To begin with, here are a few points to take note:1) As mentioned countless times, if you haven't watched this and do not wish to know the story, I suggest that you leave this till after watching the movie. Lots of spoilers around. Don't say I didn't remind you.
2) I have not read the manga. I do not know the storyline so there will be no comparison between the original and the movie.
3) If you are going to watch this movie soon, please stay till the end of the credits roll. I know the credits roll is terribly long (because of the number of people involved) BUT you will get to see something from Part 1 which gives an inkling of the focus in Part 2 AND the trailer for Part 2. Just stay in your seats till the end or you will never know what you are missing.
Storyline:
First of all, the story begins in 1969 which was the year when Man first landed on the moon and the year just before the Osaka Expo. A group of primary school students Kenji, Occho, Maruo, Yoshitsune, Mon-chan, Donkey, Yukiji and Fukube create a secret base to gather and writes the story, "Yogen no Sho (Book of Prophecy). The story is about an evil organization which plans to take over and destroy the world but 9 brave warriors combine forces to prevent that ambition.
1997, Kenji has now given up the idea of being a rock singer and operates a convenience store while looking after his missing elder sister, Kiriko's baby daughter, Kanna. However, the sudden disappearances of his regular customer's family and Donkey's death marks the end of his peaceful life so far. He comes to know that a secret organization led by a person by the name of "Tomodachi (Friend)" is behind this series of events and is even more shocked to find out that the events are exactly what he and his childhood friends had written in Yogen no Sho. Before he can do anything to stop Tomodachi, he is framed by the organization for being a terroist and has to be on the run. He also has to protect Kanna who is supposedly Tomodachi's daughter.
On 31 Dec 2000, Kenji and his friends get together to stop Tomodachi's plans to launch an attack on Tokyo and the world by using bio-weapons...
And my thoughts:
Well, in the beginning, I didn't understand why the story started in the prison with Kadota (Moriyama Mirai) who was arrested for publishing his manga on the Internet. Seems like the story he drew was similar to what was in Yogen no Sho. He was relating his plight to the prisoner locked up in the opposite cell who is Occho! This was only apparent during the final moments of this movie when the credits roll was over. As such, my guess is that Occho was nabbed by the police after Kenji succeeded in blowing up the robot which spread the virus but from the Part 2 trailer, the rest of the group were safe.
As the story kept jumping between 1997 and 1969, it was difficult to keep track of the characters since there were so many of them. Other than the very obvious ones like Kenji, Yukiji and Donkey, I couldn't remember most of their childhood faces. I just found it amazing that they managed to make the young Donkey and the adult Donkey look almost the same! Thus, for people who have never read the manga, it can be hard trying to link the childhood faces to the adult versions and remembering all those who are involved in one way or another.
Nevertheless, I liked the idea of seeing so many good actors gathered together. It was especially refreshing to see Tokiwa Takako again since she has not been acting in dramas for a long time. Toyokawa Etsushi took too long to appear but the moment he was shown on screen, that aura is definitely unmistakable. I was just thinking, doesn't Occho feel hot wearing that long coat in Bangkok?! ^__^ Karasawa Toshiaki was also funny at times and brought much relief to the fast-moving storyline. And Sano Shiro playing the twin bullies...kudos to the casting director who managed to find such spitting images of the childhood version.
With regards to the storyline, it is definitely very fast-paced. For people who have not read the manga, I think it can be rather difficult to follow the story as it zips through different periods back and fro. I've never been too keen on science fiction stories so that was a main reason why I did not buy the manga although I had become keen on Urasawa Naoki's works after watching Monster. Then again, based on what I've read in Monster, Urasawa is very detailed when it comes to every development. I wonder if the movie did rush through things because it appears as if they covered a lot of material in just 142 minutes.
There is a suspense element to this story i.e. the biggest mystery being who is Tomodachi. Pertaining to this, I think the hairstyle is somewhat a give-away clue. I don't know how the manga handled this but from the way it seems, Fukube is a suspicious character. Something about his eyes during the classmate reunion session and his hairstyle resembling Tomodachi's behind a mask just makes him a likely choice. And the way he "died" just gives more room for imagination. However, I am doubting that Urasawa will give away the answer so easily so that hairstyle could be a trick after all. From the way how Kenji looked at the face of Tomodachi at the end of the story, I am guessing that Tomodachi is either someone who has supposedly died or someone who is from his team. I hope that the final answer is logical i.e. don't give us a character who has not even been featured because there is no way anyone could have arrived at the answer.
One thing which I couldn't really understand is why Kenji seems to have clean-forgotten about Yogen no Sho right in the beginning. From the flashbacks, it seemed like Kenji was the one who wrote and drew the pictures in Yogen no Sho. It is puzzling as to why he had no impression of what he did.
Another big mystery is the fact that Kenji and Co. wrote in Yogen no Sho that there were 9 warriors. However, after eliminating Donkey who is supposedly dead, there are only 7 of them. I remember Yoshitsune saying that there was a guy who always wanted to join their gang but that guy always wore a mask and seemed to be particularly interested in Kenji. Could he have felt left-out by the group and hatched this plan to take revenge?
I'm somewhat glad that I have not read the manga yet because this doesn't kill the excitement like what happened during Death Note when I was very concerned about the differences between the original and the adaptation. Maybe the manga fans would have a different take on the storyline. It's just quite painful to wait for the second series since there's a big cliffhanger at the end of Part 1. Assuming that it takes 2months for the movie to come to Singapore, the earliest we can see this would be in March 09!
The focus on Part 2 seems to be shifting to Kanna who is now grown-up. It still remains to be seen why Kanna is the chosen one and her mother Kiriko should provide more answers. As of 2015, a new Yogen no Sho will be at work. Thus, the gang will probably have no prior knowledge of what's going to happen since they did not even finish Yogen no Sho in the first place.
And my ratings for this movie...
Story: 9 out of 10 (too fast at times but it is an engaging piece of work)
Acting: 9 out of 10 (too many characters around, some of the actors don't get enough airtime so there is limited understanding of the characters. however, the standard of acting is good)
Theme song: 6 out of 10 (the intro is catchy BUT i don't really like the song as a whole)
Visual effects / Scenery: 8 out of 10 (CG prowess at work, the final explosion scene was magnificent. I think besides the pay for the huge army of actors and extras, most of the money spent on this movie must have been for CG.)
Teamwork / Chemistry: 7 out of 10 (the core group blended pretty well together but they could have got together much earlier to show the strong friendship they had)
Total: 39 out of 50
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