Ah, finally subbed, I had been waiting for this ever since it came out in theaters in Japan. Being a live action movie, I kept my expectations low as they seldom, if ever, manage to be as good as their anime/manga counterparts. However, this one ported over fairly well.

Plot

From what I can remember, the movie is adapted from only the first season, so nothing about Morita’s past or the whole Hagu ordeal was covered. The movie took random bits from the first season are taken and compiled in a random order, and also added a few scenes that weren’t in the anime.

Obligatory Hagu shot

One thing that struck me as odd was that the cast didn’t seem to be friends at the beginning of the movie. Everyone had a rough idea of who everyone was, living under the same roof and all. But the bond between them seemed to develop as the movie went along, as opposed to having already been established from the beginning in the anime. Hell, Morita didn’t even know Takemoto’s name at the start of the movie.

Of the scenes that were taken directly out of the anime, there was:
- Beach/Onsen trip, complete with Morita’s soy sauce wallscroll
- Yamada’s piggyback confession
- Takemoto’s bike journey
They were each slightly tweaked, but in essence those scenes were cut and paste from the anime.

If I had to pin a main storyline to the plot, I suppose it would be the Morita, Takemoto and Hagu love triangle. A large portion of the movie was concentrated on Morita and Hagu interacting as both love interests and aspiring artists. Other than that there’s also the implied rivalry between Morita and Takemoto, though nothing really erupts between them as it did in the anime.

Bye bye ¥5,000,000

The rest of the movie was dedicated to random parties and a seemingly rushed attempt at examining the Yamada, Mayama and Rika love triangle.

While managing to somewhat mirror the non-linear “slice of life” feel that the anime had going for it, the events in the movie seemed less like a depiction of everyday life and more like randomly chosen snippets of youth. Although…trying to compress around 8 hours of anime into a 2 hour movie leaves you with no other choice.

Characters

While the characters did not get nearly as much time to develop as their anime counterparts, they managed to be relatively faithful and the acting was (surprisingly) not half bad.

Takemoto: Never would have thought possible, but the live action version of Takemoto is even weirder and more awkward than in the anime. Though not as indecisive, his inability to cope with conflict and decisions is still apparent. And even when he does manage to gather courage to say…ask Hagu out for lunch, he looks like he’s about to fall on the ground and start seizing up.

I also don’t like how his bike journey was done, it was taken completely out of context. In the anime he left because he was at a loss as to what to do in life, on the verge of graduating and not knowing what to do afterwards, he sets out to “find himself”. However, the movie does not do enough to stress that he is confused in life, and the timing of the scene made it seem like he was running away because of Hagu.

Morita: Morita was just scary X_X His insanity in the movie went horribly wrong, he came off as arrogant and overpowering whereas in the anime his insanity is more on the playful side. He was also much more blunt in the movie, saying and doing whatever he felt like, as opposed to the anime where he playfully avoided conflict.

Mayama: Wow they really took his stalker tendencies to the limits. He stalks Rika, acknowledges that he’s stalking her AND recognizes that it’s wrong. He goes as far as the gather random things that Rika has used and save them in labeled zip lock bags which he hangs on his walls -_-”

He also looks MUCH nerdier than his anime counterpart.

Someone should call the police…er, the real ones

Mayama stalks Rika

Yamada: Another stalker -_-” Same infatuation with Mayama as in the anime, same confession, and interestingly enough…same oversize eyes O_O.

Yamada stalks Mayama

Rika: Rika’s only role in the movie is as a stalking victim, poor girl =(

Coincidence my ass, this must have been awkward

Mario/Luigi: *cue mario bros. theme* XD Uh…not much to say about them, cept they might be gay (Uguu~! shock-u)

Nazi cat mascot:

*Kyon sigh*

Thoughts

Not a bad movie overall, I’ll probably burn it and toss it with the rest of my anime to be dug up and watched one day. If nothing else it brought back wonderful memories of watching the anime series, which I have a strong urge to rewatch right now, but alas I have too much backlog and school work to do so D=.

Damn. I wish I was an art student…

~ Shirukii ~