Ok, this evening I finished re-watching Angelic Layer. Nice Clamp series with a reasonably straight forward story line, if a little far fetched, all the way through. Gets a bit emotional at times but is a nice series with good characters. If the technology was around it would have made a good toy tie-in but it's a bit advanced for the real world
The other thing I watched this evening was Maria-sama ga Miteru - The Movie. This is the live action adaptation of the story, (which has been told in ~36 light novel volumes, a manga version and 4 anime series). The film covers the first arc which is how the main characters "meet" and become "involved" ... this is equivalent to the first three episodes of the anime!
I received the film this morning ... and it's a rather big box being roughly 1ft*1ft*3in and decorated with pictures of Yumi in the style used for the light novels. In the box you get 1*BD, 1*DVD, a double sided poster (one side is the characters lined up and the other messages from the principle actors/actresses (which were also in the film book available separately) and a medium sized micro-fibre towel, again of Yumi in the same style as the box. I also got three drawn Yumi postcards as an external bonus due to the store I ordered the set from. This is the deluke limited edition release.
The film is on both the DVD and the BD but the extras across the disks are different. The BD has things like chibli animated "things not to do in the cinema" shorts (which are amusing), trailers for the film and things on the actresses learning the waltz, whilst the DVD has footage from live events, behind the scenes footage with interviews and has a commentary track on the film.
The film itself. Right it should be noted that there are no subs at all in this release. The only English is the top level of the menu on the BD. Hence to follow whats happening you need to know the story ... preferably from watching the anime, reading the first few novels and possibly the manga as there are variations between these media and the film does make some changes as well. Knowing some Japanese phrases helps a lot, particularly with some of the changes (for instance it seems that Yoko tells Yumi about why Sachiko doesn't like men instead of Sei in the film but you can work out that that is what they are talking about). There are also other changes in locations where things happen but the changes are mostly minor overall. The standard of acting was ok ... these are mostly models apparently instead of actors so I've seen a lot better acting but it's good enough that you can follow what is going on. Some of the camera work is a bit poor at times (e.g. the first scene with everyone in the Rose Mansion meeting room has poor light balance) but generally it is acceptable.
I enjoyed the film. I would like to see it with proper subs (chances of that happening I would say are pretty low) as it would lower the concentration needed to watch something where you are constantly mentally comparing with the other versions. It's not as good as the live action film of Kimi ni Todoke but if you like the series then it's worth a watch.
