Rating: 7/10
Genre: Romance/Science Fantasy/Drama
Language: Japanese
Starring: Nakagawa Taishi, Taira Yuna, Takasugi Mahiro, Ikeda Elaiza, Okazaki Sae, Chiba Yudai
Seeing that a major part of my job is now writing movie reviews, I think I’ll write as many movie reviews as I can on this blog, just to get some practice in. I’m still pretty new to the art, so it would be good to get more used to writing such reviews without spoiling the story. Practice makes perfect, amirite?
Which brings me to point of this post. I actually watched this version of “ReLIFE” quite a while ago, but didn’t have the chance to write about it until now.
Life has been very much busy and not at all conducive for blogging. I am here now, though, and ready to give my opinion on this version of “ReLIFE”. Please note that I’ll mainly be comparing the film to the anime because I’ve not read the manga.
For my review on the “ReLIFE” anime, click here.
What is it about?
If you’ve taken the time to at least keep up with news regarding Japan every now and then, you might have heard of the term “karoshi”, and in turn, the difficulties found in a Japanese working environment.
For those who aren’t aware, “karoshi” is a Japanese word that is defined as death from overwork, or suicide from work-related stress.
As one of the few Japanese entertainment shows to touch upon the subject, I was immediately intrigued. A show about karoshi? You can bet I’d pay to see that- and I did.
The story starts with a peek at half-NEET Kaizaki Arata’s daily life. After quitting his job of only 3 months, he struggles to find employment, as companies refuse to hire someone who seems unreliable on paper. He claims that the reason behind his resignation is that the company “does not fit his highest potential” when in reality, he couldn’t bear the thought of working for a black company any longer.
So with his reputation in pieces, he walked away from that job and has been struggling ever since. The situation only worsens when his parents cut off his allowance, and he has to fall back on his only other source of income- a part-time job he managed to snag at a mini market.
It is at this point that Yoake enters his life, and offers him a job opportunity, on the condition that he agrees to be a test subject for a scientific experiment first. This experiment involves rejuvenating Kaizaki by 10 years and sending him back to highschool as a student, in order to fix whatever is wrong with his life as well as to provide a chance of enjoying youth again.
Desperate and running out of funds, Kaizaki agrees and signs the contract.
So that was it. He has a year to fix his life and maybe, just maybe, score a job.
Is it worth a watch?
Yes, I would think so. Despite being born from the same source, the live action version of “ReLIFE” is not exactly the same as its anime counterpart. Instead of having 13 episodes to squeeze everything into, the movie version has to work with a trimmer time slot (about 2 hours, if I recall correctly?)- and that means several things have to be changed.
For the first part of the movie, “ReLIFE” pretty much follows the same storyline as its anime counterpart. It then diverges from anime canon, but not so much that it affects the quality of the story. At least in my opinion. The changes they’ve made are reasonable enough that it doesn’t feel too unnatural or out of place in the story, which is something that tends to happen when producers change the storyline in live action or anime shows for whatever reason there may be. Anime/manga fans ought to be especially familiar with this phenomenon.
How many of us have sat through an anime or live action film, feeling incredibly annoyed that the producers have made ridiculous changes to the story? (When I say story, I mean the manga or novel that anime and live action films tend to originate from.)
That aside, other notable changes that can be found in this version of “ReLIFE” is that the more “problematic” undertones in the story have been taken away, probably to keep things light seeing that they’re working on very limited time. Arata’s inner conflict about being much older than his “peers” has been glossed over and ignored, but this change can be forgiven. There is also not as much focus on the identity of Arata’s (Nakagawa Taishi) superior, which is again different from the treatment the character received in the anime.
Another change you can expect is that the main couple of this film enjoys a more “complete” ending. While I do not feel that the decisions made for them to reach that point really make much sense, there is still a sense of closure that fans of this series get to enjoy here as opposed to the anime.
Overall though, I’d say that “ReLIFE” is worth a watch. It’s lighter than the anime, fans of the main couple are definitely in for a treat, and this adaptation is in no way inferior to the anime despite the differences.