I came to Chihiro Ikeda‘s live-action movie adaptation of Kowloon Generic Romance having watched the anime but without having read Jun Mayuzuki‘s still-ongoing manga. I’m aware that the number one criticism of the anime from manga fans is that it rushes through the material, and I could figure as much from how quickly the anime’s tone shifts from slow-burn mystery to fast-paced soap opera. It was an entertaining soap opera, at least, and the strength of its emotional arcs made up for the lack of clear logic or explanations for its sci-fi concepts. But if condensing the manga into thirteen episodes was challenging enough, how could it be condensed even further into a movie under two hours?
The answer, it turns out, is cutting almost everything not directly related to Kujirai and Kudo’s stories. Yaomay, my favorite character in the anime, only exists here so her friendship can remain on the list of differences between Kujirai A and Kujirai B. Minami Umezawa captures Yaomay’s charm well, but her own story, and even any sense of depth in her friendship with Kujirai, is gone. Ryō Ryūsei is miscast as Hebinuma, who has been reduced to a one-dimensional villain delivering a stream of “As you know…” exposition. I hated what the movie does with Xiaohei; it might not exactly be transphobic (anime/manga Xiaohei’s not explicitly trans), but it still felt wrong how that character is treated (their last scene also has just awful sound effects).
So if the focus is just on Kujirai and Kudo, how do their stories come across? Not too badly, until the film’s ending. Of the two leads, Kujirai’s actress Riho Yoshioka gives a more believable performance. Kōshi Mizukami plays Kudo in a much broader style, which gives his comedic moments punch but can make him harder to take seriously. The first act of the movie is very close to the first episode of the anime, and as the story diverges, there are some solid new scenes, including a karaoke number. The movie leans heavier on how Kudo’s subconscious affects the city around him — sometimes to striking effect (when he hits a wall in anger, the ground shakes), other times in ways that border on cheese (when he cries, of course it starts raining).
The cinematography by Nobuyasu Kita, a regular collaborator with Takashi Miike, is the film’s strongest quality, capturing the nostalgic atmosphere of endless summer and reflecting Kujirai’s identity crisis with impressive mirror shots. A simple camera move over Kujirai’s shoulders is as elegant a transition between the present and the possible as I could imagine. The practical sets for the city are beautiful. Outside of a few impressionistic moments of the city glitching, the CG special effects look awful, though mercifully there aren’t too many of them.
The ending — the one before the credits — is certainly different from the anime. Without spoilers, this new ending shifts the thematic thrust more onto Kudo’s issues with grief, where the anime ending felt more satisfying in how it centered Kujirai’s quest for her own personhood. It’s here I should note I left during the credits but was informed afterwards that the film has a post-credits scene. From the description I’ve been given of the post-credits scene, it sounds like it’s
closer to the anime ending, but considering how things appear to wrap up pre-credits, it might be extra confusing without the anime’s set-up (the person I talked to, who had not seen the anime or read the manga, thought it might be a dream sequence). I have learned my lesson about leaving during the credits of world premiere screenings.
While acknowledging that I (and a good number of other moviegoers at this premiere) missed this plot-significant post-credits scene, I can’t say I was a fan of the Kowloon Generic Romance movie. The supporting characters’ stories were my favorite part of the anime, and without the connections she forms with them, Kujirai’s own story isn’t as impactful. The cast and production quality are a mixed bag, and this hyper-condensed adaptation ends up feeling like a pale echo of other, better sci-fi mystery movies. Once the manga ends, it will be interesting to compare the three different versions of Kowloon Generic Romance, but already, the movie is clearly not the best version.