Recently, Amazon Prime Video started showing the live action adaptation of
Oshi no Ko, spanning 8 episodes that covers the manga's story up to Kana's scandal. Today, the conclusion to that adaptation arrived in the form of a 129-minute movie.
This live action adaptation follows the manga quite closely, but certain arcs and even characters were left out. Well, the manga spans 166 chapters printed in 16 volumes. The anime, at the conclusion of 2 seasons (total of 24 episodes, roughly 640 minutes because the first episode was around 90 minutes), has only adapted 80 chapters (8 volumes). The live action adaptation sought to adapt the entire story in 520 minutes (391 minutes covered by the drama series, and 129 minutes by the movie). In terms of the time available, more than half of the story would have to be cut to fit the story into the 520 minutes.
But this actually worked out in a nice way for the live action adaptation. The manga itself had several side characters and their stories that had little if any impact on the main story itself. By removing them from the adaptation, the live action adaptation has a more focused story that sticks to the main plot: revenge.
Personally, I think this live action adaptation managed to capture the main story and present it in a different format without undermining the original story. This is quite an achievement, since most live action adaptations of manga works tend to fall flat. Of course, some major changes were also made, likely due to budget, which I will discuss later in the post when I go into spoiler territory.
Overall, I felt that it was easy to follow the story of this live action adaptation as someone who had read the manga. For those new to the series, it can be a bit difficult, but not impossible, to understand the full story due to the story jumping around along the chronological timeline. The entire adaptation stands on its own and I would recommend it as an example of a successful live action adaptation of a manga series.
Spoilers after this photo. It is the movie's "pamphlet" (which can be bought at cinemas and contains interviews and such) plus an illustration "bookmark" (handed out as a gift to those who watch the movie) that has a QR code to a video of a song.
For those who want to know more about the live action adaptation, I will now go further into the episodes and movie.
Episode 1 of the live action adaptation is 40 minutes long, but covers essentially the same content as the anime's first episode (90 minutes). Quite a bit was not in this episode, including Sarina and Goro's story during the hospital, and Ai's visit to the hospital and childbirth. It kind of just quickly introduces the reincarnation part and moved from there, ending at the same place as the anime's first episode.
Episode 2 has Aqua and Ruby going to high school, and shows Aqua being overly protective of Ruby and until he started acting again as a favour to Arima Kana. Episode 3 is the reality TV arc, while episode 4 is about the reforming of B Komachi idol group. Those who read the manga or watched the anime would find these three episodes very familiar and more or less the same.
Episode 5 starts going into the Tokyo Blade arc, covering the part about the issues with the script. Episode 6 then goes on to complete the Tokyo Blade arc. However, there is one major change to the story... instead of a 2.5-dimension stage play, this is about a drama adaptation of Tokyo Blade. Personally, I didn't like this major change because the story became quite weak, lacking the original impact that showed how Abiko-sensei was convinced to work with GOA on the script after seeing what the 2.5-dimension theatre can do, and the "story within a story" of Tokyo Blade being depicted within a manga/anime. It can't be helped, I guess, due to budget... I don't think the drama production committee had the money to actually recreate an entire 2.5-dimension stage play using a proper 2.5-dimension theatre.
Episode 7 covers the filming of the music video in Miyazaki, ending with the discovery of Goro's body, while episode 8 covers Kana's "scandal" followed by Aqua telling the world who their mother was.
I had thought the movie would then just continue from there. But instead, the movie went back to the start of the manga series, with almost an entire first hour of the movie covering the part about Sarina and Goro in the hospital, Ai's first checkup at the hospital and all the way until she gave birth, Goro's death, and again showing some of the stuff covered in episode 1 (blazing through the early childhood of the twins, and the scene where Ai was stabbed).
The second half of the movie blazed through the production of the "15-Year Lie" movie, with many things shortened. For example, instead of Akane, Shiranui, and Ruby holding their own audition to decide who would play Ai, it was just Akane and Ruby in a short scene that eventually resulted in Akane dropping out from the role and Ruby volunteering for it. The next thing you know, the movie was about to premier, there is a small "confrontation" between Aqua and Kamiki (their father), and we get another major change in the story. Instead of Nino, a former B Komachi member, trying to kill Ruby, we have Nino stab Aqua at the movie's stage event, and Kamiki kidnapping Ruby in the confusion. Aqua goes to save Ruby and he and Kamiki end up falling into the sea and the rest was more or less the same as the manga.
As you can see, the movie moved at a very fast pace. I guess it would have to, since it had to cover stuff from the remaining 8 volumes of the manga. The mysterious girl Tsukuyomi never even appeared in the live action adaptation since Akasaka-sensei never really closed the story on her. The more fantastic elements of Aqua's and Ruby's childhood was also not shown. Given that this is a live action adaptation, it would be difficult to convincingly show such fantastic elements (it is going to be difficult to convince babies to act like in the manga) and I thought it was a good decision to do away or skim over them.
Melt was not really touched on too after episode 2 since his story had nothing to do with the main plot. Ruby's classmates Shiranui and Kotobuki are also not in the story, although Shiranui's name did get mentioned. Entire arcs were left out, like how Ruby managed to become one of the celebrities appearing on the same show as Aqua, or the involvement of Sarina's mother in the movie production. I think it was a good decision on the production team's part to leave these side stories and side characters out, since they detracted from the main story.
Sarina's love for Goro was also toned down. Personally, I felt it was a good move, since seeing a real girl confess her love for an adult man is going to be awkward at best. Story-wise, it also helps to cushion the ending, since it removes one major aspect of the relationship between Aqua and Ruby, making it easier to see how Ruby could eventually get over Aqua's death.
Finally, because viewers are not as invested in the story as manga readers (who had spent four years following the story), the overall "bad ending" route that the manga took didn't feel as frustrating. Think of it this way: viewers of the live action adaptation just starting watching the episodes about a month ago and got that "bad ending" today. Compare it to manga readers who followed the story for four years and ended up with that bad ending. Or anime viewers who probably have to wait several more years before the rest of the story gets adapted; if they get a bad ending at the end of 5 or more years of following the anime series, they are not going to be happy. From this perspective, the live action adaptation having a "bad ending" route wasn't really that bad. I just hope they change the story for the anime so that fans who invested years following the anime would not be disappointed when the series ends.
Oh, one thing about the cast. I find it quite interesting that they chose
Hara Nanoka to play Arima Kana. Arima Kana was probably modeled after
Ashida Mana, and being in the same age group as her, Hara Nanoka probably contested with Ashida Mana for many roles when they were both child actors. In this sense, Hara Nanoka was the real-life version of Kurokawa Akane. I guess making Ashida Mana play Arima Kana and Hara Nanoka play Kurokawa Akane would be a bit too real for both of them as well as the audience. 😅
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