I’m the kind of person that likes to watch and read the same series to compare the treatment of the story in different mediums.

今日、恋をはじめます (Kyou, Koi wo Hajimemasu) is another film adapted from a manga series about plain jane Hibino Tsubaki who gets teased by the popular guy in her high school, Tsubaki Kyouta but eventually falls for him. A very typical high school romance story line. The ending for the manga was pretty good…the usual happily ever after ending after the protagonist goes through hardship. There was an OVA for the manga series which had pretty choppy scenes and ended only somewhere in the beginning of the whole story.

Having read the manga and found it rather satisfying, I had great hopes for the movie but was somewhat disappointed after watching it. Of course, a movie can only last about two to three hours and it would be impossible to squeeze a rather long manga series into that time frame. Moreover, I do understand that certain scenes have to be changed either due to ability to replicate in real life or to satisfy movie ratings. However, I felt the scenes in the movie were quite flat and key scenes were removed or changed drastically. For example, the scene where Tsubaki-kun teases Tsubaki and in anger, she whips out her scissors and cuts his hair. This scene is important as it sets the stage for the whole story. In the movie, she simply threatens to cut his hair. There’s also the other scene where she stays home during Christmas eve to study to pull up her grades. At the last moment, Tsubaki-kun meets her to light the (couple) candle at the main square (something she wanted to do to affirm their relationship). In the movie, this scene was just cut to the rather where they lit the candle together. Yes, there’s the heartwarming feeling that they are doing something as a couple, but the whole doki doki feeling built up before this moment is lost.

Oh and don’t be deceived by the movie poster. Tsubaki only adopts the hairstyle (with the bangs) you see in the poster in her third year of high school which was pretty much shown only in credits at the end of the movie. She started of with her trademark twin braids and changed her hairstyle to a casual let down of hair with no fringe somewhere in the middle of the movie (when she was in her second year of high school).

Overall, the movie was ok but I still prefer the manga version.