This is Grade A weaponized tear jerking. It's a touching and tender love story.... or is it?
One of the reviewers touched on Japan's "herbivore men"... and while he provided a functional non-review, he was not really wrong.
This movie is part of Japan's attempts at reaching and dislodging the legions of herbivore men, young men who remove themselves from romantic relationships and social society at large. It's Grade A weaponized propaganda.
"Talk to them, they will understand you," Sakura tells Haruki about classmates who hardly even know his name. But will they? They don't want him to talk to them. They just want him to become like them, and if that takes him talking, so be it.
Does Sakura "love" Haruki? There are different types of love, but romantic love requires sexual attraction, and, movie magic and nerd dreams aside, there is no way she found an awkward, quiet, shy loner the rest of the school completely ignored, attractive. In her final letters, she wished Kyoko a good husband and children. She did not envision any such future for Haruki.
She was a friend then, perhaps? But she was not a friend either. She did not treat him like a friend. She treated him like a servant. She would not in a million years dream of calling Kyoko, her BEST friend, at 3am and tell her to go traveling with her. She called him, he was there. She didn't call him, he was there too.
She gave him a pity relationship, for reasons the movie does not explore or explain, except to make us feel good. He gives her a pity relationship, because how do you say no to a dying girl who's being so nice to you.
10 stars for genre of old-school Japanese tearjerkers. -5 stars for blatant manipulation that will leave you inexplicably hollow and confused when the tears dry out.
One of the reviewers touched on Japan's "herbivore men"... and while he provided a functional non-review, he was not really wrong.
This movie is part of Japan's attempts at reaching and dislodging the legions of herbivore men, young men who remove themselves from romantic relationships and social society at large. It's Grade A weaponized propaganda.
"Talk to them, they will understand you," Sakura tells Haruki about classmates who hardly even know his name. But will they? They don't want him to talk to them. They just want him to become like them, and if that takes him talking, so be it.
Does Sakura "love" Haruki? There are different types of love, but romantic love requires sexual attraction, and, movie magic and nerd dreams aside, there is no way she found an awkward, quiet, shy loner the rest of the school completely ignored, attractive. In her final letters, she wished Kyoko a good husband and children. She did not envision any such future for Haruki.
She was a friend then, perhaps? But she was not a friend either. She did not treat him like a friend. She treated him like a servant. She would not in a million years dream of calling Kyoko, her BEST friend, at 3am and tell her to go traveling with her. She called him, he was there. She didn't call him, he was there too.
She gave him a pity relationship, for reasons the movie does not explore or explain, except to make us feel good. He gives her a pity relationship, because how do you say no to a dying girl who's being so nice to you.
10 stars for genre of old-school Japanese tearjerkers. -5 stars for blatant manipulation that will leave you inexplicably hollow and confused when the tears dry out.