Live-action manga adaptations — from weepy dramas about teenage love to goofy comedies set in fantasy worlds — usually reflect real life only at its extremes, whether it's the melodramatic or the idiotic.
Then there is "Hard-Core Heisei Hell's Bros.," a cult manga about two losers — one with an out-of-control temper, the other intellectually challenged — who become inseparable pals in bubble-era Japan. Think of them as a Japanese version of George and Lennie from John Steinbeck's classic 1937 novella "Of Mice and Men."
Written by Marley Caribu and illustrated by Takashi Imashiro, "Hard-Core" ran in Grand Champion magazine from 1991 to 1993 and was published in four paperback volumes. Now it's a film directed by Nobuhiro Yamashita and starring Takayuki Yamada, a "Hard-Core" fan who first brought the manga to Yamashita's attention.