Spoilers don’t bring a knife to a gunfight.

Okey, enough seriousness, it’s time to get silly. It wouldn’t be a Fantasia Festival without a live adaptation of a Japanese manga. This time, we’ve picked one completely ignoring the source material because… I’m not sure. I think when it comes down to it, adaptations have to walk a fine line with both innocent rookie moviegoers and veteran fandom zealots. Or, I’m just being honest here, perhaps I had no clue what to write in the opening paragraph. Anyways…

Honeko Akabane’s Bodyguards (2024) was directed by Junichi Ishikawa and written by Hiroyuki Yatsu. It’s based on the manga of the same name by Masamitsu Nigatsu. It’s about time we get a serious, down-to-earth anime about the challenges that young teenagers face in high school. This is not it. Honeko Akabane (Natsuki Deguchi) is an angelic schoolgirl getting ready to represent her school in a dance competition. She’s just not aware that there’s a bounty on her head as she is the secret daughter of the leader of a national security agency, Mr. Jingu (Ken’ichi Endô). To protect her, he has bad boy brawler Arakuni Ibuki (Raul Murakami) to protect her. Arakuni has his hands full, but soon he learns he also has to deal with all the rest of Honeko’s classmates as they happen to be trained bodyguards themselves, brilliantly led by class president Sumihiko (Daiken Okudaira).

Abandon any idea this will make a lick of sense. Turn off your brain and get ready for a dose of ridiculous fun. As a complete neophyte to the material, it’s not a hard to grasp concept that you just need to embrace the charming silliness of it all and go with the flow. Drama, tears, fights, possible romance, and campy action do go a long way. For Arakuni, things become even more complicated when a potentially deadly antagonist, Masachika (Tao Tsuchiya) becomes romantically interested in Arakuni.

Recommended for anime and manga fans. Although it’s a live adaptation, it can stand on its own as any and all tropes of the genre will show up on cue. Definitely worth a watch for fans of the manga but also for fans of the genre in general.

That will do for now.