Friday, December 10, 2010

Densha Otoko

Recently I found a movie that was based on a manga that was based off of a light novel, or in some other similar sequence.
The movie is called Densha Otoko or Train man, now because I am a guy most people will assume this is a funny movie or an action movie of some sort, but no sorry to disappoint but this is a love movie.
So Densha Otoko is basically about an otaku guy who meets a "high class" girl on a train when he saves her from a drunken idiot. He falls in love with the girl, but because he is an otaku he has no confidence to ask the girl out . To fix his confidence issue he turns towards forums online.
When he states his situation on the forums random people from around Japan respond to him and push him to ask the girl out. As the movie progresses you watch as he turns into a clean cut guy that eventually does get with the girl. The guy is backed up by many many people who post on the threads, but he is backed up by 7 main posters. The posters all have their own problems, but they try to escape their problems by backing up the Train man.
Eventually the train man and his girl "Hermes'' run into problems where he is trying to hard and she starts to get uncomfortable, but they eventually work things out. At the end of the movie they end up together, and the posters leave the thread in order to fix their own lives.

I read the manga first before I watched the movie and I loved the manga, because it was a simple love story.  I thought that the train man was a good character, but at the same time he made me hate him from time to time because he was such a wuss. He had a lot of problems regarding his confidence which made me sad and mad. The female lead "Hermes" is not that interesting in my opinion, I feel she is only needed in order to help the male lead develop his character.
Out of all the characters I enjoyed the 7 posters the most, they were an important part of the movie that really pushed train mans character constantly. They were not only helpful they played important roles as comedy relief to balance out the straight sappiness from the train man and his true love.
The overall movie is done in a interesting way because of the fact that they have to include some way of showing forum usage. It has many moments of romance and a few comedy bits from time to time, but it really is a light hearted love story that I believe many people will enjoy.
I would definitely recommend people to at least watch it, than they can decide themselves whether or not to get it, I probably will.
There are different versions of media based on the original story there is the manga, the movie, the light novel, and a drama version based off the movie.
Densha Otoko Manga Version 2