Ouran High School Host Club Live Action (2012)

Fujioka Haruhi is an honor student at Ouran Academy, a very prestigious and expensive high school attended only by those with money and social status.  The middle-class Haruhi is attending the school on a full-ride scholarship and she doesn't really fit in.  One day, as she is looking for a quiet place to study, she happens upon the Third Music Room where the Ouran Academy Host Club, a group of six of the most attractive male students at the school, gathers to entertain female "clients".  During her first encounter with the club, Haruhi stumbles and knocks over a vase valued at 8 million yen.  Unable to pay back the debt, it is decided that Haruhi must work off her debt with service in the club.  In this spin off/continuation of the live action TV drama, Haruhi must learn a thing or two about how she feels about Tamaki, the overzealous leader of the Host Club, when a new face enters the school - the face of a "princess" that seems to be perfect for Tamaki.  But this princess is not all that she appears to be.  How will this affect the Host Club, Tamaki in particular?  And how will Haruhi cope with her new-found feelings?

All right, all that to get to this: I didn't expect to like this movie - AT ALL.  I went into it with the lowest of low expectations.  And I'm here to tell you, I was completely and utterly WRONG.  This movie, while it has its flaws, is SO much better than I ever expected.  But I'm totally getting ahead of myself.  First, the cast.

• Kawaguchi Haruna as Fujioka Haruhi
• Yamamoto Yusuke as Suou Tamaki
• Daito Shunsuke as Ootori Kyoya (second-in-command of the host club)
• Takagi Shinpei as Hitachiin Hikaru
• Takagi Manpei as Hitachiin Kaoru
• Chiba Yudai as Haninozuka "Honey" Mitsukuni
• Nakamura Masaya as Morinozuka "Mori" Takashi
• Ryo Ryusei as Nekozawa Umehito
• Mariko Shinoda as Monaru Michelle
• Nickhun as Monaru Lawrence

Now, first off, this review is a bit different from all the others I've done previously in that I've already discussed most of the cast to a large extent.  That being said, I do have a few comments.

My first comment concerns our leading lady.  I mentioned in my review of Ouran High School Host Club the live action drama that I thought Kawaguchi Haruna did a bit of a lackluster job in her acting as Haruhi.  I still stand by that opinion - for the DRAMA.  I don't know why, but I know that as a portrayal of the character of Fujioka Haruhi, Haruna did a much better job here than in the drama.  While she still isn't totally up to par with the whole whiny thing (she still needs to up the sarcasm), she isn't the sweet little girl that she was previously, and for that I am grateful.

Now, this next thought...  I don't know how to say this, so I'll just give you an idea of what was running through my head during this movie.  It was something akin to this: Oh, my goodness, Tamaki is actually being serious.  While he had his moments in the drama when the character became more serious, he has far more of those moments in this movie, all of which are wonderfully acted by the amazing Yamamoto Yusuke (seriously, the dude can swing from being totally doofy and off-the-map hyper one minute to being serious and calm the next - and it's BELIEVABLE!).  I was very happy to see this character get more development apart from the goofy stuff.  Also, side note...  Tamaki has brown hair in the drama.  Why is he blonde?

My next comment concerns the twins.  Oh, Hikaru, Kaoru...how I love both of you.  I especially love that someone thought to give them actual serious development right alongside Tamaki.  Seriously, these guys are probably my favorite characters in the live action version of OHSHC, and I am so happy that they got a serious part of the subplots that were going on.

And finally, before I move on to discussing the characters unique to this movie, a quick note about another character that I really like.  Mori.  Mori is awesome.  I did have one problem with how he's portrayed in this movie though.  He's too talkative.  He got a total of maybe, what, seven or eight lines in all eleven episodes of the drama.  In this movie he gets about five or six.  The drama was five and a half hours total - this movie was an hour and forty-five minutes roughly.  You can see my point.  Not that it detracts from the character...much.  I still like him, but I just think he's a bit too talkative to fit the impression I got of him from the drama.

All right, new faces.  First is our lovely "princess", Monaru Michelle (I'm only putting the name Michelle second for consistency...it kinda bugs me though) and she's played by Mariko Shinoda.  The only comment I really have to make about this girl is that she's a fairly decent actress.  I wasn't too blown away by her performance, but the emotion she portrayed felt pretty believable and real.  Her character is kind of bland to begin with, so given that, I'd say she did a pretty good job with what she was given.  She does get more interesting in the second half of the movie though, so there you go.

The only other new face worth mentioning (in my opinion) is Michelle's brother, Monaru Lawrence (again, consistency...it still sounds weird to me).  Playing this character is K-pop boy band 2PM's Nickhun.  The only reason I really think this character is even worth mentioning is because he has a pretty major role in the climax and main plot resolution in this movie.  Other than that, he only has probably three or four scenes, most of which are in English, but he's a pretty good actor nonetheless.  For how small his part was, he did a good job.

All right, whew.  Writing is of course next.  Like I said before, this movie totally blew away my expectations.  I was expecting this to be rushed, not well thought out, and very choppy.  Again, like I said before, I was WRONG.  I was so wrong I don't think I've ever been this wrong...ever.  This movie takes place after the main story of the drama has concluded (that fact is kinda hard to pick up though - it took me until about halfway through the movie to figure that out).  For the most part it is what I would consider a well written continuation of the drama.  As far as I know this story is not part of the original manga (I haven't read it, so if this is in there, great - it's a good story), but the movie doesn't suffer for that.  Whoever had the reigns as far as writing goes on this project should definitely handle more of these things.

That being said, I do have one rather minor gripe with the storytelling in this movie.  In the beginning of the story, Haruhi has to have some way of telling her story of how she came to be in the Host Club in the first place.  That must've been difficult to come up with, I'm sure, but my gripe is in the fact that she's pretty much just telling the story.  She might as well have started the whole thing with the phrase, "Here's my story".  It would've been about as subtle.

As for warnings, I stand by what I said about the drama with one addition.  The homosexuality thing I discussed before is a little bit more prominent in this movie than it was in the drama (as a whole).  I do think though that if you got through the drama, you'll be fine here.

On the flipside, I still stand by the focus on family ties and the message of family being the most important thing in the history of the universe.  I jest, but seriously, the heavy focus of this movie is the same as the drama...turned up to eleven.  That's not necessarily a bad thing though.  I think it works to the movie's credit.

Once again, by way of wrapping this up, I will say that this movie far exceeded my expectations.  It has a good heart behind the story, and while it still keeps the goofy tone and silly antics of the drama, the seriousness of the character arcs and main story are wonderfully maintained as well.  The characters are well fleshed out and developed (that was the part that REALLY made me happy) and the relationship issues that some people had with the drama I think are addressed well here.  All in all, I will probably watch this movie again sometime soon, and I suggest that if you liked the drama, you should watch this too.  I will comment that you probably should watch the drama first if you haven't seen it already, but that's only because the story is explained better and you get a better sense of who the characters are by way of introduction.  Aside from that though, watch this movie.  I liked it and I think you will too.

Ouran High School Host Club Live Action (2011)

Fujioka Haruhi is an honor student at Ouran Academy, a very prestigious and expensive high school attended only by those with money and social status.  The middle-class Haruhi is attending the school on a full-ride scholarship and she doesn't really fit in.  One day, as she is looking for a quiet place to study, she happens upon the Third Music Room where the Ouran Academy Host Club, a group of six of the most attractive male students at the school, gathers to entertain female "clients".  During her first encounter with the club, Haruhi stumbles and knocks over a vase valued at 8 million yen.  Unable to pay back the debt, it is decided that Haruhi must work off her debt with service in the club.

Right off the bat this sounds like it's going to get weird, and oh, boy, does it ever.  I have many comments to make about the acting in this drama, but first, let's see the cast.

• Kawaguchi Haruna as Fujioka Haruhi
• Yamamoto Yusuke as Suou Tamaki (the leader of the host club)
• Daito Shunsuke as Ootori Kyoya (second-in-command of the host club)
• Takagi Shinpei as Hitachiin Hikaru
• Takagi Manpei as Hitachiin Kaoru
• Chiba Yudai as Haninozuka "Honey" Mitsukuni
• Nakamura Masaya as Morinozuka "Mori" Takashi
• Ryo Ryusei as Nekozawa Umehito

Most of these people did a pretty good job, but as you will see, there a couple of people that didn't do so well.  First on this list is Kawaguchi Haruna playing Haruhi.  I saw most of the anime version of this story long before the live action version came out, so I knew what Haruhi was supposed to be like.  Haruna I'm sure did her best, but in the end, the acting was a bit lackluster.  Haruhi is a bold character.  She has a relaxed attitude about life, so much so that she even says she doesn't care whether people see her as a girl or a boy.  She's very snarky in some ways, as well as being rather sarcastic and level-headed when Tamaki goes off on one of his "speeches".  Some of those characteristics came through in Haruna's acting, but she needed to be more up front and relaxed and far more sarcastic than she was.  She came across as sort of a sweet girl who's always a bit whiny when the boys in the club do something stupid (which is quite often, believe you me).  Not really what the character was meant to be.

Switching gears now, we have Yamamoto Yusuke as Suou Tamaki, the ring leader of the host club.  Tamaki is the most obnoxious, goofy, silly, arrogant-in-a-funny-way boy I've ever seen.  He was that way in the anime, and Yusuke did a fantastic job at bringing that across.  His "speeches" are some of the funniest parts in the drama.  Yusuke also has a knack for pulling some of the most interesting facial expressions I've ever seen, which works wonderfully well with the character.  He's supposed to have a bit of a romance with Haruhi (that's not really a spoiler; it's kinda obvious from the very first episode) and Yusuke did a good job with making it awkward and silly, which was definitely what this drama called for.

Daito Shunsuke plays Ootori Kyoya, the second-in-command, as well as PR man for the club.  Kyoya is a calm, level-headed guy with an ever-watchful eye on the club's finances.  Shunsuke did a great job in portraying the character accurately, even with a few twists they through into the live action that weren't in the anime (maybe they were in the manga, but I wouldn't know since I've never read it).  He keeps the character calm and plays the polar opposite of Tamaki quite well, while still managing to be suave and sexy all at the same time.

Takagi Shinpei and Takagi Manpei play the Hitachiin twins, Hikaru and Kaoru, respectively.  I must make a comment up front about these characters: they are supposed to be the homosexual "token" characters, if you will.  Granted, they're brothers, but that supposedly makes them more attractive to "clients" of the club.  In the anime, the relationship is taken to gag-inducing levels, but THANKFULLY they toned it way down in the drama, which I will be eternally grateful for.  As for the acting from the Takagi brothers, I commend them for being so good at portraying these characters accurately.  They did a very good job at putting the right amount of goofiness and drama into the relationship, and I say kudos to them.

Next is Chiba Yudai playing Haninozuka Mitsukuni (say that three times fast), otherwise known as "Honey". He is the cute one in the club (fuzzy-bunny cute).  This character must have been difficult to translate to live action because of the things he's supposed to do (he jumps into Haruhi's arms at one point; he's supposed to be the size of an elementary school boy).  Yudai's acting in this role is pretty good.  He did well at bringing the cuteness in the enormous quantities required for the character, but when he does eventually have a serious moment, it's done well.  It doesn't feel forced or overly ridiculous like it could've been.

The sixth and final member of the club is Morinozuka Takashi (another tongue twister), known as "Mori", and he's played by Nakamura Masaya.  Mori is the stoic "man of few words", yet somehow he's one of my favorite characters.  I must say, kudos to Masaya, because he got simultaneously the easiest and the hardest parts in the whole drama.  Easiest because he doesn't have to say or do much, but hardest because he has to convey emotion and give the character believability with little to no dialogue or action.  That means it's pretty much all in facial expressions and body language, which are appropriately subdued and well communicated.  I was mostly indifferent to this character in the anime (mostly because I don't remember seeing much of him in the anime), but in the live action, I really like him.  Overall, Masaya did a very good job with what little he had to work with.

The last character really worth mentioning is Nekozawa Umehito (yet again, difficult to pronounce quickly) played by Ryo Ryusei.  Nekozawa isn't a member of the host club, but he gets enough attention in the drama that I can't not talk about him.  He's the creepy dude.  Nekozawa is the leader of the black-magic-ish club at Ouran, and thus is always dressed in a black cloak.  He's supposed to be rather intimidating and "scary", but mostly creepy.  Ryusei did a really good job with the whole creepy thing.  His voice was perfect and he had the right look to him to make people stare (as well they should).  All in all, well done and not too freaky for this drama.

Now, on to the writing.  This drama is a little different because the original writing is known as one of the better mangas ever written (at least in my opinion).  Of course the writing's good.  Even through an anime adaptation and a live action adaptation, it's still really good.  There are some things I didn't particularly jive with in the pacing of the story in the live action, but I can understand why they had to do what they had to do.  The anime had been cut down to 26 half-hour episodes from 83 volumes of the manga, and from that the live action was cut down to 11 half-hour episodes.  Thus a few issues in pacing are perfectly understandable.

Of course, now comes the obligatory warning section.  The only thing I feel I must mention before sending people to out to watch this is this; as I said before, Hikaru and Kaoru are homosexual.  They are incestuous homosexuals, which is even more uncomfortable for some people.  However, most people already know about the Hitachiin brothers and how...er...uncomfortable scenes with them can be.  If you don't already know, just be warned (it is FAR worse in the anime than the live action though; just saying).

On the flip side, if you don't already know, this drama has wonderfully goofy comedic moments and focuses heavily on the importance of family ties.  In the few serious moments this drama has, the message about family being the most important thing (along with a few other things...thank you, Tamaki) comes through loud and clear.

Overall, I really like this drama.  I've seen it several times and I'd watch it again in a heartbeat.  The goofiness, the ridiculousness, the quirkiness of it all is totally what draws me in.  Personally, I think if you're looking for a TV representation of the manga, go with the anime; but if you always wanted to see what the story would be like if it was live action, this drama is for you.