Princess*Princess: Hmmmmm

Hmmmm.  I understand that sometimes an anime adaptation of a manga property takes some liberties and rearranges things, especially when the manga was published irregularly and without a real concern for overall plot, and I am very supportive of that as long as the finished product is better/makes more sense than the original. However, when your source material is a series of gags about three first-years in an all male high school being forced to dress as girls for the something (amusement?) of their school-mates, why try?  Even the author thought it was a ridiculous idea.

I guess I see what they were trying to do: keep some sort of overarching tension/suspense going, but, honestly, its strength was in its episodic, slice-of-ridiculous-life nature.  (And those great afterwords by the author.  I still love the way she thought they were joking about making it into an anime.  That was awesome.)  What they sacrificed for that over-arching tension was a better told sequence of stories.  It's like the bones of the structure were just sticking out all over and not-quite-connected, making it all the more sad that you could see what they were trying (and failing) to do.  Such is life.

I don't think I can even try to watch the live action version of Princess*Princess, even if it's licensed.  Who thought that would be a good idea?  It probably tries to take itself a tad too seriously, too.  Feh.  And I couldn't sit through any more ridiculous openings and closings . . .  Those were, frankly, brutal.

I did enjoy hearing Mikoto freak out.  His VA did that very well.  I was also amused when Romi Park (a woman acting the part of a 15-year-old boy who sometimes has to dress as a girl for the something of his peers) sounded more like a man than the man playing the nominal main character.  Those moments were quite priceless.

I guess it didn't help that I'd read the original manga the month before seeing the anime.  It's always better if I have a fuzzy recollection of the actual contents and can say, as I'm watching the anime, "Did that happen?  That way?  Really?  Oh, well, I can't remember.  Onward."

Harry Potter movies are better that way, too.

Any thoughts on Princess*Princess?  (In any of its incarnations?)