MOVIE REVIEW: Chihayafuru Second Verse Live Action

Title: Chihayafuru Second Verse

Alternate Title: Chihayafuru: Shimo no Ku

Original Work: Yuki Suetsugu

Genre: Sports, Shoujo, School Life

Summary:

Sixth grader Ayase Chihaya, a tomboy with no ambitions or goals of her own, gets to know Wataya Arata, a transfer student at Chihaya's elementary school and an outcast. Through Arata, Chihaya picks up karuta and they form a team with their other friend and classmate Mashima Taichi. After graduating elementary school, Chihaya continues to play karuta hoping for a chance to meet Arata again after he went back to Fukui to take care of his sick grandfather. As time passed and Chihaya enters high school, she starts a karuta club with Taichi so that they can finally meet Arata again.

Source: KissAsian (kissasian.com)

Review:

Since Heroine Shikkaku, this was one live action adaptation that I really enjoyed. Honestly, I had second thoughts about Chihayafuru having a live action movie. If you’ve seen the anime, you might get what I mean. The way how they take cards during plays was really epic. I was hesitant to give the live action movie a try but for the love of Arata, I watched it and thankfully, I wasn’t disappointed.

Chihayafuru Second Verse was a feel-good movie to watch. I thought they did great choosing the characters for this adaptation. Suzu Hirose was perfect as Chihaya. I rarely like Japanese actresses because I prefer the actors, lol, but as of now, the only Japanese actresses that I like are these three: Ayase Haruka, Kiritani Mirei and Nagano Mei. But Suzu effortlessly joined the bandwagon by making me instantly like her. The way how she acts was refreshing. I could really see Chihaya while watching her. And may I add that she is so freaking pretty! I couldn’t think of anything bad about her. Lol.

As for Shuhei Nomura, he’s great, too. Only, I liked Taichi 2D more. Not because Taichi 2D was way hotter (lol) but because I prefer the way how transparent Taichi was in the anime. I loved watching his unrequited love towards Chihaya. This was probably just me being too biased, don’t mind me. Shuhei did a pretty great job.

For Mackenyu… Oh, hell, I loved him. Haha! I’m a huge fangirl of Arata 2D. Gosh, I love his Fukui-ben on the anime adaptation (All hail Hosoyan!) that was why I was really excited to hear Mackenyu speak. I was so glad because Mackenyu didn’t disappoint. I couldn’t picture any other Arata than him. Okay, this blogpost might be just an outlet for me to fangirl over Mackenyu. Lol. I got addicted to his voice, too. I have this fascination towards Japanese accents because of Hatori Heiji from Detective Conan and Arata. It was really wonderful how Mackenyu pulled this off. I love him! Haha!

For other characters, Shinobu (Mayu Matsuoka) was perfect, too. I could’ve shipped him and Arata but I’m pinning for Arata to be with Chihaya. Besides, Shinobu 2D was not even interested in Arata that way so whatever. The one who played Ooe was cute, too.   

If there’s something that I’m not satisfied with, it was that they changed the characterization for Tsukue-kun and Nikuman-kun. They were better in anime. Period.

My Personal Thoughts:

You might be wondering why I reviewed this one instead of the first installation, Chihayafuru Kami no Ku. Well for one reason, I never really got the chance to properly watch Kami no Ku. What I did when I watched the first movie was scan it and skip on the parts where Arata (Mackenyu) appeared. Sorry not sorry for loving Arata this hard. Lol. Nevertheless, this was an example of a splendidly made live action.

Rating: 4/5

Watch Chihayafuru Second Verse HERE