so mid-march i finally watched the live action of ookami shoujo to kuro ouji and... okay, i was not expecting to enjoy it as much as i did?? i went in pretty casual about it and came out actually impressed. quickly, a warning: i have opinions. controversial ones maybe. proceed with an open mind or forever hold your peace!! hehe......

so for context, the story follows erika, a girl who lies to her friends about having a boyfriend and ends up using a photo of a random hot stranger to back up her claim. turns out that stranger goes to her school and his name is kyoya sata. she begs him to play along and he agrees, but the catch is he's going to treat her like an actual dog. hence the title, wolf girl and black prince. speaking of the title, while reading the manga i had this slow realization about the wolf part and... okay it took me longer than i'd like to admit. the boy who cried wolf!! erika lies constantly to keep up appearances, she's literally the boy!! honestly makes the title so much more clever than just "dog girl and black prince" lol. i was sitting there like. wow. i am so slow...........ㅜㅜ anyway!!

the live action does its own little thing compared to the anime/manga and i think that works in its favor for the most part. it doesn't just retread the same beats, there are changes that actually kept me engaged even though i already knew the story going in. the pacing felt tighter too, which makes sense given it's a movie format. they had to trim things down and i think they made pretty smart choices about what to keep and what to adjust~

now. kyoya. kyoya kyoya kyoya...... he is still delightfully insufferable and charming in that frustrating way :) but i have to be honest, there were moments where......he genuinely got on my nerves. like i'm not even joking.....the thing about kyoya in the manga is that even when he's being cold you can kind of sense there's something underneath it all, the layers are there if you pay attention. in the live action though......? there were stretches where i genuinely could not tell if this man had actual feelings for erika or if he just wanted a pet. a human pet, lol. and not in the weird.... nonchalant, possessive tsundere way, more in the "okay are we sure this is a romance and not just a concerning situation....." way. 

so when the confession finally comes around i was honestly expecting to say "awwww~~ (///ω///)♪"...... i didn't say that......it didn't land the way it should have and i think that's largely because the emotional groundwork(?) wasn't laid out clearly enough. like...... i might sound crazy, but i need to feel his walls crumbling, you know??? that's the whole point of kyoya. instead i was sitting there a little underwhelmed going, oh. okay. that happened. good for them... ig.

erika herself is really fun to watch though. she's clumsy and dramatic and easy to root for, the actress (fumi nikaido) leaned into the comedic moments really well without making her feel grating. she carries a lot of the emotional weight of the film and she does it SUPER well. i was rooting for her throughout even when the romance side of things wasn't fully delivering for me.... BUT. BUT. BUTTTTT (lol).... the girl..... SHE CARRIED!!!!!! ERIKA... YOU. WERE. THE. MVP <33

Labels: 2026年3月, television