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This is disc two of the third series; it was the last aired in the UK, but the second in the US. For some reason, this series has aired in its entirety in the US (summer 2007, with the DVD release in the fall), but has not yet or only just completely aired in the UK (two September 2007, two August 2008; Nemesis is listed with a generic August airdate on wikipedia (page has cast lists and very vague spoilers about changes)); the cast list is also on imdb.
There are probably spoilers here; it is difficult to talk about the differences without them. I had seen the cast list and was aware that it was not a close adaptation; very few of the novel’s characters are in the cast list (the murderer, the accused, the victim, and a supporting character; all might as well have been different people, and the supporting character didn’t even have the same function as in the novel). I also had watched the first series and had seen how far they strayed from the novels as time went on; the first two were relatively faithful, the third had some characterization changes and extra added angsty subplots, and the fourth had what was essentially the same plot with different characters. I had at one point decided to watch this one next because it looked so different, but had decided to continue in order; I failed to change my queue or check it until after this one had shipped, though. Netflix does have all of the first three series, but the second two are listed under the book name only, not as part of Agatha Christie’s Marple as the first was.
The basic plot was the same: Jason Rafiel has died and left a sum to Miss Marple, under the condition that she investigate an unidentified past event (identifying the event (a murder, of course) was part of the investigation); he arranges for her to go on a house tour through the relevant area. The murderer’s motive and eventual (generic, not specific) fate are also the same, but everything else is different. It is not clear how Mr. Rafiel and Miss Marple met (in the books, previously in A Caribbean Mystery; here, unspecified, though I skipped some and don’t know if he was written into one of those), but his personality and history are completely different. The amount of the bequest was also changed (£20,000 in the book vs. £500 here), but that may be because they moved the story into the past; the novel was one of the last she wrote (published in 1971), while this was set in 1951.
Miss Marple receives instructions (via gramophone) and two tickets for a tour, she decides to take her womanizing nephew Raymond West along. It becomes obvious early on that the other tourists were hand-picked by Mr. Rafiel, though none of them knew it; everyone received tickets from some source instead of deciding that this tour was a good idea. The book had a mix of tourists, and the ones that Mr. Rafiel sponsored knew it. The tour guide is named Georgina Barrow, but she bears no resemblance to the Georgina Barrow of the book.
This adaptation had a World War II-era backstory, including Nazis, a convent, nuns, wounded soldiers, amnesia victims, heiresses, servants, landlords, blackmail, a missing girl in the past, and two murders in the present; the book had school headmistresses and professors and other random people, mostly around the same class as Miss Marple (with maybe a title somewhere), a murder and a missing girl (I think; it might have been two murders, though) in the past and one in the present, with a someone convicted of the murder. One of the Netflix reviewers complained about extra added lesbians, but I didn’t see any difference in that particular relationship between the book and its adaptation.
The overall plot seemed very contrived: eleven years later, Mr. Rafiel somehow managed to track down everyone who knew Verity around the time of her disappearance; it’s possible he managed to find out about her last landlord, but unlikely he would have found the ex-soldier significant unless he knew her eventual fate, and if he knew her eventual fate, he could have gone through more normal channels. I think the tour in the book was a normal tour that happened to go near the relevant area; Mr. Rafiel arranged for Miss Marple to stay with a family who knew Verity (the missing girl/murder victim) during part of the tour. This tour was probably planned by Mr. Rafiel to go to all of the relevant locations, including a forced overnight stay at the abandoned convent. He also gave Miss Marple more relevant clues in this than she had in the book; staying with the relevant family (three sisters, either widowed or never married) led to a more natural exposition of the backstory in the novel. In this, Miss Marple didn’t really do anything beyond ask loud questions and listen to the answers. I’m not sure why the killer tried to poison her at the end; it seemed very abrupt.
The book didn’t have as much action or random subplots as its adaptation; it had a bit more of an aura of menace and a bit of creepiness, though. It was obvious that something was not quite right, but was not obvious until the end who was responsible. I am unfortunately hazy on the book’s details at this time, but may go back and write a longer comparison later; I did write a long plot synopsis of this adaptation for future reference. This might not have been a bad murder mystery on its own, but it bears no resemblance to the book it takes its name from.
This is the continuing story of high-school student Kimihiro Watanuki, who is working part-time at a wish-granting shop run by Yuuko Ichihara until he has earned enough for her to remove his ability to see spirits. He starts off as her housekeper, but very quickly gets drawn into dealing with clients and the associated weirdness himself. I watched this partially in Japanese with subtitles and partially dubbed with varying degrees of attention; I did check a few things in both to compare, and it’s probably obvious which episode I watched the most closely. This had a bit more explanations in the subtitles than the first volume, which I liked. The subtitles for the shiritori game had the Japanese words used with definitions; the dub version of the game was slightly different (had to use words from a particular category) and unsurprisingly, used completely different words. It lost the impact of the kid’s choice at the end, though; in the dub, he chose a category that Watanuki didn’t like, but in the original he chose oden (an automatic failure, explained in the subtitles).
For the most part, the dub seemed closer to the subtitles this time; it wasn’t exact, but I didn’t really notice many of the random sort of changes from the first volume, though there was a tendency for the rants to be a bit different. Most of the changes I noticed were in the category of making it flow better in English, which could explain the rants; the description of the website where Yuuko and the computer-addicted woman met was a little different, and the shiritori was necessarily very different. I don’t know why the path in episode six is a “[beep]” path (and there is a beep in the original); it’s “Aurora” in the manga, and I don’t remember anything bleeped from the fansubs. In the dub, she just calls it a shortcut.
They did remove some cultural references: the name of the bat in episode six was translated, but the original source (the sword of the legendary thief Goemon Ishikawa; Goemon of Lupin III was supposedly his descendant) wasn’t mentioned. Later in that episode, she quotes Goemon’s catch phrase (“I’ve cut another trifling thing”), but the dub was completely different (“Consider yourself liberated”). In episode seven, they removed the running comparison of Watanuki to Nobita (a character in Doraemon, noted for being a bit of a crybaby) and just called him a crybaby throughout. I can understand why they might have wanted to remove brief pop culture references, though I wish they hadn’t; I am glad they didn’t try to Americanize them.
I think episode seven strayed from the original a bit more than the others, though that could be because it is one of my favorites and I gave it all of my attention. There were a couple of vague references to the zashiki-warashi which were removed; she was introducd earlier in the manga than the anime. I still hate youkai translated as demon (briefly when discussing the ame-warashi). There’s a bit that was presumably accidentally not subtitled (in the Japanese and the dub, Watanuki’s freak-out while Yuuko is discussing payment with the ame-warashi existed but was not subtitled). Watanuki’s rant at the size of Doumeki’s temple is very different (the same basic meaning, though); some of the ame-warashi’s rants were rewritten as well. The dub-writer has apparently never seen a hydrangea; they don’t come in white (only pink to lavender to blue). An ambiguous “she” at the end (referring to the not yet introduced zashiki-warashi in the manga) was changed to “Yuuko” in the dub and the whole line had a different meaning: “Why does she think this guy’s so good” vs “For some reason, Yuuko thinks you’re an exception”, making Watanuki’s rant at the end be completely different.
This had the same sort of extras as the first volume: image gallery, textless songs, and trailers (Glass Fleet, Dragon Ball Z®, One Piece, Samurai 7, Fullmetal Alchemist®, Origin, MoonPhase, and xxxHOLiC). The case was clear, with the inside being a full picture. There was an insert advertising Funimation’s other shows; I think it was the same as in the first volume. It looked like the only front-loaded trailer was Vexille (VLC is my friend, and skips such things). I’d seen that trailer before; I do like the way it says “Music by Paul Oakenfold” with what sounds very much like Boom Boom Satellites playing in the background. I wish they’d put all their trailers in the Extras section, though; I might like the choice to watch them.
—The Art—
—The Episodes—
- Game of Letters — (v3, c21 and a modified and expanded version of v6, c39) This was originally titled “shiritori”, which is a game where each person has to give a word starting with the last character of the previous word; a word ending in ん (n) loses (Japanese words can’t start with that; na/ne/ni/no/nu are each their own character). Watanuki and Himawari watch Doumeki win an archery contest; Doumeki gives Watanuki part of his arrow (stuffs it in his bag when he’s not looking); Watanuki finds himself at an oden cart run by foxes (father and son), and ends up giving the arrow to the boy in exchange for oden. The next day (the full moon), Yuuko sends Watanuki back to the cart with a package and what looks like Card Captor Sakura’s backpack as protection; spirits threaten, Mokona is in the backpack, and gets Watanuki to play shiritori for protection. The package is delivered (birds whose silhouettes can only be seen in the light of the full moon), and more oden is eaten. In the manga, the delivery is much later, and is to some random man; the shiritori sequence is shorter, and Mokona is not as mean (in the anime, all words end in “ri’, much to Watanuki’s dismay).
- Indulgence — (v1, c4-6) starts off with a visit to the drug store from Legal Drug for a hangover remedy for Yuuko, though the minor reference to its plot was removed. After Yuuko recovers, she takes Watanuki via a strange path to buy a red bat and to visit a client with a computer addiction. There is some discussion of the nature of addiction and that the desire to stop must come from within. There is a random added scene in a café where everyone’s computer was affected, which is slightly better than the manga’s implication that Yuuko and Watanuki were waiting on the balcony.
- Hydrangea — (v5, c27-28) Watanuki is walking home and complaining about the rain when he meets an ame-warashi (a rain-making spirit). She visits Yuuko because she wants to help a hydrangea. Watanuki goes to the temple and gets Doumeki, they visit Himawari and get her hair ribbons, and then they go to the hydrangea, which is extremely large and has a section of blood-red flowers. Watanuki is sucked underneath it, and meets a girl who wants to leave. For whatever reason, this is one of my favorite stories; I think in part because it’s where Watanuki’s perception of Doumeki begins to change. Watching this the first time was when I realized that Doumeki was often deliberately provoking Watanuki.
- Contract — (v3, c18-20) A woman wanders by the shop and gets an artifact that she promises not to open. It opens (not entirely her fault, which I didn’t notice in the manga, though she was the sort of person who probably would have opened it anyway) and turns out to be a monkey’s paw, with predictable results; monkey’s paws are said to be able to grant a number of wishes equal to the number of fingers. For some reason, the animators decided to change the gender of an extremely minor character.
DVD 1
listing at ANN
Funimation’s official site (actually for both Tsubasa and xxxHOLiC)
Bloodhound or Blood Hound is a live-action series loosely based on Kaori Yuki’s one-shot manga of the same name; Bandai released the TV series in the US, but the manga has not yet been licensed. It can best be described as: He’s a 200-year old vampire working in a host club; she’s an obnoxious and naïve high-school student; together, they fight crime. More seriously, high-school student Rion Kano’s best friend Shiho is missing; her last message was “Help me, Rion! It’s a real vampire”. There are also reports of other missing high-school girls, and one was found with her body drained of blood. Shiho had a card for Suou, a host at Kranken Haus where the hosts dress as vampires; she gets a part-time job there to investigate; even after Shiho is found, Rion continues to work there and gets caught up in other strange events. I blamed Bandai for the subtitle, but it apparently came from the Japanese; the US release is Bloodhound: The Vampire Gigolo; the Japanese official sites call it 「ヴァンパイアホスト」(Vampire Host), subtitled “The Vampire Gigolo” in English. The Japanese sites list it as six episodes, two parts each; Bandai calls it twelve episodes; in either case, the episodes are in pairs: “Case File” and “Resolution”. I find myself thinking of it as six episodes; this DVD has the first two. I rented this from Netflix, enjoyed it, and bumped the next disc to the top of my queue.
Bandai’s site refers to this as a horror-comedy; it seemed more comedy than horror to me. The first episode follows the main events of the first manga chapter, but there is not much Kaori Yuki-ness left in it. As near as I can tell, the manga chapters were episodic with some background plot (three of four have been unoffically translated by various people with varying quality and readability); I’m not sure if this even mentioned the background plot and I don’t think the other chapters were adapted at all. Suou’s character (and hair color) were changed (at least around Rion, he acts like he’s a teenage boy), and the other hosts are no longer vampires; the manager is no longer bishounen, but an older guy with a cane and a bit of a cosplay fetish. I don’t think this had much of a budget for special effects; Suou’s transformation sequence in particular is nothing special (fancy contacts and effects on his eyes, but not much else). There was one part in the second episode that I thought they could have done better, but it turned out to be a deliberate choice and a plot point.
Rion is the loud and aggressive sort of high-school girl; she kicks Suou three times in their first meeting. She demands to be hired part-time so that she can keep an eye on him; he refuses, and she deliberately breaks a bottle of Dom Peringon so that she will have to work off the debt. The manager feels it would be better for her to have a job in the off-hours instead of having a minor randomly wandering in during operating hours and sets her to cleaning the bathrooms in a maid uniform; he apparently feels that having her in various cosplay sorts of outfits is a good idea.
Suou has a limiter that keeps him in human form and has none of the standard vampire limitations (can see his reflection, crosses don’t bother him, can go out in daylight, enjoys garlic). So far, he has healing, speed, and strength, but not some of the other traditional vampire powers (can’t fly, can’t change form). He’s the only real vampire at the host club; the manager supplies him with blood. Suou is perpetually #2 at the host club, much to his dismay; being charged for the Dom Perignon until Rion works enough to pay for it doesn’t help. So far, the other hosts are mostly in the background, except for the one who inherits Diana (one of Suou’s clients) when he is busy.
Rion is a type that I generally dislike; I usually find the brash and aggressive sorts obnoxious, but I like her. Suou acts like a teenage boy around Rion, but is always “on” around his clients, even when being attacked. I like Rion and Suou’s interaction once she calms down a little and realizes he’s not the murderer; though she still (justifiably) thinks he’s a bit of a pervert. She continues to kick him, but he starts being able to dodge her; he also starts bopping her on the head in the second episode; he calls her out to buy feminine hygiene products for his current client and (lightly) bops her on the head with the bag a few times when she’s being exceptionally annoying or naïve. Suou is a little too enamored of the trappings of vampire-ness and has a tendency to go on and on about his dark vampire-ness; people got away while he was posing or transforming; at one point he was knocked off a roof while posturing. Rion has no patience with this and calls him on it repeatedly; in general, they spend most of their time together bickering.
The main recurring characters are the manager of the club and a female police inspector and her minion (a crime scene photographer, maybe). She is the violent type taken to extremes and wears inappropriately short skirts (and there are very close to upskirt shots on her); her minion is more than a bit of a pervert (taking upskirt shots of a corpse in the first episode, being way too excited over the idol’s corpse in the second). I find it hard to believe that either she or her minion (crime scene photographer?) are actually police officers; they are both extremely unprofessional. I do wonder if she finds out Suou is a vampire over the course of the show, though.
In addition to the minion’s pervertedness, there is a minor amount of focus on Rion’s underwear (and underwear in general); Suou at one point is lying on the floor trying to look up the maid uniform’s skirt, and tells her her debt in terms of the price of used underwear (starts out at thirty and drops as she works). The more I think about it, the more I think that the manga target audience and the show’s target audience are not the same due to the sort of humor used.
At one point, they showed a driver’s license on screen and translated the entire thing (in itty-bitty font briefly at the top, but still, that’s very unusual); I think all text on screen was translated, sometimes very briefly shown, but that’s what pause is for. I can’t remember if Bandai usually has romaji and translated songs; this has both on screen. I seem to remember something that might have been theirs that alternated between episodes (odd episodes translated, even episodes romaji or vice-versa). Extras were a textless opening and trailers for the live-action series The Great Horror Family and the anime series Di Gi Charat Nyo! and Galaxy Angel (probably another clue that the target audience was not what I expected).
The Episodes (with English and Japanese titles)
- The Vampiric Serial Killer — Case File / 「EPISODE 1 吸血鬼連続殺人・事件篇」
- The Vampiric Serial Killer — Resolution / 「EPISODE 1 吸血鬼連続殺人・解決篇」
Described at the beginning: Rion’s friend Shiho is missing, she goes to the club to investigate, eventually all is revealed - The Invisible Murdering Stalker — Case File / 「EPISODE 2 透明人間ストーカー殺人・事件篇」
- The Invisible Murdering Stalker — Resolution / 「EPISODE 2 透明人間ストーカー殺人・解決篇」
Half of a former pop idol duo is murdered; the victim was on the phone with the other half (Saki) at the time. There were past stories of an invisible stalker; Saki indicates the other thought the stalker was responsible. Saki ends up at the host club extremely drunk, Suou takes her home, and ends up calling Rion to fetch some sort of feminine hygiene products for Saki. For some reason, she accompanies him back to Saki’s apartment. There is a phone message from the stalker threatening Saki while they are there; they look out the window and see the invisible stalker. The three of them end up in a trap but escape after the stalker is killed. Suou and Rion investigate a bit; Rion threatens the culprit and Suou rescues her after being thrown off the building.
Official Sites: TV Tokyo, Toho
the drama at d-addicts wiki
the manga at ANN
Various relevant wikipedia entries; there is a massive spoiler in the Wikipedia article on the manga: Kaori Yuki; the manga; the drama
This is the first disc of the first anime series based on the manga by CLAMP; there is a second series that started this month. Kimihiro Watanuki is a high-school boy who can see spirits; the spirits he sees are very interested in him. Yuuko Ichihara runs a shop that grants wishes for a price; one day Watanuki finds himself there and eventually agrees to work for Yuuko until he has earned enough for her to make him unable to see or interest the spirits. The other main characters are his classmates Himawari (his crush) and Doumeki (his rival/friend). He starts off as her housekeeper and eventually accompanies Yuuko on cases or investigates on his own or with Doumeki. I did write a slightly longer manga overview last year.
The manga crosses over with Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle; the crossover parts were not included (though they were in the Tsubasa anime). There was also a movie (A Midsummer Night’s Dream) released as part of a double feature with a Tsubasa movie; the crossover was a plot point there (an item from the xxxHOLiC portion was the solution to the problem in the Tsubasa portion).
I do like the anime itself, though I like the manga better. Anime Watanuki is considerably more annoying than manga Watanuki; a couple of pictures of him freaking out over whatever weirdness is much less annoying than listening to him. On the other hand, there were parts that were more obvious (to me, at least) when animated; among other things, I didn’t realize that Doumeki was occasionally provoking Watanuki until I saw them interact, and there was something with Himawari that I completely missed in the manga. It’s interesting watching the episodes knowing more about the series and seeing some of the foreshadowing and other details that I missed before.
The DVD contains the first four episodes and a few extras (an image gallery, textless songs, and trailers for the CLAMP Double Feature, Fullmetal Alchemist®, Glass Fleet, One Piece, Dragon Ball Z®, Vexille, and xxxHOLiC). The art in the anime is unsurprisingly not as detailed as the manga art, but is still very nice. I did end up buying the starter set (disc + box); I love the artwork and am a sucker for boxes anyway. The box art is at the end of the post; it is nice, but is not the same as the Japanese release (another random, senseless change). The DVD itself is in a clear case with a picture of Watanuki in a suit standing behind Yuuko lounging (it’s from the manga, somewhere), and the other side is Yuuko lounging. The DVD itself has the cover’s picture on it. The only inserts were a Funimation ad (this is apparently getting volumes released every six weeks; I didn’t know Funimation released any live action) and a survey card (to be sent to rightstuf). There were also a front-loaded trailer for the special edition of Origin, which I skipped and was not in the extras) I hate forced trailers, and have heard they have put spoiler-ish trailers for later volumes of ongoing series in them in the past, so I generally will not watch them.
I watched the dub this time through; I watched all of it originally as it was released in Japan (fansubbed). I like Yuuko’s dub voice better than her Japanese voice, and I think I’m starting to get used to Watanuki’s dub voice. Black Mokona is substantially less annoying than White Mokona, and I don’t have much of an opinion of the rest of the cast yet. Doumeki’s voice reminds me of someone else, but I can’t place who, though it might just be from the movie. He was also Seishirou in Tsubasa, but I haven’t watched that far enough for that to be relevant.
The opening (Suga Shikao, “19sai”) is gorgeously animated; the ending (Fonogenico, “Reason”) is extremely basic (Mokona sleeping in a spotlight on a dark background; Mokona dancing). The second ending (Buck-Tick, “Kagerou”) is also basic (air band with Mokona, Maru, Moro with no background); both endings seem like the sort of thing that could be easily adapted to any song. Coincidentally, one of the anime’s producers was BMG Japan; all of the artists involved are also with BMG Japan (according to amazon.co.jp, anyway).
I love this series and will continue buying it, but there were several minor annoyances:
- I did watch the dub and did not have my full attention on it, but I did notice a few things that were either bad translation or subtitles or random and unnecessary rewrites. I noticed this the most episode two: the girl with the ring is 27 vs 28 in the subtitles; one of her boyfriends is a museum coordinator vs an import sales businessman; in the survey she says 24 but the subtitles say 22; do lunch vs go out for a drink. These changes do not add anything to the dub. Maybe I shouldn’t be so annoyed with them; they don’t really affect the episode. On the other hand, if the changes do not contribute anything to the episode, why not use the correct translation.
- It annoys me to no end that the subtitles use “Yuko”; I can understand them not using Yûko like the US manga, but I would rather have seen “Yuuko”; oddly, Domeki instead of Dômeki or Doumeki doesn’t bother me as much (maybe because I like Yuuko better). I clearly wasn’t paying enough attention when I first watched this; the subtitles used “Doumeki”, which is very inconsistent of them.
- I wish there were some sort of cultural notes; I have the manga, which has notes in the back, and I watched fansubs, which used footnotes, so I know the background, but a casual viewer would not. The most glaring example of something that needed an explanation was the conclusion that Kimihiro Watanuki’s birthday was April 1st; April 1st is apparently a different reading of his name (and was explicitly stated by Yuuko in the manga), but to someone who did not know that, it would seem like a random conclusion. The other that I noticed was why Maru-dashi and Moro-dashi were not actually cute names (the manga’s translation notes indicate they both mean “exposing yourself in public).
—The Episodes—
The episode titles seem to be direct translations of the Japanese. The manga equivalents are listed because I was curious enough to look them up. The chapters are from the US releases; there are a few places where there are splash pages without new chapters, so I don’t know if the US and Japanese chapters are the same.
- The Inevitable — Chapter 1 (v1). Watanuki finds himself in Yuuko’s shop and ends up working for her in exchange for her promise to remove his ability to see spirits and to remove the spirits’ interest in him. There’s an extra added bit where a spirit leaves Watanuki for a girl, and he freaks out because he doesn’t want to lose the interest of the spirits if losing that will hurt others. The Japanese title of this episode is hitsuzen; that term was not translated in the manga.
- Falsehood — Chapters 1-3 (v1; she wanders in at the end of Chapter 1 (after a splash page)). A woman comes into the store complaining about being unable to move her pinky; Yuuko asks her about bad habits (she claims none) and gives her a ring to wear. Watanuki follows her and discovers what her bad habit is. This story was toned down for the anime and Himawari’s presence was removed.
- Angel — Chapters 15-17 (v3); the bit with Himawari talking to Watanuki and Doumeki about the soccer game was moved here (chapter 12 (v2); it was originally followed by the ghost stories at Doumeki’s temple). Someone Himawari knows at another school has a problem; Yuuko sets up a meeting at a park to discuss it, and sends Watanuki to investigate so that Himawari won’t owe Yuuko anything. Doumeki ends up accompanying him. The “Angel” of the title is a game similar to an Ouija board: characters, numbers and symbols are written on a piece of paper, and two people think of a question, and hold a pencil that points to various characters and spells out an answer. It makes some sense that this story was moved up; it is the episode where Watanuki finds himself in Doumeki’s debt.
- Fortune-Telling — Chapters 9-11 (v2). Yuuko shows Watanuki the difference between real and fake fortune tellers and explains how the fake one worked.
—Skipped chapters—
Chapter 4 (v1) is a brief crossover with Legal Drug, and the purchase of a baseball bat (a generic drugstore + bat purchase in episode 6, despite the bat being used in episode 3)
Chapters 5-6 (v1) are the woman with the computer addiction; I’m not sure if it was animated (yes, in episode 6)
Chapters 7 (v1) and 8 (v2) are the first appearance of the Tsubasa characters (not animated).
Chapters 12-14 (v2) are the ghost story party at Doumeki’s temple; if I remember correctly, it was animated, but some of the stories were changed.
the rest of v3 is the one with the monkey’s paw (animated, episode 8) and the first encounter with the fox-spirit oden (animated as part of episode five)
NANA is the first of two movies based on the manga by Ai Yazawa, released in the US by Viz; the second movie ought to follow eventually. It is about the lives of two twenty-ish girls named Nana who move to Tokyo at the same time; they meet on the train and then again apartment-hunting and decide to share an apartment. This one covers the first five volumes of the manga, beginning with the train ride to Tokyo and ending with Takumi’s first appearance. I had the same sort of reaction to this that I had to the manga: a bit of “been there, done that, don’t need to see it” but eventually was sucked into it and enjoyed it. It’s been a while since I read the manga, but it seems to be a fairly faithful adaptation; parts are left out in the interest of time, but overall it follows the manga.
Nana Komatsu (Aoi Miyazaki), nicknamed “Hachi” and called Nana in the subtitles, is a bit of a ditz. Her boyfriend Shoji and two of her other best friends are in art school in Tokyo; she either didn’t get in or didn’t apply and has been working to save up money for the move. Shoji let Hachi stay only until she found a place of her own; he did not want to live with her at this time. After her arrival, he meets Sachiko, another student, and starts spending some time with her. Hachi is also a big fan of the band Trapnest, especially their bassist Takumi. Her past is not mentioned at all in this beyond the previous existence of some sort of relationship with Shoji.
Nana Osaki (singer Mika Nakashima), called NANA in the subtitles, was the singer for the locally-popular band Black Stones; they broke up after the drummer (Yasu) wanted to concentrate on his studies and (according to the movie) the bassist (Ren) got an offer to join the up-and-coming band Trapnest (vocalist Reira is played by singer Yuna Ito) as a guitarist (which doesn’t make sense to me but may be part of the reason I had a hard time keeping the band members straight in the manga). Ren was also Nana’s boyfriend; in the manga, she had not heard from him since then. Her past is shown in flashbacks. Yasu is already in Tokyo; he accompanies Nana apartment-hunting. One day, he sends Nobu (Black Stone’s guitarist) to the apartment with a tape of a new song; the three of them decide to reform Black Stones and get Shin (a teenage runaway?) as their bassist. Shin was apparently previously aware of Black Stones; he named Ren as his favorite bassist without naming his previous band, which means that Hachi is the only one unaware of the connection. They eventually get a gig when another band cancels and gain fans. Hachi eventually finds out about Nana and Ren, and convinces Nana to see Trapnest with her after winning front-row tickets in her hometown.
The focus of the movie is the relationships: the various friendships between various characters, Nana K. and Shoji a little (she spent a lot of time thinking of Shoji, but I think Shoji and Sachiko had more screen time), Nana O. and Ren a lot, but mostly Nana K. and Nana O. Nana K. is not as well-developed in this as she was in the manga; her backstory is never mentioned, her relationship with Shoji doesn’t get much screen time, and her life in general isn’t really mentioned beyond a couple of scenes at her jobs (though now that I think about it, I’m not sure of her job in the later parts of the manga I read). I liked her friends from home and wish they had more screen time. It does make sense that they would focus more on Nana O. and her history and relationship with Ren since that relationship continues throughout the manga; Nana K.’s past was mostly useful for character development and Shoji doesn’t appear after the breakup.
They did a good job of adapting the visual style of the manga to a live-action movie; some of the clothes seemed impractical, but still looked good. I was impressed by Hachi’s friends; I didn’t think those looks would work on real people, but they managed to adapt them fairly successfully (though with obviously fake hair). I had no complaints about the acting, though I’m not sure how likely I would be to notice any problems with it due to the language differences. The music business as presented is a fantasy version, but that’s also true of the manga.
Hachi annoyed me at first; she was a bit too cheerful and bouncy and ditzy (appropriate, but less annoying in manga form). Either she settled down a bit or I got used to her. If Sachiko had had a larger part, I would have stopped watching due to her voice; it’s fairly high-pitched and little-girly almost to the point of sounding like she’s on helium; I cannot stand it.
The extras were four original Japanese trailers, director and cast profiles, and Viz trailers for Kamikaze Girls, Linda Linda Linda, Hula Girls, and Honey and Clover. I adore Kamikaze Girls, but would not have been interested based on that trailer.
I stopped reading the manga when Shojo Beat stopped running it; I liked it well enough, but had read reviews of the next few volumes and didn’t really care about where it was going (even more soap-opera-ish). If it was shorter or if the narration did not give premonitions of doom or if I could think that the Nanas ended up together at the end (at least as friends, but it was clear that they were each other’s most important people), I might have continued (though the summary for volume 10 made me curious).
The Japanese volume 19 of the manga and the US volume 10 will be released in May. Viz is releasing the manga and this movie; they were serializing the manga in their magazine Shojo Beat, but stopped at the end of volume 7. In addition, there is a second movie; several characters were recast, including Nana Komatsu, Ren, and Shin; there was a brief “coming soon” bit for it at the end. There is also an anime series, with Anna Tsuchiya providing the singing voice for Nana Osaki and OLIVIA for Reira; Viz apparently announced the license for it last summer, but I don’t think there’s been any news about a release yet. (information from various pages at Anime News Network).
This is the last volume of the first series of the recent BBC adaptations of Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple books. The alternate title for the book is What Mrs. McGillicudy Saw! The book is one of my favorites, but it’s been a while since I’ve read it. I actually watched this one on the tv instead of the computer, and discovered that it has closed-captioning, so that’s one less complaint. I’d rather have subtitles, but captions are better than nothing. I’ve been trying to avoid spoilers, but there will probably be some in this because this adaptation was not particularly faithful to the novel.
I’d been enjoying these adaptations, even with the changes; I didn’t like the way Miss Marple’s character was changed, but could deal with most of the other changes. For the most part, the changes didn’t really affect the flow of the story; I could have done without the change of the colonel in A Murder is Announced from happily married to depressed alcoholic bachelor with a romantic subplot, though. In some ways, this one is very close to a complete rewrite of the book; the plot is fairly close to the original, but the characters are for the most part different people. I think the only people who retain their original characterization are Emma Crackenthorpe (who had little personality either way), Bryan Eastley and maybe Dr. Quimper. The murderer’s motivations were changed slightly, and they removed a murder. They also added Harold’s wife as an involved character; in the book, she existed but was elsewhere.
Mrs. McGillicudy is on her way to St. Mary Mead to visit Miss Marple (via the 4:50 from Paddington); after waking up from a nap, she sees a train on a parallel track, and in one of the windows, she sees a woman being strangled. No one really believes her, and no body was found. She is going to Ceylon in the near future (I always had the impression it was to visit her son or other relative; this implied a recent widower), and is happy to leave further investigation in Miss Marple’s hands. In the movie, they use maps and timetables to figure out where the body might be, but in the book, Miss Marple consults with the vicar’s son (maps) and her nephew’s son (timetables); the end result is that the body must be on the grounds of Rutherford Hall. Lucy Eyelesbarrow has a degree, but decided there was more money to be made in domestic service. She takes short-term jobs only, and at one point looked after Miss Marple while she was recovering from pneumonia. Miss Marple contacts her, and she manages to get a job at Rutherford Hall to be near her “Aunt Jane” while she looks for the body, and Miss Marple finds somewhere to stay nearby. She eventually finds the body in a sarcophagus (book: in a barn full of random things Luther collected; show: in a mausoleum on the property).
Rutherford Hall is owned by Luther Crackenthorpe; his father was wealthy, did not like Luther, and left his estate in trust for Luther’s children. Luther’s wife, one daughter (Edith) and one son (Edmund) are dead, his other daughter (Emma, never married) lives there, and his sons (Cedric, Harold, Alfred) live elsewhere. Edith was married to Bryan Eastley, a former fighter pilot, and they had one son (she died in childbirth). Harold is the only other one who is married; he has no children. In the book, Edmund wrote that he had met a French woman (Martine) and was planning on being married, and the next they knew he had been killed; in the book, they never met her, but in the show, there is a flashback of him bringing her to meet the family. Emma had received a letter supposedly from Martine about a possible visit about her son (essentially, needed money for support in the book at least); there is a possibility that the woman in the sarcophagus was French, which causes some concern. Lucy continues investigating, while flirting with or being propositioned by most of the male cast (a slightly different part in each version). At one point, they have curry for dinner; everyone is sick afterwards, and someone dies. In the book, some people leave afterwards and someone else dies; in the show, they all remain at the house and no one else dies. Miss Marple eventually puts all the pieces together and stages a re-enactment of the original murder for Mrs. McGillicudy’s benefit and the murderer is caught; in the show, they do this on the trains, which seems highly improbable.
Miss Marple is even more out of character in this, especially considering that in the book, she explicitly thinks she is too old for adventures. More than once, she arrives uninvited to see Lucy. At the beginning, instead of calling Lucy, she barges into a party to see her. I cannot see Miss Marple barging in anywhere unless it was a matter of life or death (and maybe not even then, if she could find another way). Later, she invites herself to stay with Detective Inspector Tom Campbell (who spent at least part of his childhood in St. Mary Mead), and visits Rutherford Hall more than once. In the book, she might have invited herself to stay with someone, but it was her former housekeeper who takes in lodgers.
Lucy’s personality makes it hard for me to believe she is as successful of a housekeeper as she is; she has a reputation for excellent service, which would explain some of it. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but she seems a bit forward for someone acting as a housekeeper; assertive, bossy, managing would all be understandable, but she seems to act more like part of the family than a housekeeper. In the show, she eats with the Crackenthorpes, though I don’t think it’s mentioned where she takes her meals in the books. In her first scene, she is working for Noel Coward and is singing for his guests before setting the table; it seemed unlikely that the Lucy of the books would agree to sing for the guests. Miss Marple barges in on his farewell speech to her. She’s also less subtle in her investigations: in the book, she practices golf as an excuse to explore the grounds and there’s a barn full of junk for her to consider straightening up as an excuse for poking around in; in the show there’s only a mausoleum, and no real reason for her to go poking around in there at night.
In the books, Luther Crackenthorpe was a miser and not particularly fond of his late wife or his children and was just mean; in this, he was still mourning his wife ten years later and was a lot nicer. Alfred Crackenthorpe was a different sort of scum in this (in the book, vaguely financial scams, never proven, no girlfriend; in this, some sort of scam involving acting as his girlfriend’s distraught husband) and was a weepy drunk because his girlfriend left him. Harold Crackenthorpe is an at least attempted rapist, and makes an offhand comment about never being able to like women. Cedric Crackenthorpe has a completely different alibi, and is not as much of a womanizer in this as in the book. In the book, there is a love triangle with Lucy, Brian, and Cedric; in this, it’s Lucy, Brian, and the Inspector. Bryan Eastley’s character is the same, but he was actually acquainted with Martine (and apparently never heard about the letter).
I am very tempted to rent Nemesis next, even though it is the last of the third series. Looking at its cast, it has to be a wholesale rewrite of the adaptation-in-name-only variety; I reread it last fall, and did not recognize most of the character names in the cast list, and there was apparently a convent added to the story (Mother xxx and Sister xxx in the cast list).
Previously:
The Murder at the Vicarage
The Body in the Library
A Murder is Announced
on wikipedia: Noël Coward, Agatha Christie
listing on imdb
I’d started watching these adaptations last year; the earlier ones were The Murder at the Vicarage and The Body in the Library; I am enjoying them despite their flaws (or maybe because of them; comparing to the source and otherwise nitpicking can be fun). I read or reread the book last year when I first started watching these; I wasn’t sure if I had read it before or not. Knowing the murderer made perfectly innocent-looking scenes a bit creepy and some scenes were hard to watch knowing that a character just set himself or herself up as the next victim.
One Friday, the local paper for the rural village of Chipping Cleghorn has an ad in the personals section announcing a murder at Little Paddocks at 6:30. Letitia Blacklock, who lives there, is surprised to see the ad, but (correctly) assumes all the neighbors will show up out of curiosity. Also living at Little Paddocks are Doris Bunner (Bunny), a childhood friend; Patrick and Julia Simmons, distant cousins (in the book, rent-paying and studying and working in a nearby town); Philippa Haymes, renting and working as a gardener nearby; and Mitzi, the Eastern European refugee help. The neighbors are Col. Easterbrook (single here, married in the book); Mrs. Swettenham and her son Edward; and Lizzie (?) Hinchcliffe and Amy Murgatroyd, who share a cottage and who in the book are old enough to be the mothers of the younger characters, but are significantly younger here. Patrick, Julia, Philippa, and Edward are all around the same age (young adult). The book also had the vicar and his wife (known as Bunch) as characters; the vicar was mostly in the background anyway, and Bunch’s personality and relationship with Miss Marple (mother as friend) were given to Murgatroyd.
Everyone outside of Little Paddocks assume the ad is an invitation to a murder-game sort of party, so at 6:30, everyone is gathered, Ms Blacklock is about to offer cigarettes and break out the sherry, when the lights go out, someone throws open the door and demands valuables, and shots ring out. Once there is light, they find the body of an unknown man; he turns out to be Rudi Scherz, who worked at a resort hotel in a nearby town. Miss Marple was staying at the hotel at the time, and gets herself invited to stay with the daughter of a friend (the vicar’s wife in the book, Murgatroyd in the movie) so she can investigate. She spends most of her time talking to people, and several conversations that were between other characters are now with her. A motive is discovered: Miss Blacklock might inherit a large sum of money in the near future from her ex-employer. The money was left in trust to his wife, who is dying; if she dies first, it goes to his sister’s children (they did not speak after her marriage), and several people are the right age to be the sister or her husband or the children. More people are killed, people start accusing each other, and eventually the remaining cast gathers at Little Paddocks so that Miss Marple can explain everything. They actually made the ending less dramatic than in the book (no attempted murders at the last minute), which surprised me.
My biggest complaint with this was an extra added subplot; the eliminating or combining of minor characters and the reworking of scenes to include Miss Marple didn’t bother me (though the changed ages and appearances of a couple did) and the random change of an off-stage character from “trying her hand at acting” to “living in sin” and the removal of a small romantic subplot bothered me a little but didn’t have much of an effect on the story. The removal of Col. Easterbrook’s wife and the addition of a romance between him and Mrs. Swettenham wouldn’t have been too bad, but making Col. Easterbrook alcoholic and Edward Swettenham jealous and mean bothered me. This is a murder mystery; there is plenty of angst and conflict without adding more. I also don’t know why they had Mrs. Swettenham tell Miss Marple all about the relationship and her past in the middle of a crowded shop.
I have the usual problems with Miss Marple in this one; she should be frail and white-haired and fluffy and self-effacing, but is not. I have no problems with Geraldine McEwan’s acting, but the character she is portraying is not the Miss Marple of the books. She was a bit snide towards Inspector Craddock at the beginning and he is impatient with her (in the books, he’s heard of her from his uncle and seeks her aid). I find myself wondering if these were filmed at once and then shown or each filmed and then shown and adapting to criticism; Miss Marple has layers of shawls and is knitting more and is less vigorous in this one, even though it’s chronologically before the adaptation of The Murder at the Vicarage, at least (that was explicitly 1951, this is explicitly 1949). She is more of a background character in this one, which may be why she seems less vigorous. She is occasionally snide, which the book version would never be. They also left out her tendency to compare people to others she met in the past. Also, she cried over someone’s death, which is just wrong.
I had a few random continuity and other minor issues in this one. The missing pictures were noticed but never explained. Inspector Craddock is impatient with Miss Marple and warns her not to play detective when she shows up in Chipping Cleghorn, but lets her read the letters from Letitia to Charlotte for no apparent reason (he has no interaction with her between these events); in the book he warns her because he is worried about her. The random Clue reference bothered me, though it’s possible time-wise (according to Wikipedia, Cluedo was first published in England in 1948, and this was set in 1949). I was happy to see Miss Marple knitting, but they either needed to teach her to be convincing or not show her actively trying. I’m no expert, but it looks like she has one knitting needle, the motions tell me “crocheting”, and the yarn’s just looped over her hand, not in her fingers at all. There also seem to be more ends to the yarn than there should be and there are more colors in the scarf than there are on the table (and the one missing would be the one she’d need next if the pattern continues). I have no problems with the acting overall, but did not find Col. Easterbrook’s loud drunkenness (especially at Bunny’s party) convincing.
This one has not-so-gratuitous lesbians in Murgatroyd and Hinch; it is not explicitly stated in the book, but the are at the very least very close friends, and it is not unreasonable that in post-war England, finances would make sharing a house necessary. The way they are described (Hinch is manlike or manly or mannish, Murgatroyd is more feminine) and the fact that there have been other lesbian couples in other of Christie’s novels makes me think that a couple was the appropriate interpretation, though. I am glad they used that interpretation; it would have been a bit hypocritical of them not to after adding gratuitous lesbians to a different book. In the book they are Murgatroyd and Hinch or (Miss Murgatroyd and Miss Hinchcliffe), even to each other, and it is disconcerting that everyone (including Hinch) calls Murgatroyd “Amy” in the movie. Murgatroyd is described as “fat and amiable” with a “curly bird’s-nest of gray hair” in the book but has a thin blonde actress; Hinch is described as having a “short manlike crop” and wears trousers often, as she does in the movie. I wish they had left them at their original ages, but I guess they decided that fat middle-aged lesbians were no good.
Next: The 4:50 from Paddington aka What Mrs. McGillicudy Saw, which I’m kind of afraid to watch because it’s one of my favorites.
info at imdb
This is the second of the 2004 adaptations of Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple mysteries (first here), with Geraldine McEwan as Miss Marple. It also features Joanna Lumley as Dolly Bantry (full cast at imdb).
The Body in the Library starts off one morning with a body of a blonde young woman found in the library of Gossington Hall, which is the residence of Colonel Arthur Bantry and his wife Dolly. They are a respected, middle-aged couple, living in St. Mary Mead; Dolly is on good terms with Miss Marple and respects her abilities, so her first move is to send for Miss Marple. Col. Bantry denies any knowledge of the woman, though his denials are met with some disbelief. Basil Blake, who is involved in the film industry and who has wild parties and a platinum-blonde girlfriend is also suspected, though somewhat less after said girlfriend shows up while the police are questioning him. The body is eventually identified as Ruby Keene, a dancer (exhibition and with guests) at the Majestic Hotel in Danesmouth, 18 miles away. Mrs. Bantry and Miss Marple decide that the Majestic would be a perfect place to get away from the scandal for a while, and find more motives and suspects. Conway Jefferson, an elderly and crippled man, had taken a fancy to Ruby and was planning on adopting her; he reported her as missing. His son-in-law Mark and daughter-in-law Adelaide (and her son by a previous marriage) are also staying there; Conway Jefferson was crippled at the same time as his wife, son, and daughter were killed (book: airplane crash; movie: WWII bombing). Ruby’s cousin Josie was the main dancer/hostess, but she had sprained her ankle and brought Ruby in to take care of the dancing while she recovered; her dance partner was also the tennis pro, Raymond Starr. There are also some implications of relationships among the latter four.
This adaptation is very close to the book, especially with respect to the dialogue; it had been years since I read it, but recognized a lot of it. There were a few characters cut out; most of the police bits were given to Col. Melchett and Inspector Slack (Sir Henry Clithering, retired from Scotland Yard and admirer of Miss Marple’s abilities was cut out completely; Superintendent Harper of Danemouth’s part was reduced considerably). Adelaide Jefferson had a boyfriend in the book, which added extra subplots and suspects, but he was also cut out completely. The one major change was that two of the characters switched roles, though it did not have much effect on the story overall.
I liked the interaction between Miss Marple and Mrs. Bantry; they were good foils for each other, though Mrs. Bantry’s attitude occasionally verged on proud parent showing off child (look, isn’t she wonderful!). She was also described in the book as ‘an ecstatic Greek chorus’; that description crossed my mind at one point while watching. I assume this adaptation was set in the early 1950s; I don’t remember seeing anything with a date. The book was written in 1942, but there was nothing to tie it to a specific date. The adaptation’s style (costumes, hair, makeup, sets) made me think of the past, no specific time period (though probably due to a lack of knowledge on my part). I had no problems with the acting.
I have the same complaint about Miss Marple’s characterization (not the acting) in this one as I did in the last one; she is supposed to be elderly and dithery, and is not. The Miss Marple of the books would not still be pining for her WWI soldier 30 years later; the opening is Miss Marple listening to the radio, drinking tea, with a picture of the soldier on the table next to her. I don’t think the books ever mention previous relationships (though I’d be surprised if there weren’t any). I think they did make her younger; if she was a young woman in 1918, she would not be as old as she should be in 1951; even assuming she was Young Miss Marple’s actress’ age (31 in 2004), she would only be 64 in 1951. In the books, she is always described as old, elderly, frail, and in one case ‘a dithery, fluffy octogenarian’. She did knit in this one at the hotel one night, which made me happy.
Some of the minor characters had characterization changes; Colonel Melchett in the book respects Miss Marple’s abilities, but in this was not happy to see her at the hotel and was dismissive of her (which was more like Inspector Slack in the books). Basil Blake looked older than I thought he should, but his age was never mentioned; they also changed his house from something described as “half timbering and sham Tudor” aka “The Period Piece” to a more modern house (white and angular).
There were only two changes that really bothered me: Raymond Starr in this was essentially a gigolo; in the book, he would have been offended to be called that and had in fact left a previous position when he realized that was what he was considered; the other change was gratuitous but was also a major spoiler.
A large part of this was taken up with flashbacks of everyone’s version of the events of the night of the murder; maybe if I’d been paying more attention, I would have noticed the subtle differences in people’s stories and the indications of the solution; however, I found it kind of boring to watch essentially the same scenes several times. I also think the producers felt they had to add in more sex and violence to the story; admittedly, the violence is there, but it’s easier to skip over a short description of a dead body than it is to ignore the same body on screen (there was a subplot involving a Girl Guide found dead in a burned car; I didn’t want to see that body). The sex was more implied than shown; Raymond was often shown entering and leaving rooms at around the same time as random women, but nothing was shown on screen. I think this is also the reason for the gratuitous spoiler (which I found out beforehand from the amazon reviews, unfortunately).
Next: A Murder Is Announced which I reread before watching instead of after (saw it at the library last month and checked it out), and am not sure if I’d read it before (if I did, it was a very long time ago). I may skip it and go on to The 4:50 from Paddington; I liked that book better, and I don’t think there’s any real reason to watch them in order.
I used to read Agatha Christie mysteries for comfort/light reading; I liked the formulaic aspects of them and watching the pieces of the puzzle fall into place. I ran across this 2004 adaptation on Netflix, featuring Geraldine McEwan as Miss Marple, and decided to rent it. The first volume was The Murder at the Vicarage, which was the first Miss Marple mystery. Unfortunately, I have already sent it back, and am writing from memory. I’ve never really watched any adaptations of Christie’s books, though I’ve seen bits and pieces here and there.
The plot is a standard murder mystery: Colonel Protheroe is an obnoxious, self-righteous, hard-headed, merciless resident of St. Mary Mead; after loudly and publicly announcing his intention to meet with the vicar to discuss possible misappropriation of church funds (and implying the vicar is responsible), he is murdered in the vicar’s study. Due to Col. Protheroe’s character, there are many suspects. There are the usual twists and turns: planted evidence, overlooked evidence, minor incidents turning out to be important, people who aren’t what they seem to be, people lying for various reasons, etc., leading up to (for me, at least) a somewhat unexpected resolution. I must have read this at some point, but did not really remember it.
I don’t have any problems with the show itself as a murder mystery (except for those caused by not giving it 100% of my attention; I was well into it before I realized that the vicar and the curate were two different people; I also kept confusing the plot with that of The Body in the Library.) There was nothing in the acting or costuming or sets that threw me out of the story (admittedly, it would take appalling acting or blatant anachronisms to do that), but there was one piece of casting that bothered me: Geraldine McEwan as Miss Marple. I enjoyed her character, but it was not Miss Marple; she did not seem old enough (though is apparently in her seventies), and did not look the part; Miss Marple is supposed to be an elderly, fluffy, white-haired, seemingly scatterbrained lady who knits and gardens, while Ms. McEwan’s character was grey-haired, active, older (somewhere between middle-aged and elderly) woman.
After watching this, I found a copy of the book and re-read it; there were a few points in the movie that did not seem Christie-ish. The novel itself was the first Miss Marple mystery, written in 1930, and her tenth published novel. It is told from the point of view of the vicar, which means that most of the action takes place off-screen. The book consists of people coming to the vicarage to consult with the vicar or gossip with his wife, the vicar visiting others for various reasons, the vicar accompanying the police on their inquiries, and occasionally the vicar doing a little investigation of his own. Miss Marple is more of a background character, and some of her quirks don’t really show up here, though she is instrumental in solving the mystery.
There are any number of changes between the book and its adaptation; the largest is the structure; it is no longer told from the vicar’s point of view, and many events are shown as they happen instead of being described later, which is necessary for a visual adaptation. Miss Marple has a larger part in the story; many of the people consulting with the vicar are consulting with Miss Marple instead.
Many of the background characters had their stories and/or characters changed, from minor name changes (Lester vs. LeStrange) and minor characterization differences (the vicar’s nephew and Protheroe’s daughter) to major differences in background and characterization (the archaeologist and his assistant); some of these changes bothered me, but none had much of an effect on the story as a whole. Some of the events were altered, added, or removed, but the overall plot and the major character’s motivations in the movie were the same as in the novel.
The novel was written in 1930, though I don’t think there was ever any indication of a specific date for the action; there were a few vague references to the war, but nothing that spoke of a particular time (to me, at least; someone more knowledgeable about that period might think differently). The movie was explicitly set in August 1951, which makes some sense; the other books adapted in Series 1 were published in 1942, 1950, and 1957, so having a shorter time period between them is useful. There was nothing in either that really indicated a specific time to me beyond ‘the past’; the adaptation actually felt vaguely 70s-ish, though I don’t know why.
The main problems I had with this were Miss Marple’s casting/characterization (though had no problems with the actress and did like the character); Miss Marple’s random backstory that was relevant to one of the character’s current conditions (with flashbacks to December 1915), which annoyed me and seemed unnecessary, and the ending. The novels generally end with the arrest and an epilogue of tying up loose ends; this ended with the execution (barely off-screen), which I really did not want to see or hear.
For the most part, I did enjoy this one and will probably watch the next one, which is The Body in the Library, with Joanna Lumley as Mrs. Bantry (supposedly). It’s one of Five Complete Miss Marple Mysteries which I’ve owned forever and enjoyed, though I haven’t read it in years.
