If I have to be honest I'm a bit confused about my feelings concerning this movie. I've read the manga version of this story, long before coming across this live-action, so the plot is nothing new to me and yet I must admit I'm surprised I liked it so much, despite the fact that I wasn't really impressed with the manga to begin with. I'm quite late finding out there was a movie actually, considering that it has been years since I read the manga and yet when I saw it the urge to watch it was irresistible. And now I think I finally know what lacked in the manga and what was the reason for my unfavorable opinion about this story for so many years. It is the atmosphere. It is not a thing you hear very often, but yeah. The live-action of "Goth" really have a better atmosphere than its' manga version. The camera angles, the colors or even their absence on some of the scenes, together with the actor's play, overall presentation and music really managed to put some nice touches on the right places and "give life" to this story.
It really turned out to be a better movie than I've ever thought could come out of the manga with the same name. And I really can't believe I'm saying this, but I think this movie has managed to become one of my most favorite psychological horrors to date. (And I don't usually like such movies...)

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Hmm... So, if I say that I had no expectations about this movie, I will be lying. But I did try to keep them as low as possible, because, let's be honest, the story of Shingeki no Kyojin is next to impossible to portray in live-action, no matter what anyone is saying and we all know it. I doubt even one of the big Hollywood studios will be able to pull it of, so yeah... As a fan of both the series and manga, I tried to do my absolute best not to have expectations.
Sad truth is that the final product shows some signs that the staff involved at least tried to do something plausible. (When you have a story so impossible to portray you change it, okay. I get that.) But the way they tried to do it is just - laughable, or to say it simply it is like someone said - hey, let's just strip the story of everything that makes it genuine, put a few new characters, and take away all of the personality the few original characters have. The result - yet another love triangle story that just so happens to take place in a world full of man-eating creatures. (Yeah. This sentence basically summaries the whole movie. I am not kidding.)
And yeah, the staff really did try to create something plausible, because the movie is beautiful. The special effects are well done. The titans are almost believable, but to be honest the impact they could have made was totally lost because the characters in the story were the exact opposite. I could talk about how emotionless and blank-faced all of the cast is for hours, but I will limit myself only to Miura Haruma, who by the way I absolutely love, but even he (and how good he looks in the uniform) can't save this movie. In fact I think this is his worst role ever. Most of the time his Eren is just standing there looking hurt or blank-faced without any apparent reason for that. Not to mention that he spent almost the whole movie running from the titans, not fighting them. When we include the fact that everyone around him did almost the same, I think you get the picture.
I gave it a chance. I tried to think of something good to say , but what is there to like in a movie that made me laugh almost hysterically because of how ridiculous it was. I am rating it with 4.0, because as I said the movie is beautifully filmed and some of the scenes are well choreographed, but when you take it as whole the beauty is just not enough. So, yeah. I tried to expect basically nothing, but if I say that this movie is even worse than my lowest expectations I will not be lying. In fact, Haruma or not, this is just one of the worst live-action adaptations I have ever seen. And not because it doesn't follow the original story. But because it takes on original, out-of-the-box concept and replaces it with something stereotypical. Which is sad in a way, because they could have done so much better.

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Just imagine, yakuza gangster who stutters, loves pudding so much that he would "jump" over a building just to get one, can't think clear for more than 90 seconds and is soo stupid that he can't decide which is bigger - 35 or 27. You can't? Well then get prepared, because if you decide to watch this drama, you'll see a yakuza like no other.

The story: Imagine the yakuza mentioned above, stuck in a high school crowded with full of themselves teenagers, and trying to act all innocent and friendly, while on the other hand wants to kick the butt of all his "classmates" and you have it. Nothing so much, really. In it's whole once again the main idea is to learn all the important aspects in life. What makes it nice is the presentation, and the comedy. Definitely the comedy, which believe me, is like nothing you've seen before.

The cast: Like it. Until a while ago I had difficulty imagining Nagase Tomoya as an actor, but he actually did a great job, so he has my compliments on his performance. You'll definitely fall in love with his dorky yakuza. Also, after having watched Kashii Yuu in some other roles, this is the first time I actually like her performance, so she is worth mentioning as well. Oh, and Kouki, he was cute and absolutely adorable as well.
The drama passes with high score for me, so my advice is to give it a try.

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Watched it! Finally! And... What can I say... Well, for starters when the movie was first announced along with the cast I was more than sure that I'm not going to like it, probably even hate it. Kenshin is one of my most, most favorite characters ever, and to be honest, as much as I like Sato Takeru, I just couldn't image him as Kenshin in any way possible. The same thought was, still is actually, even stronger when it comes to the rest of the cast, which, in my eyes, is just... the worst ever imaginable (Who did this ridiculous casting anyway?), and I had about a million doubts on how the fights will be presented, or what parts of the story they will take and how they will ruin it, probably, and so on, and so on... I had about a million reasons to hate it but still... This is Kenshin, so despite everything said I had to watch it and to my absolute astonishment this movie is actually much, much better than I ever expected it to be...
The colors and the music are just amazing. Everything looks much more realistic than I thought it will be. The battle scenes were just breathtaking, without too much special effects, but still spectacular in kind of realistic way. The story is a nice mesh-up of the arcs at the begging of the manga (Thank God, they didn't try to cover the whole manga!). The characters were put up nicely and had some part in the story, not just being there, only for the fans to see them... Also the biggest surprise was that Sato is actually a pretty good Kenshin. Much more good than I would have ever given him credit for... After the first few scenes I found myself even liking him as Kenshin quite a lot... Still surprised at that!
Still... the movie gets a 9 from me, because I still don't like the rest of the cast, but as a whole this is one really good live-action, so Kenshin fan or not, I would definitely recommend it.

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