#adaptation comparison

I’ve been obsessed for a little while with comparing the 25 ji Akasaka de manga and the series. It’s been oddly tricky because the screenwriters for the series drew from the manga in some very nonlinear ways. I ended up taking notes about it and I thought I would share it with folks here in case others are interested. 

As you might imagine, this post is full of spoilers about 25 ji season 1 and the corresponding events in the manga, which occur primarily in volume 1 but also to a lesser extent in 2, 3, and 4. I don’t know what’s going to happen in season 2, and for the purposes of this post I’ve refrained from speculating about what’s going on in the trailer given what I know from the manga (though I’m thinking about doing that I did just that in a separate post). That being said, it’s possible that some of the things I mention here that happened in the manga but not in the series could happen in season 2. I doubt it, though, since I’m confining myself to the manga’s version of events that have already been portrayed in season 1 of the show. But it’s not outside the realm of possibility. 

As with any adaptation, the TV version of 25 ji and the manga version have a lot of similarities and a lot of differences. I’m mostly going to be focusing on the latter, but it’s worth pointing out that the core parts of the story remain the same and all of the big elements of the manga remain in the series in one way or another. 

One thing that makes it confusing to compare the manga to the series is that the screenwriters borrowed from the manga in a nonlinear way. Season 1 roughly corresponds to volume 1 of the manga, both starting when Shirasaki and Hayama are cast in their series together and ending soon after they finish shooting. But the screenwriters also borrow events, situations, and characters from other volumes of the manga. I’ll get into some specifics about that below. 

The most striking difference when you pick up the manga after seeing the series is that whereas in the show Hayama and Shirasaki don’t kiss until episode 5 and don’t have sex until episode 10, in the manga they have sex (of a sort) almost immediately upon being re-acquainted. In the scene immediately following the table read scene (seemingly the same day, but this isn’t specified), the cast and crew go out drinking and Hayama gets wasted. Shirasaki ends up being tasked with taking care of him, but he doesn’t know where he lives and can’t get that information from him, so he takes him home. Hayama hits on him and one thing leads to another. They don’t have penetrative sex (at least, not in the usual sense of the term), but they do everything else. Plenty of couples’ entire sex lives consist of the type of things they do from the start. And they don’t start fooling around with each other because Shirasaki thinks he needs to have some kind of experience in order to improve his performance playing Takumi. At first, it’s just because Hayama is drunk and Shirasaki is susceptible. Soon afterward, as in the series, Shirasaki makes his trip to the gay bar and Hayama shows up and proposes he have sex with him instead of some rando. But in the manga, they really do go back to Hayama’s and do it. The acting thing does become one of the main reasons (excuses?) for their sexual relationship, but it still doesn’t drive the action quite as much as it does in the series. 

Penetrative sex still plays a role in the manga’s story that’s similar to its role in the series, because Shirasaki is kind of obsessed with the idea of “going all the way,” which he (rather heteronormatively) defines as penetration. But Hayama avoids going to that point. Part of the reason for this is that he’s continually unsure how far Shirasaki wants to go since he’s purportedly only with him to improve his acting. But it also seems like Hayama might want to save that for when he’s actually in a relationship. When Hayama and Shirasaki do “go all the way,” it’s after Shirasaki has declared his feelings (as in the series), but Shirasaki still doesn’t understand how Hayama feels. So that particular milestone has a similar meaning in the manga, when it’s the umpteenth time they’ve had sex of one form or another, and in the series, when it’s the first such thing they’ve done. And similarly, in both cases, Shirasaki misinterprets Hayama and thinks what happened doesn’t mean as much to him. Despite the big differences in this area, both versions put Shirasaki in the position of having had sex with Hayama without realizing that he returns his feelings. This state of affairs lasts longer in the manga but it does happen in both. 

There’s another element that sort of takes the place of this tension in the series, and that’s Shirasaki’s and Hayama’s plan to act like boyfriends, making a to-do list of relationship activities that happen in their scripts and doing them together in their spare time. This doesn’t happen in the manga—the only thing they do together with the supposed purpose of helping Shirasaki act is sex. They do have some hangouts where they just end up snuggling or something, but Shirasaki always finds an excuse to write them off, and they’re never planned or justified in terms of their roles. Everything in the series that they do solely for the sake of the to-do list is original to the series, including the aquarium date and making gnocchi together. I like this shift, personally. It makes for a more stark contrast between their behavior and what they perceive to be their real status. Hooking up with the person you’re in love with when you aren’t sure they like you back—or are even sure they don’t—is intense. But in a way, it makes for an even more stark contrast when you’re going on dates and making sexy gnocchi with them. It’s more to the point, because what they both really want is to be boyfriends (including the sex part), not just sex partners (which in the manga, they already are). It also leads to some other highly charged moments, like the point at which Shirasaki breaks off their pretend relationship—something else that doesn’t happen in the manga, since there’s no pretend relationship in the first place, and Shirasaki assumes the sexual relationship between Hayama and himself will end as a matter of course when filming is over. 

Speaking of the addition of the boyfriend to-do list, it’s also the reason for the food theme that develops in the series. There’s the gnocchi scene, of course, but also Hayama surprising Shirasaki with strawberry cake, making him hamburger steak because he knows it’s his favorite, and the somewhat fancy curry. In the manga, Hayama does serve Shirasaki curry (with the transparent excuse that he accidentally made too much), but he says he only knows how to cook a few easy dishes. The fact that the Hayama of the TV adaptation can make gnocchi by hand is a real departure. 

I mentioned above that despite roughly corresponding to the manga’s first volume, the series pulls some significant elements from later ones as well. One of the most notable of these is the inclusion of Yamase. Yamase isn’t introduced in the manga until the second volume, when he’s cast in the sequel to their series. His role is a lot like his role in the adaptation—he plays a childhood friend of Takumi’s who acts as a rival to Ryouji—and he behaves similarly off-camera as well, calling Shirasaki “Yuki,” talking to the other actors about whether they’ve ever confused themselves with their characters, and eventually propositioning Hayama. 

Yamase’s personality and relationship with the leads are also a bit different in the manga. Nagumo Shoma certainly plays Yamase as having a provocative side, but he also comes off as rather sweet, even a little bit childlike at times (like when his face lights up upon getting a compliment from the director). This casts his directness in a slightly different light; making his overtures seem less aggressive and more like a sign of openness. But Manga Yamase has a more menacing, conniving quality. Shirasaki eventually bonds with him, but at first they argue a lot, so much so that Sakuma tells Shirasaki that the crew are worried about it. Hayama reacts with jealousy in both versions, but is more overtly challenging in the manga.

For example, take the exchange they have after Yamase’s kiss scene with Shirasaki. In the series, Yamase talks about how he was so in the zone that he wondered for a moment if he was really developing feelings for Shirasaki, but he’s clearly oblivious to how this will make Hayama feel. Then he says he’s looking forward to seeing the kiss scene Hayama and Shirasaki will film the following day, and he seems sincere. Hayama thanks him and smiles, but aggressively crumples the cup in his hand and throws it forcefully into the trash. In the manga, it’s Hayama who brings up the fact that his kiss scene with Shirasaki is coming up, and he does so in an openly hostile, challenging way, saying, “Don’t get ahead of yourself…until you see the kiss between me and Shirasaki-kun.” 

The scene where a confused Shirasaki, woozy from a hot bath, accidentally knocks on Yamase’s door, starts to faint, and ends up in his arms is also in the manga, but the two of them look even cozier when Hayama arrives than they do in the series. Another scene takes place in the manga that isn’t in the series: Hayama pulls Shirasaki into some sort of utility room to fool around and Yamase walks in on them, seemingly by Hayama’s design. Hayama gives him a smug look as if to say, “Now you can see for yourself that Shirasaki belongs to me.” A stunned Yamase just backs away and closes the door. It’s only later that Hayama finds out that the person Yamase was really interested in was him. 

Yamase is also involved in a part of the series that’s extremely similar to the manga—probably the part that adheres most closely to the source material. I’m talking about the scene in which Yamase tries to get Shirasaki to do a kiss rehearsal with him and is rebuffed, then it appears Shirasaki is doing it after all, only for it to turn out that he didn’t do that and the moment that seems to directly follow Yamase’s rehearsal attempt is actually the point where they shoot the scene and Shirasaki is only kissing Yamase on camera. So many aspects of this sequence are the same. There are some differences, but the blocking/positioning, gestures, Shirasaki’s line, and particularly the fake-out transition, are all almost identical. The screenwriters ended up liking this trick so much that they used a couple of similar transitions at other points that they created just for the series. It’s very on-point thematically, because those moments serve as a reminder of how confusing the boundary between reality and performance can be, which is a central idea in the story. 

Mihara, Hayama’s friend from college, is also really different in the series. Like Yamase, he’s brought in from a later volume (volume 3, in his case). In the manga, he’s very pretty and flirty and teases both Hayama and Shirasaki in a scandalous way. He’s still Hayama’s friend he’s known since college, still a bartender, still tips Hayama off when Shirasaki shows up at the gay bar. Show Mihara has some personality characteristics in common with Manga Mihara, like repeatedly telling Hayama he shouldn’t be so easy on people who use him for his appearance or can’t see past it. But the two versions of the character are very distinct. 

And then there are the lead characters themselves. Their manga and TV series versions do overlap quite a bit, as one would expect. But some of the differences are notable. 

In the series, Hayama mostly maintains a very cool, measured, pleasant-yet-impassive manner. He can be playful, but it’s usually in a rather subdued way. It’s hard to imagine him getting wasted at a work hangout and having to be carried home half-conscious the way Manga Hayama does. He’s pretty forward that night at the gay bar (whether he was just saying whatever he could to keep Shirasaki from hooking up with a rando, as he later claimed, or meant it at the time and then thought better of it). But he doesn’t exactly have his heart on his sleeve most of the time.

But in the manga, Hayama is less reserved. He teases Shirasaki about wearing nice shoes to the table read when he showed up in sandals. That momentous comment Shirasaki made when Hayama signed on with an agency as a model, castigating him for not pursuing acting instead? He doesn’t admit how much it meant to him, but the first time he gets a chance to talk with Shirasaki, right after the shoe comment and during that same table read conversation, he tells him exactly what he said to him back then and laughs. As I talked about above, when he feels jealous of Yamase, he’s openly antagonistic with him.

Neither version of Hayama shows a lot of their true feelings to others. But the more reserved Hayama makes more intuitive sense as a character who grew up having to blanket his emotions in order to navigate living with his volatile, unstable mother. Maybe I just have a favorable bias toward the first Hayama I encountered, but I think the version of the character featured in the series works a bit better. 

There are also a few things about Hayama’s past that are different in the manga, or that are more fleshed out there. Hayama’s childhood flashback doesn’t specify that he’s an only child, but it seems that way. But in the manga, he has two sisters. In the series, he never says that his mother’s inability to find work as a model in the UK was due to racism, though it’s hard not to wonder if that’s the case. The manga doesn’t spell this out either, but it seems more strongly implied. At one point his mother overhears two women saying she’s too short for a modeling job (height standards being different in the UK than in Japan) and Hayama remembers asking his mother what it means that he overheard some people referring to them as “yellow.” Another thing that the manga states specifically is that when Hayama’s mother moved back to Japan with him, she and his father split up and he stayed behind in the UK. It would make sense, given how strongly his mother’s values and concerns shaped him, if the series version of Hayama also hadn’t had another parental figure in his life to balance her out, but it isn’t stated. 

I should note here that Hayama’s childhood flashback, along with the insights into his personality it offers, doesn’t take place in the manga until volume 4. I think it was really smart of the screenwriter to include it in the first season of the series, though. Definitely the right move. It makes a lot of puzzle pieces fall into place and gives context to choices he makes that would be less sympathetic without that kind of context. 

As for Shirasaki, both versions of him are eager to prove themselves, insecure about Hayama, and can be either outspoken or unsure of themselves depending on context. But I think the version of Shirasaki from the series has a bit more complexity and specificity. We see more example of his assertive bluntness in the series, for one thing. In fact, the first time we set eyes on Shirasaki, he’s setting a boundary with a sketchy customer when his boss at his restaurant job is struggling to do so. But we also see more of his insecurity. In the manga, the story begins when Shirasaki has already been cast and is about to go to the table read. In the series, we see his casting process, including how nervous he gets at his audition and how he tells himself he should quit acting if he doesn’t get the part this time. The contrast between his assertiveness and insecurity gets more marked because both are heightened, and I think this really contributes to Shirasaki being such an interesting, fleshed-out character in the show. 

In the series, Shirasaki is especially preoccupied with the fact that Hayama was scouted—effectively invited into the industry—while he himself had to laboriously petition to be included. This framing is particularly striking since he himself gave Hayama a hard time for taking a modeling contract instead of trying to act. Being scouted as a model does seem to have given Hayama a somewhat easier path into acting, but he could have ended up getting so caught up in modeling that he lost sight of acting entirely. Hayama clearly thinks that if it weren’t for Shirasaki, he wouldn't have made the leap from modeling to acting. Shirasaki seemed to understand the distinction back then, but he has abandoned that perspective so thoroughly that he doesn’t even remember having it anymore. Instead, he’s focused on a narrative that fits with his insecurities. But Manga Shirasaki doesn’t have these thoughts about the difference between being scouted and having to be allowed into the industry. He has some insecurities about his lack of experience as an actor and panics about that pretty readily. But it doesn’t take up as much space in his mind as it does in Series Shirasaki’s, and specific themes like the difference between the scouted and the unscouted don’t come up. 

One interesting type of thing that Shirasaki deals with in the manga that doesn't come up explicitly in the series is specific sources of confusion about how to relate to Hayama-as-Ryouji versus Hayama-as-Hayama. For example, there's a part in which he has trouble saying the line "it's repulsive" to Hayama/Ryouji in a scene, because he keeps thinking about being intimate with Hayama, and how very un-repulsive he found it. The director decides to come back to the line the next day, and between the two shoots, Shirasaki and Hayama hook up again. The next day the director is really happy with Shirasaki's line reading, telling him he did a "great job" of "pretending you were unwilling" while "not being able to hide your anticipation."

This is something that comes up in the series as well, like when Shirasaki struggles with the love confession scene and his realization that he might have feelings for Hayama is part of what allows him to finally nail the scene. But these more specific sources of confusion come up more in the manga, and have more a sexual bent.

Another thing I really enjoyed about the manga version of Shirasaki that would’ve been fun to explore in the show is the side of his personality that comes out when he’s drunk. In the series, when Shirasaki gets wasted, he just gets bummed out and grumpy. But in the manga, when Shirasaki finally drinks at the end of the series shoot after making a point of eschewing alcohol up to that point, he shows a really different side of himself. This side has a bluntness that’s not entirely out of character for Shirasaki, but it’s particularly marked, and accompanied by a kind of sassy enthusiasm. He blurts things out, as when he tells Sakuma that he watched his last project, then gives an unsparing critique of the production as a whole while saying he thought Sakuma did well. It’s adorable. Who knows, maybe the series version of Shirasaki might show this side someday too, if he ever drinks when he isn’t already practically inconsolable over Hayama. 

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Credits for these issues of the Manga's translation.

In this video essay, I compare some of the major English and French film adaptations of Victor Hugo’s novel Les Misérables (1862). While my comparison is in no way comprehensive, it hopefully provides a few film historical observations of interest, not least of all when it comes to the overarching question: Why do classics keep getting adapted over and over again?