Totsukuni no Shoujo (2022)

All vibes, no substance.

This adaptation inserts just enough major plot points from the manga to call itself an adaptation, but forgets to include the reasons these events happen.

Sensei does not stop whining about being cursed, Shiva cries about being abandoned. There's no Aunt, there's no threat, no one is really chasing them. They just go around, checking off major plot points for no good reason, go to Mother in the lake, receive an answer not heard by the audience and set off into the sunset, happily ever after.

Shiva's VA has decided to portray her with a pitch so high that it makes the character lose ... depth. The ED song just sounds infantile.

The animation moves at about 2 frames per second and can show off a few beautiful moments - all of them were in the trailer, which made a better job of adapting the manga than the film itself.

Overall, the characters are there, and there is some semblance of plot, and there is animation. And not much beyond that. A poor excuse of an adaptation, done by people who give the impression to either not know or not care what the source material was about. If you gave your money to this Kickstarter project, you tell yourself whatever you need to justify that choice, but we both know this was one big, 22-million yen, 70-minute nothing.

Would have been great if not almost everything has cut out.

The base of the story is completly missing and the point of this OVA is nothing but just being all pretty from the outside with no real substance and being closed off quickly into a small neat package.

The Art is really pretty and well-done but even this doesn't deliver the full "vibe" and experience from the story. A lot of the plot is cut-out making the story very blant and making no-sense in some parts because of it.

I didn't expect something great and it somehow still managed me to disappoint me (maybe because i ... like the Manga so much..).

This is not what the Manga deserves,yet people rate it as GOOD. No, it's not. Definetly not as an Adaptation as it does very poorly..

I must say that this adaptation was quite the letdown.

After I read the manga, I was elated to discover that it was animated as well! I was a little confused when I realized that it was just a single movie instead of a series, as surely a movie wouldn't have enough time to cover any substantial amount of plot from the manga, right?

Oh, how right I was.

It didn't take long after beginning the movie for me to realize that something was wrong. I began to notice that the pacing was much faster than expected, and there were many vital details completely omitted from the story. ... Only a small amount of the original plot remained.

Almost all of the story points that remained were just shoehorned in without any rhyme, reason, or so much as a speck of buildup. So much was just ripped from thin air, leaving me constantly jarred and confused.

I was startled to see a late plot point in the manga very briefly hinted at relatively early in the movie, only for Chekhov's gun to jam and never see it brought up again or explained in any way.

This story NEEDED an episodic format in order to shine. Trying to squeeze as much as possible into 70 short minutes sadly doomed this from the start. I can only hope that it's remade into a proper series some day in the future.

Man, I'm honestly disappointed.

While the art and animation is stunning and the soundtrack is wonderfully whimsical, I can't help coming away feeling...cheated, I suppose. The pacing is off, the story is bare bones, the characters don't even feel like the same ones from the manga, it's all very disjointed, there's no sense of time or threat or urgency, if I didn't know the source material I couldn't tell you what was happening, but even knowing the source I still struggle.
I'm a long-time fan of Totsukuni, found it after only the first volume had published, but I really couldn't tell you who this film was made ... for; it's confusing as heck for viewers who don't know the series and so lacking in what made the series so good that fans won't like this either.

It's sad. I really hoped this would be good, but it just...isn't.

Do yourself a favour; skip this. Read the manga instead, if you feel like it come back to watch this after if only to see the gorgeous visuals, 'cus I can't stress enough that the one thing this film gets right is that.

Maybe it's because I'm getting old, I can't understand what Totsukuni no Shoujo or The Girl From the Other Side trying to convey. Yes, you might say the general idea of pain and acceptance is there. But when a short anime that leans too hard on vague mystery and disconnected storytelling, it's never gonna end well.

There are two main characters in this OVA, a beast-man and a young girl, nothing that we haven't seen before. And honestly, the man's development feels too rush while the girl is flat out one-dimensional. This combine with the blurry story make the movie longer than it actually is.

The ... only positive thing is the strange artstyle and some catchy melancholic OSTs. So overall, The Girl From the Other Side is not something I would recommend even just for an hour break.