Shi to kanojo to boku (2012)

Country: Japan
Format: Special
Genre: horror, drama
Cast: Mine Azusa, Ichikawa Tomohiro, Sakurai Atsuko, Yamashita Yorie, Hakamada Yoshihiko, Asumi Keitaro, Nakawaki Mikito, Onda Noa, Otsuka Hirota, Sano Keisuke, Tane Rakuko, Toshima Koichi, 
Synopsis: After having a close to death experience Tokino Yukari can see decreased people. Her only friend is Yusaku who can also see the dead ones. Together they help souls to pass on to the other side. When they witness the death of Takeuchi Natsume they do everything to help her, but there is more than one thing that holds Natsume in human world.
Rating: 1/5
At first sight it seemed very interesting, because I find after-life theme really interesting - mostly because I believe in it. It is based on same-named manga by Kawaguchi Madoka. I which I could read it, because mangas are always much better than live-actions (why I do not read then so much??) After watching the 1 hour special, I was disappointed - it was made in year 2012, but as a live-action movie it was bad.

This is Mine Azusa's first role and sadly you can see her lack of experience. She said that she will give her best, but at many moments I thought that her acting looks too fake. I hope she is better in "Signal". Yukari is naive and after years of experience with the dead she still does not understand them properly. Despite the fact that she is easily scared she sometimes acts brave, but it can also be explained by under-estimating the danger or stupidity. For example, how logical it is to go up to the roof with a murderer who pushed someone off the same roof? Not the smartest thing to do. She has really great parents who support her while they cannot see the dead themselves. I wonder how much time it took for them to understand her? I wish they had shown more of how her childhood went by.

Yusaku is rational and more mature. A big help for him might have been that Ichikawa Tomohiro has a lot more experience in acting and I only saw him as Yusaku and not as his previous characters or himself. You can feel that there is something going on between him and Yukari, but she is too naive to notice it. The only hints are between the lines and in his eyes. Despite being an important character we only get a little to know about him. Not even the way he got his ability!

We get to know Takeuchi Natsume more than Yusaku's character. Natsume shows that each person might have two different sides and no matter what your intentions are others might misunderstand

them. It is so sad to see how she is filled with anger, regret and hopelessness for not being able to do anything. Only after death she started to think what she wanted to do differently. I wish they had done it as drama, not one episode special, because the plot itself is really promising and even in this special there was so many things to work with. Though I am big scaredy-cat and this special has many disturbing scenes, I was able to watch it without screaming (manga is rated +14). The cool thing is that for the first time I saw a fiction where the dead cannot see each other - no matter how many decreased people there is and even if they are next to each other they see nothing!

For a moment I thought about turning off speakers, because this special deserves "the worst

soundtrack" award. Not only was the music bad and in wrong scenes, it was also way too loud for certain scenes. I have never been annoyed by such thing, but I felt like the sound was covering the whole image I was trying to look at. I cannot remember the specific scenes, but I remember clearly the sound of them.
It is nice to watch when you do not consider time as money, because in every way it is a waste of time. The 1 star I gave it, was all due to promising plot. I hope someone will make a new live-action of it, because I would like to see it. This special is just a disappointment from great experienced director Tsukamoto Renpei - You gave us rays of hope, but the outcome was rookie and it is transparent that there was something wrong with money. Forgive me my bad pun (high five who understood and who did not should google it), but I consider my pun greater than this special.