I had watched the anime of this story and then read the manga I do think you need the back history of this stroyline for all the bits in the movie to make sense. Honestly I wished this film were a drama do you had a bunch of episodes to go through. Film is very well done and the casting is good and it's one of those coming of age sort of tales. Overall I think it's worth watching if your a fan of the comic or anime just knoe going into it a lot of the scenes from the anime are sort of left out in this due to the time frame. It's a rather cute film though the lead guy in this sort of loses out to the anime version of this telling.