Quick Review #28: "Tonde Saitama ~ Biwako yori ai wo komete ~"

Title: Tonde Saitama ~ Biwako yori ai wo komete ~ / 翔んで埼玉 ~ 琵琶湖より愛をこめて ~

Rating: 7 /10

Recommended for: 

Those who don't mind ludicrous settings for the sake of laughs and entertainment

Liked:

- In line with what the first movie had done, the sequel turned out to be as outrageous, if not taking things up a notch with its far-fetched and nonsensical settings and developments. If you don't mind the sometimes senseless humour and are game for some light entertainment, this should be good for you.

- The thing about comedy is, if the cast don't fully immerse themselves into their roles and their self-consciousness and awkwardness show on screen, the end result would not be as engaging to the audience. I don't know if the cast ever felt out of place or uncomfortable at any time with regard to the things they had to do for this movie but everyone seemed to have a good time and fun in this movie. I think that helped me to enjoy the film more even though I kept rolling eyes at some parts of the story. And since they waited till Gackt recovered from his illness to do the filming, the teamwork and bond among the cast members was rather evident even with some new big names added to the sequel's lineup. Definitely worth checking out are real-life celebrity couple Kataoka Ainosuke and Fujiwara Norika playing a couple in the film as well as An who had a meaty role here.

- Keep a lookout for the celebrity and famous things battle between the warring prefectures. I wonder though how the celebrities featured this time felt about having their photos shown in this movie?

Disliked: 

- The novelty factor was a tad weaker than the first movie which was refreshingly nonsensical. The problem is, expectations would definitely be raised for the sequel as a result of the first movie's success and the been-there-done-that feel was hard to ignore. As such, that actually worked against the sequel to some extent since there were big shoes to fill.

- While Nikaidou Fumi was still Gackt's love interest in this sequel, the time that their characters were actually apart was so significant that it felt like Nikaidou had her screentime cut drastically and was on her own while Gackt was flirting with An. It was a pity though because I quite liked Nikaidou's character Momomi and her chemistry with Gackt. Not to say that An and Gackt didn't go well together though.

- The regional or prefectural differences which are an integral part of the story's depiction of status hierarchy may be lost on viewers who are not familiar with these. It's like the joke is lost somehow if you cannot understand what is the significance of these differences between localities and why one is considered superior or inferior to the other. This might mean that only people who know why these things matter would enjoy the story more than those who don't. While the first movie touched on the differences between Saitama and Tokyo which I would say are relatively well-known, I'm not sure if the same can be said about Shiga and the Kansai prefectures featured in this sequel.