Plot Summary:
Originally serialized as a web novel written by Yoru Sumino, the movie adaptation was released in the fall of 2018. The story depicts an ordinary high school boy, Boku/Shiga Haruki, who is obsessed with reading and detached from his classmates. His bland life is interrupted and changed after he accidentally finds out that his classmate, Yamauchi Sakura, has pancreatic cancer and her life will soon be ended. Sakura is like the opposite of Haruki since she is outgoing and popular in class. She hides her illness from everyone except for her family. However, after Haruki finds out, he doesn’t show any sympathy which makes Sakura relaxed. Because of the shared secret, the two soon become friends and accompany each other.
Sakura VS. Haruki:
One of the suspenses throughout the movie is the given name of Haruki. He is first referred as 僕 (Boku) which means “Me” and is usually used by boys in Japanese. The audiences never know his full name until the end of the movie. Even during the scene when Haruki and Sakura are on the train to Fukuoka and Sakura is asking for his given name, Haruki’s voice is purposely muted and kept as a secret until the end.
As shown in the two images above, the scene has a shot of the train coming out from a tunnel. This is a representation of Haruki opening his heart to Sakura by giving his given name to her, and also implies a possible new relationship between the two. The diegetic sound of the train carries over to the close-up shot of Haruki’s mouth, and is made louder in order to cover his voice. In the close-up shot, the audiences could only see that he is speaking. By using high key lighting and sound bridge, the shot gives the audience a hint but puts them in suspense as well.
As the movie approaches to the end, the audience finally learns the given name of Boku is Haruki which is written as 春樹 in Japanese. The two characters of Kanji means “Spring” and “Tree” in English. After Sakura finds out his given name, she said they are meant to meet each other and all the choices she has made are for this moment. Sakura, or Cherry Blossom in English, and Haruki are destined for each other by reading the meanings of the two’s names. Despite the match of Cherry Blossom and Spring Tree, their names also show the implications of both characters’ lives and personality. Haruki is calm, quiet but healthy and has a hopeful life as spring trees. On the other hand, Sakura is beautiful, popular in class, but has fleeting life just as the cherry blossoms. Their meeting is destined but also set a sad tone from the beginning.
Irony of Sakura’s Death:
Before watching the last quarter of the movie, I thought the two is going to enjoy the last moments of Sakura’s life together. Haruki is going to be more outgoing and making more friends. Sakura is going to be completing her autobiography and positive with her treatment. However, everything twists so suddenly with the death of Sakura. She doesn’t die because of her health, but because of a random killing. Just on the next day that Sakura has finished her hospitalization, Haruki asks her to meet in the cafe that the two used to hang out. He waits for a from morning to evening, and this is the first time that he decides to confess his feelings to her through text message. However, he only hears the tragic news.
This sudden twist is so unexpected that I was very shock at first. However, when I went over again about the story, I realized that this might be a “better” and “romantic” ending for Sakura. Her classmates and even her best childhood friend know nothing about her illness, and Sakura tries very hard to keep her image of the “popular, positive and healthy girl”. If she wasn’t die because of the murder, she has to be enduring her pain and eventually died in exhaustion of the treatments. Perhaps the death is not that sudden and is well designed to give Sakura an end of her most beautiful age.
I Want to Eat Your Pancreas is not only an anime movie that has a creepy name, but also a tragic but warm romantic story with many melodramatic characteristics. From the naming design to the sudden death of Sakura, the movie builds the emotions step by step. Just like the tree will grow and prosper after blossoms fall, Haruki carries on his life with the wish of being a similar person like Sakura.
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