Lovely Complex (DVD) (Reduced Price) (English Subtitled) (Japan Version) DVD Region 2

The English subtitles proudly declare Lovely Complex to be a "juvenile love story", and the film gamely lives up to the designation, weaning humor out of nosebleeds, hairpieces, and clumsy falls. Other comedic touches include fairy-tale voiceover narration in accented English, a kooky TV show, and anime-type features like freezing the frame and pulling out to provide inane commentary. The funniest parts though are the small moments - short zingers, Fujisawa Emi's awkward postures, Koike Teppei's blank face. Sporadic bursts of hijinks aside, Lovely Complex is actually remarkably calm and uneventful until the fourth quarter when a romantic rival appears and sanity falls off the adolescent deep end. But before that, most of the film plays out like a high school yearbook, with episodic segments, insecure conversations, and important-when-you're-sixteen events marking time as each school year passes by and the protagonists ponder whether romance can overcome height difference.

Suffice to say, Lovely Complex lives firmly in high school shoujo land: there's the temple festival, the high school fair haunted house, the school trip, karaoke bonding, rooftop conversations, hanging out at the retro diner. With so many youth drama staples in place, Lovely Complex feels like a short and sweet rolled-up ball of slice-of-life school-based TV dramas like Dragon Zakura, Proposal Daisakusen, and Nobuta wo Produce, with some Teppei TV moments thrown in for fan-service measure. The simple narrative and straightforward structure, however, provide the right balance for the cartoon goofs and slapstick comedy, making the sentiments feel quietly genuine amid the overall loudness. By keeping the proceedings minor and characters oblivious, the film never falls into the trap of discounting itself by aiming for too much meaning and drama. Heartily embracing its live-action shoujo identity with candy colors, offbeat humor, and pleasant trivialities, Lovely Complex may be a juvenile love story, but it's an entertaining one.