Quite a few of the series we’ve translated here have been adapted for the screen. I had the fortune / misfortune to check some of them out. I’m notoriously hard on adaptations, so this should be interesting.
Warning: this post contains minor spoilers for pretty much everything that’s ever been translated here, and even some stuff that hasn’t.
GYO (anime)
Original author: Junji Ito
Adapted by: ufotable
Major changes: male and female leads switch roles, sex and gore quotient upped, genre changed to unintentional comedy
Review: see here
Should I bother? No
 ***
BOYS ON THE RUN (movie)
Original author: Kengo Hanazawa
Adapted by: Daisuke Miura / Phantom Film
Major changes: ends at volume five, right after that. No Hana or Kira. Less exaggerated. No capoeira.
Review: Supremely disappointing. The comic walks a tightrope between drama and comedy, this one isn’t funny at all and is just kind of a drag to watch. The acting is decent all round and everyone acts more ‘real’, except the actor playing Tanishi, who act times acts ‘full retard’. Apparently he was the lead singer in a punk band who had a hit song that Hanazawa named the series after.
Should I see it? No.
***
BOYS ON THE RUN (TV series)
Original author: Kengo Hanazawa
Adapted by: TV Asahi
Major changes: A lot. There’s no Kira, but Hana and Ryo Ando now appear from the very beginning of the series. Mr. Suzuki has no daughter and Hana lives with him (wtf).
Review: this takes an opposite approach to the movie and tries to be primarily a goofy comedy, which might’ve worked if it (a) was funny and (b) still handled the dramatic moments well. It isn’t and doesn’t. A lot of this is down to the acting. In particular, Akina Minami, who is the biggest star in the show and pretty much single handedly ruins it by playing Chiharu as an anime character instead of a flawed and complex human being. Every scene she’s in is unwatchable and I have no idea why she’s even in th -
- oh yeah that’s probably why.
There are probably hundreds of actresses in Japan who would’ve given anything to play a role as personal and nuanced as Chiharu, and they would’ve nailed it. Oh well. Such a performance would’ve only been wasted on this series, which for all the changes they made feels tame and toothless. It apparently aired late at night but feels strangely prudish, which is weird considering how much shock value is in the original comic, and how much filthier the other stuff on Japanese late night TV is. The result is something that feels nothing like Hanazawa and everything like another cheap and forgettable Japanese TV serial, with the occasional splashing out of effort (really good capoeira, pity about almost everything else).
Should I see it? No.
 ***
HEROES OF THE H MANSION (movie)
Original author: Gurihiru
Adapted by: Marvel
Should I see it? No.
***
CRIME AND PUNISHMENT: A FALSIFIED ROMANCE (miniseries)
Original author: Naoyuki Ochiai
Adapted by: WOWOW
Major changes: none
Review: You can see from the very first frame that it’s different from the others. They spent money on this one! They made an effort with sets, and costumes, and direction! Holy shit!
As a whole the series seems more cinematic, which is good and bad. They kept very little of Miroku’s narration, so we have to guess a lot about what he’s thinking from his actions, which I liked. There’s also a lot of long takes, especially at climactic points, and while the actors are pretty good, they’re not quite good enough to pull that off.
The naturalistic approach makes it a better and more admirable effort than all the other adaptations here, but its a little misguided. It’s a comic book story, and it loses a bit by being played completely straight. Firstly, you become more aware that most of the climaxes in the second half of the story are just people yelling at each other about how fucked up they are. Secondly, Sudo is really, really ridiculous.
But that being said, it was a really good effort and a hell of a nice surprise. So -
Should I see it? Yes.
But after all that, as cruel fate would have it, for the only show here worth watching …
Can I see it? No. It hasn’t been subtitled yet.
Thanks for the comments on the Boys on the Run movie/series. You saved me from the curiosity from watching them. Once I tried to watch Sundome… oh my god.
I’ve already been seriously dissapointed by watching these adaptations, I still can’t believe that it’s more difficult to find a good adaptation in Japan than in Occident.
(In fact, what live action adaptation is good or relatively on par with the source material?)
I’ll be honest, it was the Boys on the Run movie that led me to finding the manga in the first place. I didn’t know it was a manga before I watched it. I was randomly browsing the Japanese film selection on Netflix and saw that Mineta Kazunobu from the incredibly awesome GING NANG Boyz (and formally GOING STEADY) was the lead in it, and absolutely loved it. The first ever Japanese drama I watched was STAND UP, and it reminded me of that but with adults. I looked up info about it, and found out that BOTR was based off a manga and then discovered that the manga had a whole bunch of stuff about boxing, and seeing as my favorite manga/anime ever is Hajime no Ippo, it gave me a whole other reason to love it. I ended up buying the DVD and CD single as well.
The GING NANG Boyz theme song is pretty awesome too. The music video has a bunch of random guys and asked them to write their dream in a notebook and hold it up to the camera. Makes a lot more sense after reading some recent chapters of the manga… also, in the movie, for the karaoke scene, they used the song “Yume wo Akiramenai De” by Okamura Takako (guess they couldn’t get the rights to “Captain of the Ship”) and the single has the complete version of Mineta “singing” (more like screaming) it, complete with polite clapping at the end, as a not-so-hidden track.
I saw the first episode of the drama when it aired, and never watched it again, Ugh.
Some Anon: No worries. The good ones (and the really, really bad ones) are usually the ones that have their own “take” on the source material and don’t just try and replicate it.
Nate: Glad you liked it. Yeah, it really showed that Mineta at least had his heart and soul in the right place. Had I seen it before reading the comic I probably would’ve liked it more, though I probably would’ve forgotten about it by now.