Mei-chan no Shitsuji review and comparison.
Don't worry, no spoilers.
*
The Takarazuka version of Mei-chan no Shitsuji sold out on the first day, both stagings! Great news for the stars and fans of the manga/dorama. How about we regular Takarazuka fans, though? Is this play something we should be excited about? I bravely embarked on a quest to watch the dorama and read the manga to find out!
It's easy to see why Zuka chose this. It was practically made for Takarazuka, with hot, idealized men, cute young girls, and decadent luxury. The basic concept: a young girl named Mei (Otoha Minori), thirteen in the manga and fifteen/sixteen in the dorama, finds she's the displaced heiress to a huge fortune! Not only is she suddenly rich, but a gorgeous guy named Rihito (Kurenai Yuzuru) has been assigned her butler, and this twenty-one year old hunk lives to do anything she asks. LIVES for it. It's all he wants! He glories in picking up her socks!
Mei-chan transfers to an elite school 1/3 Tokyo's size with a private helicopter, luxury, and fine dining, where her sweet nature wins over the snobby rich girls (all with hot butlers). Mei is the stereotypical spunky-but-helpless-in-the-right-moments romance heroine, so her cute, bubbly personality is perfect for Minori. And, for nibante otokoyaku Miya Rurika, Mei-chan of course has a male best friend who just happens to be Rihito's younger brother, who is madly in love with Mei-chan and decides that it will be HIS goal in life to learn to properly pick up her socks.
In other words, Mei-chan is every bad stereotype in romantic fiction balled into one pink package with butlers, but any romance succeeds or fails its writing.
So is it any good?
The TV show and the manga turned out quite different. I watched the dorama first, and rather liked Mei. She knows her family trade--udon making--well and can cook, waitress, and clean with ease and a smile. She's tough, refusing to give up in the face of stubborn classmates who consider her a mere commoner, and loyal; she chooses to go to her new school to help her family out, for example.
Mei in the manga is the whiniest, most useless, irritating heroine since Bella Swan. No, Bella is better because at least she can cook. Manga-Mei does nothing. Nothing. She tries to cook and makes a mess, so Rihito has to clean up after her. She tries to clean and just can't do it, so Rihito has to press her shirts. And while Mei in the TV show has a crush on Rihito that develops with time, Mei in the manga has a mad OMG HE'S SO HOT obsession from their first meeting, and pretty much bases all her decisions on whether or not they'll make Rihito happy.
Also, the TV show has a sense of humor the manga does not. The show seems to know it's a silly story based on a silly idea, and often pokes fun at itself; the result is, well, fun, and the silly sense of humor would be perfect for Yuzurun's comedy acting! The manga, however, despite cracking occasional jokes that never work takes its love triangles and drama way too seriously, so all I could think about was what a stupid story I was reading.
And then there's the sex. In the manga, to lure Mei, Mei's grandfather (Natori Rei) orders Rihito (twenty-one) to have sex with Mei (thirteen) so she'll stay with him and her new family. Gosh, old men ordering servants to have sex with their barely pubescent granddaughters--what about that doesn't scream "romance?" And it gets better: girls forcing their butlers to have sex with them (sometimes drugging them to get the job done) and one butler molesting a female student make for grotesque scenes I think were supposed to be sexy and failed totally.
Also, the characters are viler than their TV counterparts. Rihito, in the manga, is described as loving to pick on people--yuck! Another character murders an innocent man and smiles about it, a plot detail left out of the show. A third makes a speech in the dorama about how important her butler is to her; in the manga, she treats him like crap, beating him often and throwing him out of her house when angry. The manga-ka noted: "Shinobu (Makaze Suzuho) is surprisingly popular, it amazed me. So after all, people like beautiful characters even if they're bad? Is that how it is? ...Me? Of course, I love him."
Yuck squared.
So, my verdict is that with such a great cast, this play might be adorable, silly fun if based on the TV show, or a disaster to shudder at if it follows the manga.
Come on, Kodama-sensei! Give us the dorama! You can do it!