The J-Drama Drop #34 (Part 2)

Part 1 of this edition of The J-Drama Drop focused on the two dramas I've watched since November, plus an honorable mention "just for me" film. As promised, for part 2 I'm bringing you all the selections I watched from Japanese Film Festival Online 2024, presented by JFF+. (This particular festival was held in June and July, before JFF+ rebranded as JFF Theater and made a new set of films available on August 1st.) Here are the seven films I was most interested in, in the order that I watched them.

ウェディング・ハイ (Wedding High) - 2022

 

A young couple named Haruka and Akihito are currently planning their wedding two years after meeting at work. Akihito (Nakamura Tomoya from 'Nagi no Oitoma') thinks the endless planning decisions and fanfare are unnecessary and cares more about spending his life with Haruka than having a wedding at all, but he feigns enthusiasm to avoid being the stereotypical Japanese husband whose apathy toward the wedding leads to lasting discord within the marriage. With another wedding scheduled to use the banquet hall after this couple, the lead wedding planner (Shinohara Ryouko from 'Silent') strategizes with them, her team, and the attendees scheduled to speak or perform on how to condense all their contributions into one hour. This becomes necessary after certain individuals take up too much time making the wedding reception about themselves. This includes Akihito's boss, a man disgraced at work and at home for cheating on his wife with a sex worker, who spends months studying comedy to prepare a speech that will redeem him; Akihito's TV director friend, who feels artistically stifled in his career and uses the carte blanche he's been given for the wedding video to make the Russian-inspired dramatic film of his dreams; and Haruka's boss, used to being the office clown wherever he goes, who turns his toast into a comedy set so as not to feel upstaged by Akihito's boss.

 

'Wedding High' is a well-paced romp, with multiple detours to explore various characters' motivations. My only criticism is that it could have been 20-30 minutes shorter if it weren't for the extended gag at the end that reveals how Haruka's college ex Yuya (Iwata Takanori from 'Kingyo Tsuma') tries to sabotage the wedding but ends up helping it go off without a hitch instead. (He has convinced himself that Haruka is having an arranged marriage and feels he must crash it to rescue her and steal her back, but keeps missing his chance to interrupt the reception. Toward the end of the film, sooo much time is spent on him chasing down a random petty criminal who has stolen the goshuugi gift money envelopes that guests have brought to the wedding, and it bores more than it pays off.) Sure, Yuya does the right thing by returning the gift money and leaving without making his presence known once he sees how happy Haruka is with Akihito. Sure, it's a relief to see a scorned and self-absorbed ex-boyfriend not follow through on his scumbag intentions. But it all just went on way too long. Maybe that sort of subplot is an aspect of Japanese comedic structure that I'm simply not aware of.

マイ・ブロークン・マリコ (My Broken Mariko) - 2022

 

Based on a manga of the same name. 'My Broken Mariko' opens with a twenty-something named Tomoyo who works an awful sales job (Nagano Mei from 'Unicorn ni Notte') finding out on the news, while eating at a restaurant during her lunch break, that her best friend since childhood has jumped from her apartment window to her death. This friend, the titular Mariko, was physically and sexually abused by her father her whole life, until she moved out on her own and was abused by subsequent boyfriends as well. At a loss for what to do, Tomoyo goes to the apartment Mariko grew up in planning to stab Mariko's father, but after confronting him for daring to mourn the daughter he abused, Tomoyo steals Mariko's ashes and escapes out of a window. She then takes the ashes with her on a spontaneous trip to the (fictional) Marigaoka Cape, due to the place's similarity to Mariko's name and the fact that the pair had always wanted to go to a beach together but never did. After getting robbed upon arrival, Tomoyo meets a mysterious man her age (Kubota Masataka from 'Unnatural') who gives her money to help her get by, and periodically checks on her because he empathizes with her despair. 

 

Obviously I would advise anyone who has experienced abuse, self-harm, or suicidal ideations to approach this film with caution. As someone who has experienced all three, I found 'My Broken Mariko' to be an incredibly honest display of the struggle to find the will to live amidst loss, and amidst the awareness that there's no promise life will get any better. There's hopelessness, and then there's having to take the next step beyond hopelessness, and for Mariko and Tomoyo that step looks significantly different.

メタモルフォーゼの縁側 (Metamorphose no Engawa/BL Metamorphosis) - 2022

Based on a manga of the same name. Two years after the death of her husband, an elderly calligraphy (shodou) instructor named Yuki walks directly from the memorial service to a bookstore, where she finds gay manga (more commonly known as "Boys' Love" or BL manga) where the cookbooks she's looking for used to be. A clerk tells her the section contains "manga", but doesn't specify what genre. So when Yuki haphazardly starts browsing and decides to buy volume 1 of a young adult BL series called "I Only Want to Be Looking at You" ("Kimi no Koto Dake Miteitai"), purely because she thinks the drawings are beautiful, she doesn't realize it's a gay love story until she reaches the end of that volume later on. (Note: This is a real manga series that got its own live-action miniseries adaptation released the same year that 'BL Metamorphosis' was released. Both are directed by Kariyama Shunsuke.) The other clerk, a high school student named Urara who rings Yuki up (played by Ashida Mana), is shocked and confused by Yuki's purchase but doesn't comment on it; she recognizes the series because she herself has a copy among her beloved hidden BL stash at home. Yuki keeps returning to the bookstore to buy successive volumes because, even though she had no idea BL was so popular and she feels too old to be so excited about it, she must keep reading because she wants to support the characters' love. Once she realizes that Urara reads BL too, they bond over being mutual fans, and meet outside of the bookstore (mainly at cafes and Yuki's large house) to talk about "Kimi no Koto Dake Miteitai" and other series that Urara recommends. As Urara expands Yuki's BL knowledge to help distract from her grief and her health concerns, Yuki gives Urara the confidence and resources she needs to create her own original manga.

 

I've known that most readers of BL manga in Japan are women ever since I watched Christiane Amanpour's 'Sex & Love Around the World' docuseries back when it initially was streaming on Netflix years ago. And while I never got into Japanese manga in general (the black and white newspaper comic-eque style never clicked with me), I have been an avid reader of online BL "manhwa" (the Korean, full-color, smutty kind) since around 2019. So the lead characters of 'BL Metamorphosis' being two female readers, albeit with a massive age gap between them, did not surprise me. And their ability to form an intergenerational friendship over such an unexpected common interest is what makes this film so wholesome! I also want to note that while I don't recall watching anything Ashida Mana has appeared in before, I do remember how she used to be EVERYWHERE when she was a child actress in her single digit years, so it's reassuring to see her career still going. (She was 17 going on 18 when this film premiered in 2022.) I always wonder if young actors in her position get burned out, but she doesn't seem to have that problem.

線は、僕を描く (Sen wa, Boku wo Egaku/The Lines That Define Me) - 2022

While volunteering to help set up for a local art event, a passionless law student named Sousuke (my gorgeous gorgeous boy Yokohama Ryuusei from 'Kikazaru Koi'!) is moved to tears by an ink wash painting (suibokuga) that's on display. At lunch, he serendipitously meets a suibokuga master named Kozan, and gets roped into helping set up for Kozan's live painting performance that same day. Sousuke is mesmerized by Kozan's performance, and at the end Kozan invites him to be his apprentice. Sousuke visits Kozan's house a few days later to politely decline becoming his "apprentice", but Kozan won't have it and insists that Sousuke be his "student" instead; he believes Sousuke has potential and wants to teach him how to paint. Sousuke also meets Kozan's granddaughter/apprentice Chiaki, and learns that the painting he was moved to tears by at the beginning of the film was hers. Whereas Chiaki has genius and technical skill, Kozan is more drawn to the emotionality in Sousuke's work (newbie though he might be). So even though Chiaki and gramps live and paint in the same house, in addition to mentoring Sousuke in their own ways, they don't get along with each other due to artistic differences and what she regards as a lack of guidance, acknowledgement, and proper instruction from Kozan. Sousuke isn't sure if he's suited for suibokuga at all, but he keeps practicing because this is the first time he's felt so much as a whiff of passion about anything since his family died in a flood.

 

They somehow made an art film feel like a sports film (especially during the live painting scenes), and I was thoroughly entertained while also learning about the craft of suibokuga at the same time! Besides Yokohama Ryuusei's face and eyelashes, what also endeared me to 'The Lines that Define Me' was its similarity to other films from this festival. Like 'My Broken Mariko', this film features a twenty-something finding out about a loved one's death from the news. But on a brighter note, like 'BL Metamorphosis' this story is partially about bridging the gap between young and old via shared interests, with the old character being a master of a traditional Japanese art form who also lives and works in a huge traditional Japanese house.

そばかす (Freckles/I Am What I Am) - 2022

 

After dropping out of music school because she felt she couldn't hack it, Kasumi (Miura Toko from the 2021 film 'Drive My Car') works at a call center and has moved back to her seaside hometown to live with her family. This relatively laid-back family home includes her depressive dad with whom she's very close, her selectively high-strung mother, and her quiet but frank and delightfully shady grandmother, with frequent visits from her pregnant younger sister and the sister's "nice guy" cheater of a husband. Kasumi's mom can't bear the fact that Kasumi is 30 and doesn't even have a boyfriend, so she tricks Kasumi into attending a formal arranged marriage meeting with a man and his own mother also present. (Kasumi is asexual but has not arrived at this word yet, and nobody seems to believe her when she says she doesn't experience having any sexual or romantic feelings toward anyone.) The two singletons establish an easy friendship once they discover that they both don't care about love or marriage, and that they had met previously at the ramen restaurant the man cooks at. But he later ruins the friendship by falling in love with Kasumi, trying to ambush-kiss her, and then treating her like a freak when she explains her asexuality to him. More people pass in and out of Kasumi's life, as she runs into both a gay former classmate who gets her a job working with him at a daycare, and another former classmate named Maho (Maeda Atusko from the lesbian parenting episode of 'Modern Love Tokyo') who helps Kasumi create an asexual feminist retelling of "Cinderella" for Kasumi's class. (This retelling is done through paper theater or kamishibai, yet another traditional Japanese art form. It seems the JFF+ 2024 selection committee had a theme in mind, which I appreciate if that's the case.) However, after making plans to move in with Kasumi, the rebellious politician's daughter and former porn star that is Maho yields to convention by getting married and moving back to Tokyo, and Kasumi never sees her again. But all is not for naught, as their kamishibai project makes a new co-worker feel secure enough in his own asexuality to sense kinship with Kasumi and attempt to become friends.

 

This film is definitely more about character development than what may or may not be achieved within the plot, and since I've just summarized most of the plot, I don't have much else to say about 'I Am What I Am' except this. Y'all know I've got a soft spot for stories about women in their 20s and 30s floundering in life (see 'Nagisa no Oitoma', 'Gunjou Ryouiki', 'Prism', and 'My Second Aoharu' just to name a few). So this film was right up my alley!

ハケンアニメ (Haken Anime!/Anime Supremacy!) - 2022

 

Based on a light novel of the same name. This is a behind the scenes look at the countless people and skills required to make and promote anime series, specifically two series that are competing for ratings during the same coveted 5pm Saturday timeslot for kid-friendly programming. One series is helmed by Saito, a female newbie director who quit her public servant job to work in the anime industry seven years ago in order to "beat" her biggest inspiration, a similarly young but more experienced and renowned anime director named Oji. Oji's most recent hit anime resonated with Saito's difficult and lonely childhood growing up in public housing, even though she was already an adult when that anime aired. So now as a fellow director, Saito strives to be even better than Oji at reaching children like her. Fittingly, Saito's rival series is helmed by that very same Oji (Nakamura Tomoya from 'Wedding High', see the beginning of this review), a flighty person who often leaves his producer (Ono Machiko from 'Zekkyou') in a lurch trying to cover for his disappearances and stubborn demands. Saito is similarly wrangled and mentored by a producer who, though seemingly callous, is a ride-or-die regarding making her series a success from a production and promotional standpoint, while still aligning the final product as closely with Saito's vision as possible.

 

Anime opening and ending theme songs were my entry point into developing an interest in Japanese media, language, and culture, and although my interest in anime itself waned considerably in college, I was still thrilled by how high-stakes 'Haken Anime' makes everything seem and how much it reveals about the anime industry. It's also amusing to consider that the film seems to cover all parts of the anime production process... except for anime theme songs! Commissioning artists, recording the songs, providing feedback and requesting tweaks to make the song relevant to what the show and its opening or closing sequences are meant to achieve, etc. I was imagining there'd be a montage similar to Higedan's videos showing the making of "No Doubt" and "Pretender" for the 'Confidence Man JP' franchise. But alas. I suppose that process would've been too expensive to depict in 'Haken Anime'; the team behind it would've either had to pay for the rights to use existing music, or pay to create original music to accompany these two separate original anime series that they'd already spent who knows how much on creating solely for the purposes of this film. So I understand.

花束みたいな恋をした (Hanataba Mitai na Koi wo Shita/We Made a Beautiful Bouquet) - 2021

 

Kinu (Arimura Kasumi from 'Call Me Chihiro') and Mugi (Suda Masaki from '3-Nen A-Gumi' are a couple who start dating as 21-year-old college students in 2015, after they both miss the last train from Meidaimae station and proceed to spend the whole night together, mostly eating and walking and talking. During this pivotal night, in addition to numerous other commonalities, they bond over being the only two people who seem to spot and show sufficient awe for Oshii Mamoru (director of the original 1995 'Ghost in the Shell' anime film) at a restaurant, and over still carrying around tickets for the same concert they'd been looking forward to attending earlier that night but missed for their own respective reasons. They go from platonically sleeping at Mugi's place that night, to officially dating, to living together and adopting a cat within less than a year of dating, to witnessing each other's career challenges and personality shifts in the years to come. Despite initially having a peaceful life together where they always make time for each other and their mutual hobbies, they become misaligned as they succumb to parental and cultural pressures to "become normal", i.e. to be contributing members of society via the traditional workforce. This is especially so for Mugi, who forsakes what might've been a robust career as an illustrator for a demanding and conformist job in sales. With the passion and playfulness gradually disintegrating between them, they break up in 2019 after attending a friend's wedding. Most of the film is actually a lengthy flashback preceded by an opening scene set in 2020, when Kinu and Mugi clock each other in the same restaurant while they're each about to pester a younger couple about how they're listening to music wrong (similarly to how a stranger lectured Kinu and Mugi during their early days together). Which demonstrates that, even a year post-breakup when they're already dating other people, the impact of the years they spent together is indelible.

You might be surprised, as I was, to hear some surprisingly profound theories about love being presented in 'We Made a Beautiful Bouquet'. Theories about how the beginning of love is also the beginning of the end of that love, because all things end eventually. About how love has an expiration date because it's something raw, and even though a relationship may be meant to be, that doesn't mean it will last. About how even if a relationship doesn't last, that doesn't make it any less special or beautiful. Speaking of which, please accept the following play-by-play of Kinu and Mugi's break-up scene, because the heartbreak and maturity displayed are too stunning for me to keep to myself. After attending said friend's wedding and going on other mini-outings that same day, Kinu and Mugi find themselves back at the restaurant they used to frequent at the beginning of their relationship. Both want to break up on a high note at the end of a rare good day together, but once they actually start broaching the subject, Kinu's very straightforward about it whereas Mugi desperately and tearfully pleads to hold on. Then Kinu's crying too as she considers his offer to basically settle for each other, and they both sob while silently observing a young couple, sitting in the same booth they used to always sit in, mirroring how they were when first getting to know each other. And then Kinu runs out, Mugi follows her, and they're just standing outside holding each other and crying until they're calm enough to walk home. I kept a completely straight face during that entire scene (something-something depression, something-something emotional numbness), but believe me! If I could've wept the way I wanted to, I would've!

Before naming my favorites from this round, I have to commend what is now known as JFF Theater for putting together such engaging film festival selections this year. This is the most films that I've been interested enough to watch from them, in full, since the first round of JFF+ Independent Cinema (2022-2023)! They did an amazing job curating this year's films, and I am genuinely grateful.

Moving on to favorites, since I only watched two J-dramas this time, it's fairly easy for me to say that 'Eye Love You' wins over 'My Second Aoharu'. It delights my multilingual self, Chae Jong-hyeop makes the whole show flow, and it's simply fresher in my memory than 'My Second Aoharu' is. As for the seven JFF+ films I watched, I've narrowed them down to two favorites. While 'BL Metamorphosis' and 'I Am What I Am' are the most personally relevant to my own experiences, 'Anime Supremacy' is my favorite because I learned the most from it, and 'We Made a Beautiful Bouquet' is my other favorite because it's the one film from the bunch that I'm still feeling and thinking about the most. 

 

Thanks so much for reading both parts of this review! Now I'm off to find more Japanese stuff to watch and write about!