New Manga (to the US): A. I. Revolution

This manga came out in Japan 13 years ago, so you will have to forgive the clothing and the absence of the Internet ;p. Despite the age, this simply is not a very good manga. Basically it's a bunch of loosely tied stories about a teenage girl, Sui, and the two robots her father created for her. One robot she names "Vermilion" is a mother robot put into the body of a handsome male y that looks like her father's dead friend. The other is a very beautiful male robot with a gay narcissist personality. The stories are pretty shallow, mainly involving Sui and her friends getting into a dire situation and Vermilion coming to their rescue. I found it rather bizarre that the robots have female personalities paired with a male body. I'm not sure what the point is with this. Perhaps it would have been interesting to experiment with a Mom-robot in a female body.

There's better robot/A.I. shoujo manga out there -- "Chobits" (for the 18+ crowd), "Zettai Kareshi" ("Absolute Boyfriend") (for the 16+ crowd), and "Planet Ladder" come to mind as manga I enjoyed. Ken Akamatsu's "A.I. Love You" didn't appeal to me, but many readers enjoy this manga too.

Anyhow, I will not be buying volume 2 of this series because I found the first volume too benign to be interesting.

Live Action: Romantic Princess

This probably doesn't belong on this blog. Oh well, I'm going to talk about it anyway.

I started watching this show a few months ago and I was really into it. The story starts with a girl, Shao-Mai, who happily lives with her parents in a run-down part of Taiwan. Shao-Mai dreams of earning a lot of money one day so she can buy a castle. Ah, but be careful what you wish for ... One day some very important men show up at her door and tell Shao-Mai's parents that Shao-Mai is actually the long lost granddaughter of the richest man in Taiwan, Huangfu, and that her grandfather wants Shao-Mai to live with him.

Huangfu has no heirs, so he brought in four brothers to raise to possibly be his heir. The front runner is Jin, a serious, intelligent, and handsome young man who does not want to handed over the position of heir. He would rather earn his position through his own hard work. Huangfu has planned for Jin to married his granddaughter. And so goes the story -- Jin and Shao-Mai fall in love, but Jin's desire to be free of the Huangfu keeps them apart.

As I said before, I was really into this show and then suddenly during the 7th episode, I lost all interest. I can't completely figure out why, but now I don't care and the show seems really stupid. I guess I was waiting for Jin to do something bright like run away with Shao-Mai so they could live the simple existence of hard work that they wanted. I'm tired of the glamour shots of boys in cars, boats, and luxury hotel rooms. Sigh ... Oh, well ... it makes me feel like I'm old and fuddy-duddy to give up this way.

The Devil Beside You -- Live Action Taiwanese Version

I honestly tried watching this drama since it came highly recommended from the Crunchy Roll drama forum. The first 5 or so episodes were really good and then the show went to repetitive suckdom and I became bored. I read the manga a couple of years ago and I remembered the basic premise -- high school deliquent who is also the son of the school's director decides he "wants" the main character who's mother is going to marry the school's director, the result being a pair of "dangerous" siblings. For whatever reason the two don't realize since they aren't blood related that it's okay. I remember reading the manga and getting tired of the main female character asking "what should I do?" every other page as repeated misfortune and misunderstanding followed one after another. It felt the same way watching this too and to a greater extent since the actress playing the main character is really good at pouting. The main male character is played by an actor with lots of charisma, but even his charisma isn't enough to keep me hooked. Oh well ...

Series Review: Hanazakarino Kimitachi e -- Taiwanese Live Action Version

I finally finished this series last night and it was good until the last two episode. This series follows the manga pretty closely and concluded with the photo shoot. It seemed, though, as if the screen writers didn't know how to end the series, so there was a lot of filler and Rei Xi (Mizuki) and Shu Yi (Nakatsu) became louder, shriller, and more over dramatic as things wore on. I got so irritated with the actors that I fast-forwarded through a lot of the hystronics. I, also, still was bugged by the appearance of the actress who played Rei Xi. No matter how I looked at her, she was not cute. Her way of moving and her expressions were not that of someone who is a girl or of someone 16/17 year old. In the outdoor photoshoot scene I finally figured it out. She looks like a chubby cheeked ten year old, very much like the curly headed Coke-girl from about 10-years back. She also acted like a very loud and very hyper 10-year boy, which made it hard for me to believe that her character could feel romantic love -- which may have actually been a reflection of the heart of the actress, because she had absolutely no chemistry with Jian (Sano) so the sexual tension the two experience while living together doesn't get expressed (or rather it's expressed one-sidedly by the actor that plays Jian, but comes off all wrong because of the Rei Xi's actress). The actor that played Jian is very good and definitely looks the part. I felt so bad, though, that he had to act like he was romantically in love with a chubby-cheeked androgenous child. It felt more like a big-brother looking after little brother more than anything. I did like that they added the extra element of Shu Yi falling in love with Julia. I had hoped that that would happen in the manga and I was disappointed when it didn't. It seemed that the way that they argued indicated an underlying attraction, or so I had hoped.

Anyhow, I think this version of the story really understood the craziness of the situation of both Mizuki and Sano holding on tightly to an illusion so they can be together, but at the same time using the illusion to protect themselves from hurt. I think it also dealt well with Sano's internal struggle against himself with regards to high-jump, keeping Mizuki's secret and how he uses her secret to toy with her. I think though, I would have like to have seen this actor go through the emotions of finally breaking down and his efforts to finally get he and Mizuki to move toward to confess their feelings. Instead, they left them in the illusion. I also like the way they handle the doctor and his gayness in such matter-of-fact and straightforward way.

I give this 5/5 for Jian and doctor and an overall 3/5 because Rei Xi wasn't convincing and the last two episodes were really annoying. They really missed the point that Mizuki in no way looks like a boy or acts like one, but rather she cuts her hair, puts on boys clothing, goes to a boy's school and convinces herself into believing that everyone takes her as a boy. And most everyone believes she's a boy because they assume that a girl wouldn't choose to go to an all boys school. It's a circle arguement.

Hanazakarino Kimitachi e -- Taiwanese Live Action Version

I have watched the first 5 episodes of this 15 episode long version of Hana-Kimi and I find it quite good. At first I didn't like that the actress that plays the Mizuki character (Mizuki is called Rei Xi in the version) because she actually looks like a chubby unattactractive boy -- well more like a "Pat" type from SNL -- but I think I've gotten used to her (and her overacting). The other characters are well played and well cast, especially the Sano character (Jian or Quan depending on the fansubber group) and the Nakatsu character (Shu Yi). This version, so far, follows the manga very closely, so it's very satisfying to watch. There are some deviations that had to be made to account for the casting of the Rei Xi. Instead of Jian inspiring her when she was being teased at home for being Asian, Rei Xi was teased instead for being fat. It's a change that doesn't affect the story at all. Anyhow, I'm really enjoying it and I'm wondering at what point in the story it will end it since at the end of episode 5, the story is at the beginning of the 3rd volume of the manga. Hmm ... we'll see ...

Hanazakari no Kimitachi e -- Japanese Live Action Version Continued

I found a fansubbed version of the new Hana-Kimi series on Crunchy Roll. Basically, this live action version is, indeed, very loosely based on the manga. The basic scenario is the same -- girl disguises herself to enter an all boy's school to be with the boy she admires. The characters are present, but they are not like the manga. There are elements of the scenarios in the manga, but they had been chopped into small bits and rearranged. Mizuki's reason being at Ousaka is changed too. In this version, she comes there knowing that Sano no longer does the high jump and she has the goal in mind of making him jump again. It also seems that Sano does not realize right away that Mizuki is a girl (or maybe he could know who she is since in this version he gets the injury that ends his high jumping while saving her from street thugs a year before she enters the school). There are lots of other things changed too, which is frustrating if you compare it the manga, so I've decided not to associate this with the manga and take the show for what it is. Once I did that, I have decided that the show is watchable. The scenes between Ashiya and Sano, Ashiya and Dr. Umeda, and Ashiya and Nakatsu are charming but the scenes with the accessory characters are mostly pathetically silly fan service. I imagine as I continue to watch this series, I will be fast forwarding through the fan service. I also find the St. Blossoms girls to be very annoying. Sigh ...

Hanazakari no Kimitachi e -- Japanese Live Action Version

There's a live action version of "Hanazakari no kimitachi e" (For you in Full Blossom) this season. I watched the raw of the first episode and it is VERY loosely based on the manga. There is no coherence in the activities and the show appears, so far, to be a bunch of fan service for teenage girls (male and female -- 'nuff said). I'll give the second episode a chance to see if they attempt to do something more than fan service. If the second episode is equally as crappy or crappier than the first, then I will not following this show. The first episode, though, was truly disappointing.

I did some digging around and there's also a live action version that came out of Taiwan. I'm going to see if this version is any better. Fortunately, this version is subtitled in English.

I'd love to see an anime version or a live action version of this come out that is closer to the manga. I realize that would difficult, though, considering that the manga is 23 volumes. I think, though, if there is a savvy screenwriter involved, they story could be satisfactorily told in ~13 - 24-episodes. There's lots of stuff to cut or abbreviate like the story around doctor and his lover, the scavenger hunt (or whatever that was), the appearance of Hajima's little twin bothers, the lake story where Nakatsu is possessed, ... to point out a few. Sigh ... oh, well, ... I love the manga, so I guess it's alright that it's not been made into anime.

Nodame Cantabile Season 1, The Live Action Version

I finished watching the first season of the live action version of "Nodame Cantabile" a couple of days ago. Portions of it I downloaded from d-addicts via bittorent and portions of it I downloaded from crunchyroll.com (after I got tired of waiting for the bittorrorrent to trickle down). The version on d-addicts is very high-quality (widescreen and high resolution) compared to what's available on Crunchyroll. However, if you can't wait, then crunchyroll is a good way to get your fix and then you can archive the high-quality version once it's downloaded (that's what I plan to do).

Back the show ... I am currently reading the manga (half-way through volume 10 in Japanese) and watching the fansubbed anime. So far I think the manga is the best version of this story, followed by the anime and then the live action version. All of them are good, actually, so if you like the story a lot, then you should view all three versions and appeciate each one's take on the story and the characters.

The live action version is not as close to the manga as the anime is. Chiaki's uncle's family is not introduced, rather Saiko takes on some of the actions of the family and Chiaki's mother. I felt this was awkard since she was romantically involved with Chiaki and ended up quite jealous (violently so) of Nodame's relationship with Chiaki. I really liked the way Saiko disappeared from the story after abusing Nodame in the restroom in the manga. This version also skips the music "camp" in Nakano, making it necessary to have Kiyora be the concert mistress of the A-orchesta. I didn't mind this so much. I liked that Sakura the, contrabass girl, was given a larger role in the story. She was really cute, just like I imagined her to be. I also liked the portrayal of Masumi, who also was acted just as I imagined him to be and better. His hair is a sight to behold and his unabashed happy-friendly gayness is just too adorable. Mine was pretty good too. I didn't like the way they did his hair, though, because I thought it was too long and wild. The way he was portrayed reminded me of how I imagine Nakatsu from Hana-Kimi to be. Again, this was okay, but in my mind he's a lot cooler than the goof they made him to be in the live action version (the anime is more representative of what I imagine).

Onto the main characters. I will start with Nodame. I think the actress they chose to play Nodame was just about perfect -- pouty lips and all. I wish, though, that she was a little bit younger. The actress seems to have control over her Nodame; expressing Nodame's childlike nature, her unfettered love for Chiaki and her quick temper nicely. She is quite authentic.

I'm still not quite sure I like this Chiaki. The actor looks a little too old and very effeminant. I think the actor handled the dramatic parts well, but he sucked at the comedic elements. It seems as though he could not flow back and forth between the serious and the rediculous as well as the other actors and his discomfort with the comedy broke the illusion for me. I think if had been directed to be the "Straight Man" all the way through and had expressed Chiaki's frustrations in more subtle and "humanlike" fashions it would have worked better.

The creators of the the live action version of "Nodame Cantabile" decided to leave in some of the elements of comic rediculousness in the story, at times, making some scenes appear as though they were pulled directly from "Looney Tunes." Sometimes this worked for me and other times it did not. The times it did not work for me were when Chiaki abuses Nodame. In the manga we accept this because I think we as readers don't really think he's hitting or actually abusing Nodame. It is more like what he imagines he could do to her, like we all imagine when people get on our nerves. To see the abuse happen on live people was actually quite disturbing. I don't know if this a cultural thing though, since to an American, abusing women and children is not acceptable and to many Americans abhorrent. Outside of that, the fanciful visions of Nodame being pampered by Chiaki on a tropical island and of her as cat are nice and add a lot of flavor to the execution of the story.

In conclusion, if you like "Nodame Cantabile" and haven't seen the live action version, then you should see it because it is enjoyable.