![]() ![]() One day at school – Maori’s the class hottie of course – the vaguely emo Toru (Shunsuke Michieda of boy band Naniwa Danshi, if you couldn’t tell from the hair) asks her on a date, but only because his friend (who we never really see again and whose storyline vanishes) is being bullied. Her best pal Izumi (Kotone Furukawa, Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy) and her parents are the only people who know about her condition, because reasons. Turns out Maori was in a car wreck a few years earlier leaving her with anterograde amnesia and a fresh slate after every nap. Kind of like Guy Pearce in Memento, just with less personality. She looks at the cues on sticky notes around her bedroom and reads the (paper) journal she religiously keeps to figure out her life every morning. This time around, anmensia, terminal illness and a little harmless gaslighting come together in grand, gauzy, melodramatic fashion, starting with Maori Hino (television actor Riko Fukumoto, reuniting with her Love Me, Love Me Not director) getting up for school. You know what? Itemising these is giving me a headache. Director Takahiro Miki has been down this road before, with Fortuna’s Eye, the fantastical romance (based on a book by Naoki Hyakuta) about an unhappy young man who can see when people are going to die and saves a pretty, equally awkward girl from death. Needless to say, Even if This Love does its level best to live up to its misty forebears. By the standards of the form, and it is indeed a form now, Even if This Love Disappears from the World Tonight | 今夜、世界からこの恋が消えても goes out of its way to pile on the central heroine – and indeed it is almost always a “she” – giving her not only an illness that messes with her life, and will forever, it makes sure she only gets a whiff of a life in the moment.īased on the 2019 novel by Misaki Ichijo – which Barnes & Noble categorises as YA, uh oh – and shot in sunny tones, with soft edges and peopled by flawlessly skinned youths by DOP Hiro Yanagida, the shooter on I Want to Eat Your Pancreas, about – wait for it – a teenaged girl with a terminal illness whose bucket list diary is the impetus for a tragic romance with a classmate. ![]() I'm not letting myself get dragged down again.What the fuck is going on in Japan? Why are its writers so miserable as to give us tome after tome after tome about inappropriate tragic romances and the most brazenly dysfunctional families ever? And why are readers consistently turning them, first, into runaway bestsellers, then audiences into box office monsters when the film adaptation invariably comes along? It’s been said the best insight into the national Japanese psyche is through its manga, but these soft focus romances are making a case for themselves, however dissonant the answers might be. "I got a room at the top of the world tonightĪnd I ain't comin' down, no I ain't comin' down" - like a mantra, I know how to deal with it. I couldn't have HER, but there may be someone better.Īnd I love you so " - is a heartbreaking relapse due to the inner turmoil, but he catches himself immediately with "And I'm all right" - adjusting again, no open wounds, no broken legs :)Īnd find out what you were looking for" - final readjustment, setting new goals or returning to previous goals. "I got over a thousand dollars in the bank" - adjusting to reality, it's not so bad "I got someone who loves me tonight" - someone may even be himself !? He's finally found the way to deal with his situation and feelings, and decided to dig his heels in and defend that state - though his inside is still in a turmoil, of course. And to me it's more of a hopeful / defiant song and not so sad. Which all came back to me when hearing it a few days ago. I was recently in a similar position as TP, no drugs though - just completely heartbroken. ![]() I was surprised to see that people interpret it as a sad song. I love you please love me, I'm not so bad Little one you're so far away I want to reach out I got over a thousand dollars in the bank I got a room at the top of the world tonight ![]()
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