Title: Kimi ni Todoke – The Movie aka From Me to You
Genre: Romance/Drama
Director: Kumazawa Naoto
Format: Movie; 128 minutes.
Dates: 25 Sep 2010

Synopsis: Kuronuma Sawako was born fifteen years ago to doting parents, especially her father, a cymbalist in an amateur orchestra. As she grew up, her schoolmates would say she looked like a zashki warashi, and that she resembled Sadako from the Ringu horror movie. Even now, she has a funny penchant for spooking her classmates. But there’s one classmate who treats her differently: a popular and bright boy named Kazehaya Shota.

The Highlights
Pacing: Horrible; too much is squeezed into this movie, and it still feels too long.
Actors: None of them bring enough to the table.
Directing: Has a misplaced emphasis on loyalty.
Characters: Feel watered down compared with their anime equivalents.
Ending: The only bold thing in this movie.

I’ve often wondered if a movie would be a better format for telling Kimi ni Todoke’s story. It’s a good (but not great) love story as most who have seen the anime would testify, but there’s a lot of unnecessary fat around the edges, as several threats and misunderstandings pop up, stalling romantic advancement between leads Sawako and Kazehaya, which have been cynically interpreted in some sectors as purely there to postpone the ending of the original manga and sell more volumes. The benefit of the movie format is that you’re forced to tighten things up, get rid of the stuff that doesn’t matter, and deliver a clear ending. Kimi ni Todoke – The Movie only succeeds on one of these fronts, but, as terrible an idea it was to jam the entire first season of the anime into two hours, this isn’t the worst of its problems.

The biggest problem with the Kimi ni Todoke movie is that it just isn’t executed very well. The pacing is awful. Despite the fact that so much plot is crammed into its allotted time, it still feels long. Furthermore, it slows down for moments that don’t matter, and blitzes through those that do. The plot progression also feels incredibly episodic; scene transitions happen abruptly, almost as if the events immediately prior don’t matter at all. None of the actors are impressive either, but I’m more inclined to lay most of the blame at the director’s feet. What was he trying to achieve? The film clearly isn’t a bold, liberal adaptation, but if he was aiming for complete loyalty, then cinema was not the right medium because the format demands that things be cut. By jamming so much in, the events and characters come off as compromised.

The haphazard pacing stunts the characters particularly. Sawako, played by Tabe Mikako, goes to pieces about fifty times during the course of this film, mostly over nothing. Lead actor Miura Haruma gives Kazehaya a goofy grin, but very little else. Their teacher, the comic-relief character Pin (played by Arata) seems overly interested in his students in a way which is humourous in the anime, but just comes off as creepy in here. None of the other side characters are very well developed, and while I have no problem with the focus being on the leads, the side characters still manage to hog enough oxygen to interfere with Sawako and Kazehaya’s romance.

Fortunately the second half the of movie is a lot better than the first half, although this was also true of the anime, and I’m inclined to think this was largely due to the strength of the source material. There’s one place where Kimi ni Todoke – The Movie is bold, and that’s the ending. It’s a difficult task to deliver a definitive ending where this film chose to do so, and the anime wasn’t up to it, requiring a second season to wrap things up completely. This is one of the few places where Kimi ni Todoke – The Movie recognized the clear, simultaneous limitations and advantages of the movie format, and worked through them. If only the rest of the film did that. As it stands, all I can suggest is to watch the anime, because everything else is considerably better executed there.

The Rating: 4

Reviewed by: Sorrow-kun