I just watched this in Japanese Theaters (Opening Night!!!), we have to wait a little longer until it comes out on DVD.

I'm not gonna lie, it felt like the producers were riding on the hype of the drama, that they forgot how to make a compelling story. The Drama was great, the Novel was amazing, but this movie. . . had too much kiss scenes and way too many plot lines and plot holes that it felt rushed and empty. The feelings of happiness, jealousy, and envy that we had of Hira and Kiyoi's love were replaced with just feelings of "What did I just watch?"

Having read the novel and listened to the drama CD, it felt like the producers were trying to backtrack on the changes they made in the drama, so they can just continue with the plot of the novel. However, after backtracking, there was no time to fill the audience in on the important character and their thoughts, so the producers just hoped that the audience had read the novel and threw in the scenes that we wanted to see and prayed we didn't notice the characters were just empty shells of the characters they were in the novel. Finally they hoped that all the beautiful cinematography and kiss scenes would make the audience forget that the plot wasn't very good.

If I were to sum it up into one sentence it would be: Too Many Ideas, Too Many Unnecessary Kiss Scenes, Wasted Potential!

Just listen to the Drama CD. It takes the novel and actually gives us what we want to see from Hira and Kiyoi. It's so much better than the movie.

I'm not saying the movie was bad, as someone who's read and listened to a better version of this plot, I'm not very satisfied with this film.


•❅✧❅✦ Story •❅✧❅✦

Taking place after Season 2, Hira is notified by his cousin, Naho-chan, that she is divorcing her husband and that Hira needs to move out of the house because she is moving back in. Devastated, Hira informs Kiyoi they need to move. The couple begins house hunting together. Meanwhile both Kiyoi and Hira are progressing in their careers. Hira is about to graduate college and is slowly getting better at his photography job. Kiyoi is getting more popular thanks to his work with his co-star Anna.

At work, Hira sees his photographer boss take beautiful pictures of Anna. He gets jealous that we won't be able to take beautiful pictures of Kiyoi and turns down an opportunity to help his boss take Kiyoi's pictures. Kiyoi is devastated to find out that Hira turned down an opportunity to help shoot his pictures, but is also devastated to find out that Hira said he doesn't have anything he wants to shoot.

One day Anna is caught by the paparazzi with her idol boyfriend. It becomes a huge scandal and they are forced to break up and Anna's work is halted resulting in all of Kiyoi's jobs being halted as well. When Kiyoi visits Anna to try and cheer her up, he is caught leaving her place by the paparazzi and is also thrown into the scandal. Anna's fans begin to attack Kiyoi on twitter and even his fans start gossiping about him. One of Anna's deranged fans, Shitara, takes things too far and kidnaps Kiyoi.

So just reading the synopsis there is a lot to unpack. All of that plus more was in the novel and portrayed well in the drama CDs. However, the film failed spectacularly. There was only 2 hours to fit all of that into the movie and not a lot of time was spent building up the characters. Major characters like Anna and Shitara did not have any character development that no one cared if Anna got into a scandal. Shitara's character was also highly neglected, so when he plays the victim card and goes on a rant about how Hira should understand how he feels as a fan after kidnapping Kiyoi, it just gets lost and feels really out of place. The whole kidnapping arch with Shitara feels very rushed and left field that it needs its own movie or another hour.


Personally, I felt that the director spent too much time on the kiss scenes and couple scenes that he neglects the whole plot. There were way too many kiss scenes. A lot of the kiss scenes that should have been in Season 1 (Novel 1) were brought into this movie. Kiyoi looking in the mirror as they make out is a reference to events in Novel 1, but was unneeded in this film as he's already pretty comfortable with himself being with Hira and calling Hira his boyfriend. Also that whole mesh veil that Kiyoi and Hira keep kissing under is visually appealing, maybe symbolic, but has no place in this film. It just looks like a random cloth that I would take off when making out with my man. That mesh looked good in Season 1 and felt natural because it fell onto them after Kiyoi kicked the boxes. In his film, nothing falls on them, so that mesh looks so out of place. Lastly, the whole montage where Kiyoi and Hira are running through their high school as adults and we see flashes of them back in high school was very beautiful, but unnecessary. I would have liked a lot of the time spent on the kiss scenes to be spent on building up the characters.


•❅✧❅✦ What Should Have Happened (Novel vs Film) •❅✧❅✦

The film itself isn't bad, but because they followed the plot of the novel without giving lots of characters any backstories, the film felt a little empty.

The film still follows the plot of the novel, but mostly from Hira's point of view. If felt like Kiyoi wasn't important in this film. A lot of the film focused on Hira and Anna's issues that they forgot to deal with Kiyoi's issues.

Kiyoi's issues are supposed to be that he's not getting his own acting jobs. All of his jobs are gained with Anna's help and he feels like he's riding on her coattails and he doesn't like it. He wants to make a name for himself without Anna. Anna actually tells him that Kiyoi's not a great actor because he puts on a strong front and his not vulnerable enough to be a victim, so he can't get sensitive roles. During the kidnapping arch with Shitara, Kiyoi is supposed to feel like Hira doesn't love him. Kiyoi heard from Kira's photography boss that Hira no longer has anything he wants to shoot. Heartbroken, Kiyoi feels like he's in love with Hira on his own and that Hira has moved on. He doesn't know what to do since Hira is his everything. After being kidnapped, Anna and Hira are supposed to come and save him. Kira is supposed to go insane with worry and cry inconsolably leading to Anna changing her mind about Kiyoi as a person and as an actor. The film however, did not include any of that. They axed all of that to look at it from Hira's point of view. Because of this, the scene where Kiyoi cries inconsolably is cut very short and feels a little strange. A really big missed opportunity.

Similarly Shitara's connection with Hira isn't included, so he is a big "Who are you?" in the film. Hira is supposed to feel a connection with Shitara and how he loves Anna. However, Shitara is supposed to be an extreme version of Hira's stalker tendences. Hira is made out to be the "better fan" because he loves Kiyoi as a person, regardless of who Kiyoi is dating, even if it's not him. It's a weird thing to explain, but it makes sense in Hira's weird worldly view.

Also, Anna and her boyfriend also play a bigger role in the novel, but are relegated to just being around to push the story forward. They aren't too important, but because Anna and Hira become friends Anna's storyline is more interesting. She isn't just some random character that randomly had issues that we don't care about unlike this film.

•❅✧❅✦ Overall •❅✧❅✦

Having read the novel and listened to the drama CD, maybe I had too high expectations for what I saw in theaters. I know the actors of Hira and Kiyoi can play out the drama perfectly but because of the lackluster script, I just can't help but feel disappointed. Scenes that I was looking forward to seeing weren't there. Everything felt rushed and like no one put any heart and soul into the story. The actor's were great as always, but I'm sad I couldn't see them shine at their fullest. I really wanted to see Yagi Yusei crying and being Kiyoi from the novel, that when it was glossed over I wanted to cry. If Yagi Yusei were given the opportunity to be Kiyoi from the novel, he probably would get more acting jobs after this film.

Either way, it was a nice film, but maybe I had too high expectations.