Matsuda Ryuhei needs to stop maiming people

My current MSN display message, the previous one being Nobunaga vs. tamagochi: round 1 fight! Matsuda Ryuhei turns up in a lot of Fantasia movies, and I realised yesterday that he commits horrible murders in most of the ones I've seen. Or at least causes people to die in awful ways. Or both. I've always wanted to write a media essay on the alienating quality of Matsuda Ryuhei's looks and how they're employed by his films' directors as a signifier of his character's unworldiness/inhumanity/outsider status/whatever, but then I am the only person who thinks Matsuda Ryuhei is pretty in an alienating way. Everyone else just thinks he's pretty. Maybe I should write a media essay on how he always plays homicidal maniacs.

Every year I try to write these newspaper-column-length reviews of Fantasia movies and peter out after three or four, because I have to get to the next movie and just haven't the time. No more. This year the blurbs will be short, opinionated and plot/spoiler-free.

( Ashura )

( The Taste of Tea )