I don't think I've ever been as confused about the plot of a movie as I was with this. The beginning really threw me for a loop, as I was under the impression the whole pregnancy thing with Hatsumi's sister was going to go somewhere. I pretty much understood the whole love triangle bit. Granted, a lot of it felt super cliche. I only knew it was based off a manga after I'd watched the whole thing. It makes sense, as it has a bunch of weird manga tropes.
There's some really problematic treatment of Hatsumi that is played off as okay through "I call you stupid and worthless because I love you." She gets ROOFIED by Azusa and constantly abused by Ryoki yet somehow they are still redeemable characters? However, Hatsumi has absolutely no backbone and watching her be a limp noodle stopped being tolerable almost immediately. Also, the whole "my brother wants to date me" thing is extremely unpleasant to watch. It's funny, because I think Shinogu was probably the best of the three dudes. You know things are bad when a girl's (adoptive, but still) brother is the best romantic option.
As for the viewing experience itself, I had the same issue as other reviewers. The cuts back and forth between characters was way too frequent. One thing that struck me as odd was that there would be scenes where everything felt like a kind of normal movie, and then it would go to these sections where everyone is talking super fast, one after another, to the point that I couldn't figure out who was supposed to be talking. The music was sometimes so distracting from the dialogue that I lost track of what they were saying, and it was often not fitting to the tone of the scene.
This was almost too bad to enjoy even as a B-movie. Still, I watched it all the way through, so it must have cast some kind of spell on me...
There's some really problematic treatment of Hatsumi that is played off as okay through "I call you stupid and worthless because I love you." She gets ROOFIED by Azusa and constantly abused by Ryoki yet somehow they are still redeemable characters? However, Hatsumi has absolutely no backbone and watching her be a limp noodle stopped being tolerable almost immediately. Also, the whole "my brother wants to date me" thing is extremely unpleasant to watch. It's funny, because I think Shinogu was probably the best of the three dudes. You know things are bad when a girl's (adoptive, but still) brother is the best romantic option.
As for the viewing experience itself, I had the same issue as other reviewers. The cuts back and forth between characters was way too frequent. One thing that struck me as odd was that there would be scenes where everything felt like a kind of normal movie, and then it would go to these sections where everyone is talking super fast, one after another, to the point that I couldn't figure out who was supposed to be talking. The music was sometimes so distracting from the dialogue that I lost track of what they were saying, and it was often not fitting to the tone of the scene.
This was almost too bad to enjoy even as a B-movie. Still, I watched it all the way through, so it must have cast some kind of spell on me...