific career and a handful of movies pretty easy to find. This came up in my backlog system and I was very very trepidatious about it because I don’t actually like the sadism element that’s in a lot of exploitation movies - and the way this is sold definitely pushes that angle (I mean… just look at either title).
“Pleasantly surprised” maybe isn’t the right word because… I mean… there is indeed quite a lot of torture, and especially the beginning and end are very hard to watch… but I was surprised in a positive way! Particularly in that the bulk of the movie felt like it fell into place with contexts I was familiar with - Like it’s definitely no so out there that I can’t see the connections to Ranpo and エログロナンセンス stories, and also to other movies I’ve seen at the time and other Edo period pieces. I was worried it would just be “Torture: The Movie!” and be too out there to enjoy, but it’s not unlike Horrors of Malformed Men – the garishness is just achieved through cruelty rather than phantasmagoria. Which is still less my cup of tea! But at least there’s something there. I also found the visuals often very good, like the striking tattoo in the final part.
The historical angle is also interesting to me – I’m still new enough to knowing anything at all about Japanese history that sensationalized depictions like this about the cruelty of the draconian feudal legal system and its persecution of christians are interesting to me just out of curiosity about what kinds of stories get told about what times.
And I also still get a big kick out of recognizing actors in movies like these (which I would not have expected to recognize actors in if I were still just watching movies in English). Here there was an especially cool case: a highlight for me in the movie was the villainous bisexual nun (it’s… definitely an exploitation movie) in one of the stories. For a few days after seeing the movie it was still nagging me that maybe I’d seen her face somewhere before - and then I figured it out! The actor, 賀川雪絵, plays a major recurring villain in the 70s Toei tokusatsu Spider-Man TV show I’ve been slowly watching occasionally! And she plays a spy in a memorably good episode of Himitsu Sentai Goranger! Not a connection I would have expected, but I guess watching a lot of old tokusatsu earns you a passing familiarity with a lot of 60s and 70s character actors…
Like Horrors of Malformed Men I watched it very late at night so I really don’t know how well I caught the dialogue or if I just floated along on the pictures.
Anyway, a lot better than I was worried it was going to be (but still not recommended unless you know you’re curious because of all the torture)
この空の花 長岡花火物語 (“Casting Blossoms to the Sky” in English)
(Thankfully) completely different, this is a Nobuhiko Obayashi (the House director) movie from 2012 - much later than any of his other movies that I’ve seen, so I was very curious about what to expect - would his characteristic odd and kitschy style have mellowed into something more straightforward?
Turns out no. This is still unmistakably an Obayashi movie, and it underlines for me that that style was always intentional - this has just as much extremely noticeable green screens, cheesy collage, super imposed images, etc. as House, along with some technically very poor CG, and it makes me think that all of those seams being so overt is precisely the point.
The movie is an semi-documentary “essay” exploring the spirit of Nagaoka and the way humans process tragedy and pass it down through generations, via the lens of the Nagaoka Fireworks Festival and its role in celebrating rebirth and survival through various calamities, including the Boshin war, earthquakes, and particularly fire-bombing in world war 2. The movie is very interested in how elder generations describe and pass down experiences of war and tragedy, and you see that processing happen via colorful museum exhibits, by stage play, by 紙芝居 etc., and the movie itself is framed as, and feels like, the memories of a grandparent, of horrible things warmly told.
And all of that really clicked for me in the most elaborate scenes, where Obayashi-style visual effects are falling all over the screen, and people are running around on fire with the fire being obvious green screen covers with fire superimposed on them, and scrawled bombers dropping bombs to mumbled sound effects. It felt then to me like the shoddy or silly effects were the movie visibly acknowledging the failure to convey the reality of those experiences. It felt… haunted (with much sadder and more real ghosts than House).
… But it’s a 2hr and 45m movie, and the sentimentality can definitely get overbearing (a violin can only tug at my heartstrings so many times thanks), particularly with the amount of background detail far outweighing the amount of plot (even if a lot of it is interesting background detail, like information about mock atomic bombs that were dropped before the real one), and the editing frenetically hopping from location and idea to historical recreation and back all the time. As an essay… it could definitely be tightened up.
So not perfect by any means! And your mileage may definitely vary with how successful the approach is at conveying something about war and our reaction to it. But it’s definitely doing something interesting, and I thought it was largely successful!
It’s also a very interesting case when it comes to listening practice - because there’s a lot of dialogue and everyone talks quite fast, but the dialogue is 90% about explaining historical things and not plot-crucial (such as there is a plot) - and for all those discussions, keywords will even frequently appear on screen in subtitle form to let you know the kanji for all sorts of concepts. So it’s maybe sort of perfect for listening practice?
I don’t think I got everything by any means (I’m not 100% sure on some of the exact relationship details between two of the leads, for example), but clearly I took something from the movie, and frankly, watching a 160 minute extremely wordy movie in a foreign language with no English subtitles and staying engaged the entire time seems like an accomplishment in and of itself!
This is billed in English as part of an “antiwar trilogy” by the director - all on Arrow Video’s streaming service and on a really nice looking blu ray set I would totally buy if it weren’t region B. I was thinking of watching all three one after the other but… they’re ALL over two and a half hours!! So… maybe I’ll watch them interspersed with other things…
Oh you’ve been watching so many extremely cool things! I saw Body Hammer a while back as well. Love love love the first Tetsuo, and I like that the second somewhat goes its own way, certainly adding more story than the first had even if it’s still kinda vague. And I thought the blue got a little monotonous eventually, but it’s a stark choice to differentiate it visually. I hate to say I mostly just found it to be a weaker echo of what I liked the first for, but it is what it is. Glad you enjoyed it! I think it’s still neat all the same. There’s some frenetic camera movement I adore, and I recall a brief full experimental segment that made me think it temporarily turned into Stan Brakhage, heh.
I’ve been intending to check out Shogun’s Joy of Torture because at this point I’ve found that a lot of pink films may or may not get kinda reprehensible but they also gave so much freedom to experiment that there’s some really artistic stuff mixed in there too. And it’s very hard to tell on the surface what any given movie of the type is gonna be. Or at least I assume this is a pink film, sure looks like it. Much appreciate your thoughts on it.
And Obayashi! I’ve only seen House, Lovely Devils, and a short called Emotion, but I adore Obayashi. I have a feeling if his other movies connect for me as well as what I’ve seen has, this he could very close to my favorite filmmaker. I’ve been meaning to make the time for Hanagatami for ages now…
On my own end listening has been mostly decent!
For the first 5 parts (of… 60) in スマホを落としただけなのに 's audiobook, I’d say despite missed details I understood enough to totally get what was happening, broadly, which is super cool. I don’t have a lot of experiences of sufficiently following real native audio like this. Ventures to check out a lot of movies still leave me going “I think they might have used a couple words I know once in the last ten minutes” so it is wild how much delivery style (and vocab maybe; I pick things I think won’t be THAT hard but I couldn’t tell for sure precisely because I can’t understand lol) can make my comprehension soar or crash.
Part 6, the introduction of the detectives… well, I just listened and it was close to that experience of knowing no words, but then I read the first few pages of the chapter and it’s a little loaded with proper names, types of plants, lots of stuff that I wouldn’t expect to know. So I guess it’s good news the problem likely isn’t my listening ability exactly. I was also struggling to focus but that’s kind of a chicken and egg thing. Did I go in kinda tired? Probably. But when I totally lose the thread of what’s going on for very long, I end up being more distracted and it’s a vicious cycle that way. I think I heard 蛭 so you had me ready for that one @pocketcat ! I just fumbled on everything else anyway
I also earlier threw on an episode of the podcast 4989 American Life after seeing it regularly recommended as something to learn with that’s a step above content made specifically for learners. And that actually went quite well! It’s run by a Japanese woman who moved to California and talks about cultural differences and the like. I wasn’t wild about the content at first glance but on the other hand starting to find things I understand is pretty rewarding, so I might try listening to more soon.
Haha, I thought about complaining about how blue it is… that movie sure is blue huh!
I really like his movies too! I think I’ve seen… 6 at this point? House, ねらわれた学園, 漂流教室, 時をかける少女, 瞳の中の訪問者, and the one I just talked about. They’re all very interesting! ねらわれた学園 is maybe the one I’d recommend the most of those - it’s like, a goofy sci-fi thing with more of a lead-up than House but it does get pretty safely off the rails I’d say. And in a completely different way, this one I just watched is definitely worth watching and much more serious and personal while still maintaining that unmistakable uh, 大林っぽさ.
Hanagatami is marketed as the third in the antiwar trilogy so I expect to get to it soon! I’m curious how similar or dissimilar it will be. if it doesn’t turn out to be a meandering video essay then it’s not really a trilogy now is it.The other ones you mentioned look really interesting too! 
Decided it’s been long enough for an update and realistically I don’t finish series in any sort of sensible timeline unless I’m watching them as episodes air.
三毛猫ホームズの推理 (2012) (started)
I mentioned in another thread that they chose a very “2012 attractive” actor for 片山刑事 and upon googling…he’s a member of Arashi I feel like every time I discuss crime shows with people who aren’t into them the main comment they have is “The lead is from [boy (men?) group]!” Apparently the lead of 密告はうたう ( 松岡昌宏) is another Johnny’s member and another show that I’ve yet to finish (レッドアイズ) is led by yet another Johnny’s talent, 亀梨和也.
I have nothing against this, I just find it entertaining.
Anyways watching the above show I suspect it’s where 押井刑事 got the “can’t even look at women, so flustered” gag. Listening wise I’ve been going subless and it’s fine. I miss a few things here and there, but I haven’t lost the plot at any point.
BL世界vsBLになりたくない男 seasons 1 and 2 (finished)
I love 犬飼 from 押井刑事 and this show is just…so silly. I love it. Sort of meta humor making fun of romcom/BL tropes while simultaneously acting them out. I sometimes have to rewatch to catch all the words and there’s definitely a lot more slang than I’m used to, but overall I can watch pretty easily subless.
金田一少年の事件簿 (started)
Just started watching the newest iteration (it’s been made…4 or 5 times over the years?). Loved the first episode. I watched it with JP subs but honestly think I would have been fine without and might do future episodes that way. Basically about high school boy detective - pretty standard stuff, but it’s fun. I recognize 道枝駿佑 from 消えた初恋 and 上白石萌歌 from ソロモンの偽証…and something else I’ve forgotten.
警視庁文書捜査官 Season 2 (finished)
Love love love female detectives and especially older lady detectives. This show was a ton of fun, but there’s no way I would have managed without JP subs as all the cases involve discussion of words, history of words, calligraphy, and so on. Way outside my listening comfort zone still.
I also started りか the movie and I’m not sure I’ll finish it. I loved リカリバース (absolutely hilarious) and the りか tv drama I haven’t finished yet, but it’s been a lot of fun. But the movie…aside from featuring an actor I don’t really vibe with (市原隼人 - sorry anyone who likes him!) also is…oddly horrifying? I guess I walked in expecting it to be campy and absurd horror like the tv series and instead it was actually unpleasant, at least the beginning portion I watched.
It’s revealed that her most recent stalking victim’s eyes, tongue, legs, and arms were found laid out neatly in his apartment and the rest of his body missing (this is shown on screen, but is sorta campy). We’re led to assume he’s dead. 4 years later we find out that a corpse was found abandoned in a suitcase…and it’s the same guy. She’s been keeping him alive with no eyes, tongue, arms, or legs and feeding him and telling him all about their lovely “relationship”. He finally died choking on food when she wasn’t paying attention.
That’s just…too much for me. It’s very Johnny Got His Gun vibes but with torture as an added ‘bonus’
Finally I started 冴えて冴えてなほ滑稽な月 but I’ll wait til I’m done to review it. It’s…something else 
Though I am unforgivably late, please accept my listening update for April!
I did my Johnny’s group immersion challenge (Sexy Zone) and watched 10 variety episodes or behind the scenes videos, a drama (below), and a concert, plus some music.
A lot of fighting and running around and getting beaten up and making poor decisions. It was inoffensive and good to do anki to.
I also finished another drama:
An unexpected delight, with wonderful characters wonderfully written and acted. Season two! Season two!
My variety show numbers aren’t where they should be to meet my yearly goal, but I might have to revise that down anyway… For now I’ll try to get some more VS嵐 in, because that’s the way toward happiness anyway.
Speaking of Arashi,
I’ve seen that drama! I hope you enjoy it~
Have you seen 未解決の女?? I feel like you might like it as well. I started it with low expectations and it became something I loved. 
I haven’t been particularly closely tracking what I’m listening to because it’s been scattered and messy, but I’m super happy with my progress.
In retrospect I realize that right about when I started asking for help and talking about my struggling was when I was turning the corner into more listening abilities. That or we can just credit the advice I got for totally fixing me. 
I think more than anything I just needed a little more time, a little more reading even, to get to the point where I’m able to process (sufficiently simple) Japanese at around actual speaking speed. For a bit now I’ve been practicing without subtitles, continuing that aforementioned audiobook (12/60). The difficulty varies by section, and I totally lose the thread here and there, but overall I’m happy with how often I do track what’s going on, broadly speaking. I’ve also been logging tons of hours absentmindedly killing a little time with Youtube lets plays and the like. I was recently suggested a good playthrough of the first Judgment game which serves the excellent double purpose of showing me that game’s writing before I try to tackle the sequel sometime later this year. Finally, I throw on that 4989 American Life podcast I mentioned when I’m doing other things; it’s simple and clear enough to be decently comprehensible for me. I just listened to her talk about how American cling wrap is bad (it’s true!) so it’s about as mundane as you can possibly get, haha, but the host is charming. She has that vibe of extreme earnestness but not really in the overbearing way.
That said, subtitles are still much appreciated for what I think are two reasons.
1: I’m still bad with voices that aren’t specifically trying to be super clear. I turn on movies sometimes, which tend to be hard to get subtitles for, and I often still feel like I’m back in my first month when I was desperate to pick out the words I knew here and there. The clarity in things that are voice acted like games and anime makes an enormous difference for me. My inability to watch most live action films I want to and get a satisfactory amount of comprehension aggravates me, but it’s easier to trust that I’ll get there now that I’m seeing real listening progress.
2: I’m so reliant on kanji. This is probably pretty natural for people who tend to first learn through reading, and doubly for those studying kanji (somewhat) in isolation like Wanikani’s method. There’s a huge lag on what makes it to the point I can recognize it by sound alone. Sometimes to the degree that it’s a little unnerving, but for now I’m trying to trust that if I just do more and more it’ll sort itself out. If it somehow doesn’t, I guess I can think more about reviewing my knowledge without kanji in some way, but really, I imagine just more listening (and even more reading) is the way to go.
I’m partly making this post because I only recently went back to poking around material with subtitles and I surprised myself at how well I’m starting to follow those. In addition to a few other previews, after being hassled by my friends and the general internet culture for years I finally watched the first episode of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure. Truly one of the most… dramatic things I’ve seen in my life lol. But it was kinda fun, and I followed quite a lot of it. It’s a few steps up in intensity from the slice of life stuff too.
Just calling out that ミステリと言う勿れ is now on Viki and while they don’t have JP subs as yet, watching it subless, then rewatching with Eng subs (or vis versa?) is still totally worth it because it’s such an amazing show. 
I just saw this challenge and I’ll join, too. I usually listen to TV Japan later in the evenings, after everything else is done, for at least 1/2 an hour, but usually more. I seem to understand the news broadcasts and children’s programs more than anything else. Most of the programs have Japanese subtitles. Compared to when I first started, I am understanding more and more of the spoken language. It’s still slow going, though. But, like anything else, practice improves my skills.
I also listen to the audio of my Graded Readers.
