Hello all! This is a quick home thread for people who watched 告白 | L30?? after finishing the book (or not finishing it, no judgement, or those who’ve only watched the movie) and wanted to post their thoughts!
Currently watching and what surprises me is that she seems to have 0 respect from her students.. I read that differently in the book. Being this noisy while a teacher talks is very odd. Was that in the book? Do I just not remember?
So far, I prefer the book. 
Yeah, the book is definitely better. The changes they made, makes the story less creepy.
Regarding the ending, I found it interesting that they made it seem at first that the bomb really was set off and killed the mother, only to then turn around and show us it was just his imagination and her ending with “なんちゃって”, which is ambiguous, so even in the movie, we don’t really know whether the bomb was set off at all and if it was set off, if it killed the mother.
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Haven’t watched yet, but that has overall been my experience with film adaptations of Japanese books. The first スマホを落とした book/movie was just bizarre in what they chose to change too.
I have a few books I want to read where I have only seen (and liked) the movie or show and want to compare but so far have been disappointed going the other direction.
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The movie was definitely less nuanced than the book but I kind of liked what they changed for the movie adaptation. 美月 has a bigger presence in the movie, or at least we see more of her compared to the book. Also, did she also idolize the Lunacy killer in the book? If not, this adds a dimension to her collecting all those chemicals. The actress who portrayed 直樹’s mother matched the tone of the movie pretty well in her slightly exaggerated performance. When she was narrating her section, she sounded so tired and defeated which might be informed by exposure to her in the book but I think it’s a fitting change considering there probably isn’t enough time to go through everyone’s trauma.
The director is also a cynical dude and two of his other films (Memories of Matsuko, The World of Kanako) share the same “fuck them kids, they’re the worst” attitude as this movie. I can’t think of a more fitting director for this book although I can see how the movie can come off as too indulgent.
I appreciate how instead of deep-diving into everyone’s situation and the surrounding context, the movie goes with filling in what was left unsaid in the book, e.g. how the class behaved during class to REALLY let you know they’re awful, how enthusiastic the class was in playing along with ウェルテル, and how vengeful 森口先生 really is (enough to scare 美月).
Yeah! I think the director really wanted to punish 修哉. Instead of letting us imagine what he might be going through after learning he (possibly) blew up his mom, we not only see the explosion but we are initially shown it in reverse just so we get to see 修哉’s reaction to the explosion’s aftermath AND the death of his mother.
Also something that was made explicit in the movie and I totally missed while reading was 修哉’s clock that went backwards. The movie is upfront with the reverse-clock (kcolc) reflecting 修哉’s desire to turn back time and be with this mother but this completely flew over my head while reading. 修哉’s tone in the book was much more cold and calculating (or monotonous) so I just took the reverse-clock in the book as a show of his mechanical prowess rather than some kind of sentimental wish. But the movie has no pity for 修哉 and nor do I.
This was me with 余命１０年 in that I loved the book sorta spoilers (giving agency to someone that’s terminally ill and allowing them to leave a legacy beyond their death and the sadness it brings) but the movie took this away and it was ultimately just in love with its own drama (not in a awful way but I was definitely disappointed). So many scenes felt like they were pulled from a music video but I can at least say it was a nicely shot movie.
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I was able to find some time to sit down this weekend to watch the movie. If I’m being totally honest, I didn’t catch as much as I would’ve liked. 
I was able to follow along okay, but that was mostly due to having read the book rather than any particular achievement made by my listening skills. Overall I think I liked it? It seemed mostly faithful to the book as far I could tell; probably wouldn’t rewatch it unless to test how much my listening has improved, but I’ve seen worse.
Out of curiosity, does anyone know if JP subs for this movie exist? I tried to search around a bit, but couldn’t find anything.
Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. Maybe she was letting them just be noisy and excited since it was the last day of class, but no way any of my teachers would’ve stood for that level of noise if they were talking, confession or no. It was also obnoxious from my perspective to be trying to interpret what she’s saying, but LOUD CHILD NOISES JUST KEEP TALKING OVER HER, haha. Reading your comment also made me think: in the book, 森口’s sections always take place in a “void”; we don’t get any real feedback from the environment she’s talking to; it’s much more of a monologue than the other characters. Which leads to me also agreeing with
Nah, I think that was an added detail in the movie, but like you said I thought it brought a nice extra dimension to her character.
Ooooh, so that’s what was happening. Lacking any sort of understandable audio cue I thought the director decided to just straight up murder the mom and was just artistic with playing the scene out, haha.
A quick question for you all: so was 森口 unable to put the blood in the milk because her husband (I know he’s not but I can’t remember his name atm) straight up stopped her? So he didn’t need to sneak in and swap the milk later?
Also, at the end, 修哉’s bomb was hilariously not hidden. 
If 森口 hadn’t moved it, I can’t imagine no one else wouldn’t have seen it.
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Yeah I think the movie just shortens the series of events that stops 修哉 and 直樹 from actually drinking milk with the blood in it.
RIGHT?! Someone setting up for the assembly or just making sure things are in order would absolutely see a friggin’ bomb in the podium!
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I checked and Netflix JP has them!
I prefer watching with subtitles (when watching shows in English I use CC a lot too) so I’m glad it has them.
Hoping to watch sometime this week!
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