Xxxholic: the live-action series

[ekaterin24]

Sooo, who's seen the series

Comments

[mortkero]

I watched half of it, I thought Doumeki was great, and Watanuki looked the part, but he acted very un Watanuki to me. Watanuki is a very sweet person, and I think LA Watanuki was quite gruff, and less homebody, and his voice was a bit too deep. it was probably 50% the voice I didn't like as Jun Fukuyama is PERF as Watanuki. But there were some squee-ish 104 moments. Maybe I ought to finish it at some point.. but I couldn't handle how out of character some of it felt.

on the other side, they did the creepy horror pretty well.

[ekaterin24]

Now that you mention it, I can see that Watanuki's sweetness and kindness was hardly there at all in the live action version. That's partly a victim of the short storyline--no room for the oden fox child, Zashiki Warashi, Kohane, and others Watanuki was so kind to.

Jun Fukuyama was excellent as Watanuki's VA (he's so versatile--I'm impressed with how he was also Lelouch in Code Geass, who is a very different sort of character!)

[inari_laikvendi]

in short: not xxxHolic at all because of Watanuki if you ask me
in general it is not BAD for a live action with all the decorations and atmosphere but I would not recommend it to the fans, 'cause it is not the story we all love. there is nothing of Watanuki Kimihiro there. LA's "Watanuki" is whiny teary histerical spiteful self-pitying guy. really, that struck me, 'cause I don't see why anyone in the series would care for him and love him, that is not a story of a kind and charming character learning important things about people and the world around him. there is nothing there - neither kindness, nor charm, nor learning.

[ekaterin24]

He had the visual look, and the interactions with Yuuko and Doumeki down reasonably well, but yeah, the subtleties were missing as well as the kindness. The series was mostly good for "seeing the characters come to life" but not as good as the anime and for me nothing will touch the manga, even with the screwed-up later parts. One thing that made me unhappy with the last couple of volumes was it seemed that all Watanuki's kindness went out the window, except for the way he treated Kohane and the little unborn soul (which is what makes me think he'd make an awesome father.)

[twothreefour]

I lovedlovedloved the choice of Higashide Masahiro as Doumeki. The changes to the storyline I was not very happy with but they had to try to hit the high points in 9 episodes wtf.

[ekaterin24]

9 eps was flat-out insane but they did the best with that, plotwise. And Doumeki was just about spot-on. My favorite bits with him were:

1. The first time Doumeki takes out his bow at Yuuko's instruction and shoots the ghost attacking Watanuki. Beautiful, perfect movements in that sequence.
2. Watanuki and Himawari baking the cake. Watanuki yells at Doumeki for getting in the way, and Doumeki says in that flat, classic Doumeki way: "It's my kitchen"
3. Doumeki waiting for Watanuki by the hydrangea.

[tsukino_aki]

The first 2 comments are everything I want to say.
I finished all 9 episodes just to delete them forever from my hard disk. And while Himawari's acting is plain and stiff and she makes non-fans who watched the series hated Himawari, it's definitely Watanuki who kill the series. I have watched a few movies/drama with that dude and he always has that hateful look on his face. Watanuki is supposed to be grumbly but sweeeeeeet, not a whinny pitiful guy. It's impossible to grow to love him like we did to manga's Watanuki.
Not very satisfied with Yuuko either, Anne has the look but not Junko's aura.
The only character who seems to have been done good is Doumeki, but because the series is short it's impossible to see his relationship with Doumeki grows deep, so sometimes his actions are unreasonable.

From the view of a regular audience, I don't think this drama is good either. Not recommended for anyone.

[nochick_fics]

for what it was it was pretty decent.

That sums it up perfectly for me.