No Longer Heroine

My advice: don't watch this.

The FL falls for someone who doesn't deserve her. Then she humiliates herself over and over again by confessing her love endlessly. And then when the supposedly ML decides to accept her as a girlfriend, she jumps right into his arms. Sad, very sad and demeaning to women. Loving unconditionally is romantic. What is not, is obsessing over someone who doesn't give a damn. We frown upon rivals who don't give up, even when their affections are unrequited. Then why do the writer expect us to cheer for a heroine that does that and doesn't really value herself as a human. Yes she is disqualified from beginning to end for her stupidity and shallowness.

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Do you like cute dramas with... interesting characters, good-looking casts, and a typical yet sweet execution? Well, Heroine Disqualified might just be for you!

JapaneseDrama (over on Tumblr) was raving about this drama a few months ago so I decided to ditch my piles of homework and check it out. I didn't know too much going into it, but i was pleasantly surprised. Actually, I had pretty high expectations, but it was still a cute drama. The story was very very very typical, yet i still found myself on the edge of my seat, anticipating what's to come. The acting and characters are probably what won me over. Our protagonist was perfect! She's relatable, funny (facial expressions on point!) and all too kawaii. The SLS is very very intense in this one as well, and our second female lead was interesting and different. I COULD NOT STAND OUR MALE LEAD THOUGH. He was bland yet somehow super frustrating and confusing. I could go on and on ranting about him but i don't think he's worth the time. Though props on the cinematography.

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This afternoon I asked myself why did I watch this movie? The answer was: story seemed interesting. Needless to say I didn’t find anything interesting about the film, on the contrary. I found it boring and annoying yet I persevered and watched it through to the end when my mind begged me to stop the mental torture and it was torture.

The heroine was just too obsessive, too focused on the guy she loved. At first I found her too desperate but teenagers tend to find things the end of the world and she was no exception. Everything was a drama, even when to confess to Rita that she loved him and has always loved him. Then she became really bothersome borderline on maddening with all the spectacle and theatrics, all the infantilism of the child she no longer was but somehow on an unconscious level seemed to believe to be. It’s seems the only logical explanation for her irrational behaviour!

Rita is weak, as a teenage boy he’s weak, as a boy he’s weak, as a teenager he’s weak and he never stops being weak. I wonder if the manga author created the character so incredibly full of flaws, so physically and psychologically weak on purpose. How can a male lead character be so utterly uncompelling is beyond me. There’s not a single time throughout the movie I find him interesting. Having Rita as the main male lead...why? To show that men can be weak? Men can be weak but Rita takes male weakness to an entire new level, the level of absurdity!

At the end of the movie I was drained and relieved that it was finally over, finally!!!

The only thing I liked about the movie was the photography but it wasn’t enough to save a poor story who became a poor film on the screen.

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Heroine Disqualified has to be my second favourite movie of all times (just after Our Times).

ACTING/CAST:
The main character Hatori is such a fun and cute character, although she can sometimes be annoying. Rita (the guy that Hatori has a crush on) is really cold on the outside but warm on the inside. He is always mature and manly. On the other hand, The other hot popular guy Kosuke acts immature but his other mature side is also portrayed throughout the movie. The short haired girl (Adachi) makes me want to feel sorry for her but she gets sort of clingy and annoying sometimes. Hatori's friend is super crazy, silly and fun and I think she has to be my favourite character in the movie XDD
AND I HAVE TO SAY THAT THE TWO GUYS 10/10 :3

STORY:
Heroine Disqualified has a great story line and lots of animated and sound effects in the movie. It starts with a typical high school story but it ends up having a lot of different elements added to it. The storyline itself is full of surprises. There was so many twists and the story sort of ended as I expected, but it wasn't the ending I was hoping for. The story is told from Hatori's POV so I could clearly feel her emotions and her feelings towards the other characters. There is a lot of funny moments between Hatori and Kosuke. There is also sad and touching flashback scenes.

MUSIC:
I really like the ending music~

REWATCH VALUE:
I would mostly want to watch it again because of the characters but the complicated story kind of holds me back. Towards the end of the movie, Hatoshi comes to a realisation that relates back to the beginning of the story.







*SORT OF SPOILER*


Rita looks really hot with a kimono on. Just saying.

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Hmm...Let me start this off by saying that I rarely watch Japanese movies/drama these days. After growing tired of all the almost ridiculous over-dramatic effects, somewhere along the line I just gave up on them altogether. There was too much of it and it impacted the sincerity of the actual story.

But this? ...Haha. I actually waited for it. Every now and then I'd think to myself, "Ah. Not long left now!" and wonder when I'd be able to get my hands on some English subtitles.

I read the manga once. A long time ago. I barely remember what actually happened in it, but the warm feeling I got from it I didn't forget, so I gave it chance. I thought that, just maybe, this film could help me get back into Japanese drama. Did it? Let's just say I went from 20% likely to watch one to 70%.


The Story:
Cliche. You know what's going to happen. If you've watched enough RomCom stuff like I have you just know and no matter how many times you wish for something else to happen 9/10 those dreams don't come true. It's not super awesome: no Healer or Peach Girl. But...the twists and turns give it a little of a special sparkle. It did anything but bore me despite knowing how it'd all end up.

Those annoying little effects they do were actually funny this time around, though maybe that's just because I haven't seen any in a long time. There wasn't so much that it just became a slapstick comedy and to be honest, it fitted the whole drama well - really well. With all the talk of heroines and side-characters it was almost - ALMOST - needed.


The Acting:
No major flaws here. Again a bit...dramatic at times, so dramatic it occasionally felt too theatrical to get absorbed in 100% - in true Japanese drama fashion, in my experience anyway. But I cried. And if they make me cry, twice at that, then they did the job well!


The Music:
Hmm...Average? Certainly appropriate but...'samey'. Not that all the tracks were the same, but so familiar that you feel like you've already heard it elsewhere: if that makes sense? Just above standard. Stirs the emotions well but there's a very slim chance I'd ever purchase the OST in comparison to some other competitors. Pretty good though.


The Rewatch Value:
Ah. Now this is one point I wanted to make. Despite not remembering the contents of the manga I purposefully didn't go back and read it. Why? So the film could renew it afresh for me. It's very rare that I rewatch anything from start to finish because guessing where it's all going to end up or play out is half of the fun to me. Yet in saying that the characters are cute. It's the sort of film I'd likely watch again in a year or so on a rainy night with a mouth full of popcorn with a hot chocolate at the ready. True RomCom stuff.


Summary:
I have no regrets. I enjoyed it.

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Uuuuuuugh. This movie frustrated and angered me to the point that I quit it about 30 minutes from the end. (It's about 2 hours long total. I read spoilers for the ending in order to know what actually happened, because I had no plans of actually watching the ending myself.) I really hate teen movies (adult movies too) that do the whole back and forth, back and forth, back and forth thing for the sole purpose of there being some kind of drawn out conflict rather than simply writing a compelling and relatable story. (It makes me want to burst my own eardrums.) This movie...is one of those teen movies. The writers take an infinitely fascinating premise, a Heroine who's not actually the heroine of the story she thinks she is and has to figure out her true story, and then scrap it probably less than halfway through for your standard, uninspired take on teen romance. (Which I guess isn't actually the movie writers fault as this is based on a manga so they had to write based on the source material, but I haven't read the manga and don't know if it does the story any better or not, so I'm just gonna be mad at the film's scriptwriters for now.) Some of the more egregious plot points include cheating that goes unpunished and pretty much treated as not a big deal, a teenager with a history of dating an adult that the movie never makes any kind of declarative statement on how grossly inappropriate that is, a character faking an illness to trick another character into not leaving them, and just generally selfish and stupid behavior from the majority of our characters.

The story also starts with these honestly quite interesting characters (aside from the second male lead who's pretty much a card board cutout of every bad boy character ever) and then ruins pretty much all of them. (Maybe not the female lead so much, since she does stay pretty consistent throughout the movie, but that consistency isn't always a good thing. And again, the second male is a cardboard cutout, so there's not much there to really ruin.) I'm most upset though with how the second female lead is treated. She is this beyond sweet and selfless character until the very end where she's turned into a villain for the sole purpose of the leads having an excuse to be together. It's a disservice to her character and is used as a supposedly 'valid' reason to excuse both leads of being incredibly selfish themselves multiple times throughout the movie.

If you're a young teen/pre-teen, you will probably find this movie really romantic. As a 31 year old adult, I found it asinine and annoying. This is just not a good movie.

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I’ll be totally honest here. I watched this movie with my twin after she read Heroine Shikaku manga.
I wasn’t expecting much, you know.
The main plot is a little bit boring. The main heroine is a girl who doesn’t want to accept that her best friend can actually find himself a good girlfriend.
Talking about Hatori, I really hates her character ( But Kiritani Mirei is always amazing when it comes to make the audience have a good laugh XD).
She’s possessive and, let me say it clearly, a little bit a pain in the back.
What I hated about this movie is how all characters try to scold Adachi attitude. Sure, maybe during the end she acted a little bit as a wannabe victim but please, let’s be honest: She wasn’t the villain at all, why calling her “ a victim” during the first half of the movie? She was basically a good girl stucked between a love game of two best friends who didn’t want to admit that they were in love since childhood.
Rita character is cute but Yamazaki Kento didn’t act so well in this movie. I think he really needs to stop for a moment and try to choose better characters, he’s pretty talented but lately all his characters are plain and have the same personalities. It’s such a shame though, his L was perfect.
I think he still need to improve as an actor and here he wasn’t actually acting at all. ( his kiss scenes are the best though!).
Sakaguchi Kentaro’s character was …idk, he was ok but I guess he was pretty useless. His acting skills are pretty average but at least, he showed some emotions.
In the end, all I can say is that I didn’t like this movie. Sure, some scenes were so funny to watch and Nakajima was a total badass, I was disappointed to see that she didn't get so many scenes TT
There are better shojo manga live actions out there, guess this one didn’t get on my favourites list.
The ost was amazing though, it’s the only thing I liked about this movie ( Kento cuteness too). Kana Nishino songs are such a bliss!

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This film is not a rom-com. It's a rom-com parody.

And the film makes very, very clear from the first few minutes in that it is a parody -- the "heroine" looks at herself and the people around her as if they were in a story. The exaggerated acting in the typical Japanese comedy style paired with stereotypical extras (like the thuggish bullies or the canteen cook) as well as the constant fourth-wall-breaking are another clue -- and then the story tones the physical comedy down in the second half but still proceeds to follow every single beat of an average rom-com: With a light twist, like when the "summer" date is filmed in the middle of winter. And they follow this concept until the very last scenes, with the hundereds of lanterns and the kitschy snowfall, and then tie it up with an uplifting message.

And yet, they somehow smuggled in some very real character growth. The aggressive playboy, who pursued the heroine "just because" and initiated a sudden and unwelcome kiss, learns to let go. The shy and awkward girl learns to stand up for herself, not with lies and deceit but with honesty and integrity. The "hero" learns to make a decision and commit to it. And the "heroine"? She learns that love doesn't just happen because she wants it to.
Maybe the writer and the crew were too good at that, so that MDLers caught real feelings and thus don't understand that this is supposed to be a parody?


Was it good?
Yes! It starts out as a physical comedy where absolutely everything is exaggerated, and ends up with real feelings.

Did I like it?
I did! I was hesitant to watch another youth focused het romance but I am glad I did.

Who would I recommend it to?
To people who get on with the exaggerated Japanese style of comedy. And to those who are able to understand how a parody works.

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Well... I am having a little dilemma when rating this. While it is certainly comical and enjoyable, there are things in this movie that I doesn't like that much. I am just going into the individual section and list down my likes and dislikes from there.

STORY 7.0/ 10
Story is enjoyable, many parts of this movie are rather comical that's actually what have me giving it a rather high rating, while honestly, this story is nothing too much difference than many other high-school romance movies out there. Girl likes boy, boy likes another girl, another boy likes this girl who has her heart broken... You get the gist. The saving grace really, is the funny scenes, the comical/ dramatic scenes (this is a movie talking about the hero and heroin after all). While maybe I am probably being picky, what more do I expect from a high school romance movie right? Seriously, I think there are much better stories of the similar genre out there, But if you really are just looking for something easy and relaxing, and up for some laughter and yelling at your TV screen, this is your movie, go on and watch it.

ACTING CAST 8.0/10
As I said, there are plenty comical scenes which I think Kiritani Mirei has done a good job portraying the role - good, however not amazingly good I think. But seeing I never really expect her to be able to play a role like Hatori, Mirei san has surpassed my expectation here. I look forward to see her future projects, Yamazaki Kento is good as ever, but Rita isn't a difficult role to play. Who I really really like in the movie is Sakaguchi Kentaro because he has this bad-boy/ good boy act down, he can be so adorable and dangerously charming at the same time. Fukuda Ayano acts well too, I like her a lot in this movie. So well, overall, a 8.0 out of 10 here. There are room for all these main casts to improve their acting on, but perhaps not on this movie, I look forward to see them all challenging bigger roles in the future.

Chemistry between the main leads are lacking a little, but chemistry between Mirei and Kentaro exist, which to me is a good and bad thing.

MUSIC 7.5/ 10
I have to say, there isn't anything really memorable, but nothing stands out as too annoying either, so 7.5.

REWATCH VALUE 6.5/10
Will I rewatch it? I would think yes, when I need something funny and easy to pass my day, this will be a movie I will go for, but other times, no, I think not. This is the cookie-cutter kind of story I can find so many others that's similar to this. So wells...

OVERALL 7.5/ 10
Well, it is rather a high rating all considered, but I really have had some really disappointing manga adaption so I don't want to put this way too low. I would say this movie is enjoyable, but not terribly outstanding. It is funny and easy - with a bit of heartaches in between. A nice movie to pass an afternoon.

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The tale of two cowards

The first part of this review doesn't contain spoilers; the second does - read at your own discretion.

First part:

I think I went in with absolutely, utterly low expectations due to other reviews and I think that helped when it came to my enjoyment. Some of the things other reviewers talked about didn't take the spotlight during my own watching, but I must admit that I could be biased due to my love for shoujo manga and their adaptations in general. If you want to watch a movie which doesn't take itself too serious and talks about high school romance, this could be the movie for you. The leads did a pretty good job with the script they were given.

Second part:

I think a lot of people missed the point of this movie. They are both 17 years old and have no other experience in romance. Both are too afraid to speak out their feelings, but it's obvious to both of them they're in love with each other. FL's reason for not confessing was weak, but she's a teenage girl dreaming of being confessed to. ML's reasons for not confessing were much deeper - the feelings of insecurity and not being good enough.

Is it the most serious movie you'll ever watch? No, not by a longshot.
Is it as bad as others present it? I'd argue no.

Honestly, shoujo manga's are famous for their dramatic shenanigans and over-the-top events. It comes with the territory. And when I put into perspective myself at that age I kind of understand the impulse to do stupid things even when you know better - you're only 17. The whole point of growing up is making mistakes and having enough time to correct them, learn and develop. Which is something their characters managed to do by the end of this movie.

Second lead syndrome did hit kinda hard, though. Damn.

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