Honey and Clover movie!
Jan. 13th, 2008 10:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jinianNote to Seattle folk: This is playing at the Grand Illusion until Thursday. If you're a fan, definitely go see it; if not, it's still pretty good.
Note to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
marzipan_pig, whom I dragged along: Series background at Wikipedia.
Disclaimer: I have only seen the anime and as much manga as has been in Shojo Beat so far, and the anime was about nine months ago. If I'm misremembering something, please don't hesitate to tell me so!
There were clearly some adaptations that needed to be made to get this into the shorter movie format, and some additions that were great. Rika was simplified too much; movie-Rika's husband disappeared five years ago and she isn't injured at all, so her withdrawal from intimacy makes (I think) less emotional sense. Morita's massive obsession with money is transformed into commercial artistic success, which is set up in opposition to Hagu's free-spirited pursuit of art for its own sake in a way that really works rather well despite its departure form the source material. There is no Meat Guy, alas, and he is replaced by a weird and unnecessary Meat Song at a barbecue on the boys' roof. The best addition was a scene with Hagu and Morita cooperatively painting a giant canvas in the courtyard. But WHERE WERE THE FERRIS WHEELS?
Hagu and Takemoto were practically perfect. Though of course it's weird to see them both black-haired and Hagu the size of a normal person, they both looked and acted very right. Ayu was reasonably good, though there was no Tetsujin nature and instead we got her teaching art to young kids outdoors several times, which is where the only four-leafed clover reference was wedged in. Mayama was unjustly reduced to only a pathetic stalker, while Morita kept his craziness and talent but not much else, not even the money fixation.
Nyan-zaburo was hilarious in live-action.
They did squash in the whole plot of both anime series, but they missed out a lot of good stuff in so doing. No korobokkuru website, no ferris wheels, drastically reduced bike trip to the point that it didn't make sense for the construction guys to give Takemoto their contact info, no (perhaps unpalatable) Hagu choosing a man bit. Hagu's kiss was not right; Morita was too cool about it. They succeeded in keeping the Yamada piggyback scene, though, and lots of other good stuff. Overall, I think as a sort of alternate universe version of the story they did an excellent job.
(No doubt I will think of nineteen things I'm not remembering right now as soon as I post this.)
[ETA: Yep! Only one shot of Takemoto making the rococo, with no background on why; no injury to Hagu; Mayama's second job reduced to a single scene of clear lameness, which means none of those great characters at all, so no arc for Ayu. More subtly, Hagu was less childlike, though that meant she got to call Morita on his crap more, which was great.]
Note to
marzipan_pig, whom I dragged along: Series background at Wikipedia.Disclaimer: I have only seen the anime and as much manga as has been in Shojo Beat so far, and the anime was about nine months ago. If I'm misremembering something, please don't hesitate to tell me so!
There were clearly some adaptations that needed to be made to get this into the shorter movie format, and some additions that were great. Rika was simplified too much; movie-Rika's husband disappeared five years ago and she isn't injured at all, so her withdrawal from intimacy makes (I think) less emotional sense. Morita's massive obsession with money is transformed into commercial artistic success, which is set up in opposition to Hagu's free-spirited pursuit of art for its own sake in a way that really works rather well despite its departure form the source material. There is no Meat Guy, alas, and he is replaced by a weird and unnecessary Meat Song at a barbecue on the boys' roof. The best addition was a scene with Hagu and Morita cooperatively painting a giant canvas in the courtyard. But WHERE WERE THE FERRIS WHEELS?
Hagu and Takemoto were practically perfect. Though of course it's weird to see them both black-haired and Hagu the size of a normal person, they both looked and acted very right. Ayu was reasonably good, though there was no Tetsujin nature and instead we got her teaching art to young kids outdoors several times, which is where the only four-leafed clover reference was wedged in. Mayama was unjustly reduced to only a pathetic stalker, while Morita kept his craziness and talent but not much else, not even the money fixation.
Nyan-zaburo was hilarious in live-action.
They did squash in the whole plot of both anime series, but they missed out a lot of good stuff in so doing. No korobokkuru website, no ferris wheels, drastically reduced bike trip to the point that it didn't make sense for the construction guys to give Takemoto their contact info, no (perhaps unpalatable) Hagu choosing a man bit. Hagu's kiss was not right; Morita was too cool about it. They succeeded in keeping the Yamada piggyback scene, though, and lots of other good stuff. Overall, I think as a sort of alternate universe version of the story they did an excellent job.
(No doubt I will think of nineteen things I'm not remembering right now as soon as I post this.)
[ETA: Yep! Only one shot of Takemoto making the rococo, with no background on why; no injury to Hagu; Mayama's second job reduced to a single scene of clear lameness, which means none of those great characters at all, so no arc for Ayu. More subtly, Hagu was less childlike, though that meant she got to call Morita on his crap more, which was great.]
