Chuugakusei Nikki (The Diary of a Junior High Schooler) -Blog 2

Chuugakusei Nikki (The Diary of a Junior High Schooler) is a live action Japanese melodrama series directed by Tsukahara Ayuko and Tsuboi Toshio. This series was released in 2018 and received a number of comments for its controversial issues and melodramatic aspects that deviate the story from the norm. The actors with the leading roles include Arimura Kasumi (with the role of the female teacher Suenaga Hijiri) and Okada Kenshi (with the role of the male student Kuroiwa Akira).

Full Plot

Set in modern day Japan, the story follows a 15-year-old boy Kuroiwa Akira who falls in love with his female 25-year-old homeroom and literature teacher Suenaga Hijiri. Despite knowing that Hijiri already has a fiancé, Akira struggles to convey his feelings towards Hijiri. Within the course of a few months, Hijiri admits that she also has feelings towards Akira, thus reciprocating his love. However, as the teacher and her student fall in love, their inappropriate sexual actions such as kissing cause concern for both sides of the family. Hijiri eventually resigns her job as a teacher from her junior high school and turns down the soon-to-approach wedding with her fiancé. The fateful summer that Akira and Hijiri fell in love ended with Hijiri having to move away without informing anyone her whereabouts.

There is a 3-year time skip in the story. Akira is in his final year of high school in a new city and has settled with his academic life; however, refuses to forget his love for Hijiri. Coincidentally, Hijiri is back to being a teacher at an elementary school in the same city that Akira has moved to. Through a series of events that happen, the two reunite with the same echoing feeling of love in their hearts. More drama unfolds as Akira’s mother finds out that her only son has reunited with the woman of a 10-year age gap with her son. She strictly prohibits Akira from seeing Hijiri and warns him that she will bring this issue to the police if he still makes an effort to see her. 28-year-old Hijiri understands the issue, thus tries her best to lock away her feelings for Akira by refraining from contacting Akira.

Both their feelings start to develop and grow once again to the point where they would break their own rules in order to see be with each other. Ignoring the societal pressure of having a large age gap alongside the student-teacher relationship, the two decide to look into the long-term future of their relationship. Unfortunately, Akira’s mother strongly opposes this, brings the issue of the conviction of a minor towards the police, and hires a lawyer to settle a contract agreement with Hijiri to stop any form of contact/communication with Akira. Hijiri decides that the best outcome of the current situation would be to sign the contract, thus she does so and provides Akira with the reason that she believes their love needs more time. She promises Akira that she will continue to strive for her dream of becoming a teacher abroad in another country whilst waiting for Akira to grow more mature to the point where the two can be together once again.

Another time skip of 5 years happen. Hijiri is now a teacher abroad in Thailand and has not committed to any relationships ever since the conflict with Akira’s mother. Akira unexpectedly enters the scene and approaches Hijiri from the back who was viewing the sunset by the beach. Akira does not say anything, he smiles and hands her the contract. This shows that his mom has now accepted the relationship of the two and that both Akira and Hijiri are now ready to commit to a morally right relationship.

Themes and Connections to Melodrama

The main theme of the series is the harshness of life in the form of societal pressure and forbidden love. The story portrays the question on the extent to which you are willing to sacrifice for your difficult love despite the overwhelming hurdles.      

Forbidden Love and the Fight for Love

The forbidden love in this melodrama series is the love between teacher and student. This kind of love is unacceptable in Japanese culture as it is seen as pedophilia. Knowing that their love would not be accepted by the strict Japanese society, both Hijiri and Akira still insist on struggling to fight for their difficult love.

On one hand, Hijiri has to fight for her position in society as she aims to stand as a teacher-the dream job she has always had in mind. In doing so, she is portrayed as an independent woman who stays true to her feelings. Upon making up her mind that she loves her student Akira, she ignores the cultural pressure and is willing to go against societal norms in order to achieve the love life she desires. There are two aspects of love which Hijiri is continuously dramatically fighting for: self-love and romanticism. She has to fight to pursue her working goals and her love for her student Akira.

On the other hand, Akira is placed in a similar situation, but with emphasis on a family aspect where he has to fight for a common ground (an agreement) with his family members on his love towards the woman with a 10-year age gap with him.

The issue is eventually resolved in the most realistic approach in the sense that both the characters end up together with the help of time that makes their age gap and social standings acceptable to a certain extent. In other words, their fight for love is realistically proven as Akira has turned 23, reaching an age where his mother has acknowledged his never-ending love for Hijiri.  

Cultural Aspects

An old Japanese literature poem is presented in the first episode which not only foreshadows the story, but also serves as an important metaphor for understanding for the whole drama.

“A good rain chooses the right time to fall and so it falls,
When it comes to spring, the rain is certainly falling,
It follows the wind and secretly enters the night,
While the wind is blowing, the rain continues to fall until night,
And moistens everything softly, without any sound,
Silently, almost making no sounds at all, it makes everything wet.”

In the first episode, as a literature teacher, Hijiri presents this poem to her class on her students’ first day of the school year with the hope of motivating her students to study hard and work towards achieving their goals in the future. After writing this poem on the classroom chalkboard and explaining to the class the meaning behind the lines, Akira falls off his chair and slightly shocks Hijiri. As Hijiri checks on Akira, the two make eye contact for the very first time in the story and the following events resonate with the lines of the poem. A type of pure love that overcomes various obstacles over a lengthy period of time. Thus, this poem serves to link the mindset of the older generation to that of the newer generation because in the old days, such love between a teacher and her student is seen morally unacceptable, so this poem acts as a bridge that connects the differences in mindsets, showing that in the end the Japanese culture has changed to an extent where more kinds of love is socially acceptable.

Story Told from Male Perspective

This is a point to be taken into consideration for modern melodrama. I noticed that the movie is told from Akira’s (the male main character) perspective, which contrasts to what we were discussing in class with Professor Earl Jackson as the guest lecturer. During Professor Jackson’s lecture, he mentions specifically how Japanese melodrama is usually told in a female perspective, meaning that the film shots and film aesthetics were done in a way that reflects what the female character could see. In other words, the viewers are placed in the female character’s shoes as the story unfolds.

I find it surprising how the modern take on melodrama features more male perspectives than older films. I assume that this is so that the viewers are able to come to a better understanding of the thoughts and emotions that go through a male’s mind, which balances with the understanding of things in a female’s perspective that has likely been explored in melodrama that viewers have come across. Not to mention how there are significantly more scenes that are shot close up to Akira in comparison to Hijiri.

Cinematography

There is a fish eye effect that occurs throughout most of the series which seems to serve as a medium to convey the character’s emotions. This fish eye effect is done on both the scene and the characters. With the scenes, the fish eye effect is placed on elements of nature as if to emphasize symbolism that exists. An example that correlates to what we have discussed in class is the common scene in melodramas where beach scenes exist as a place where issues are resolved. This beach scene is present at the end of the series where both Akira and Hijiri have reunited after many years and are both ready to commit to a serious and morally acceptable relationship where the fish eye effect is applied to the sunset on the beach. This acts as a motif for a new beginning that is soon to approach the couple.

Another example of this fish eye effect is the first eye contact scene in the classroom between Akira and Hijiri. Both the characters are placed in the center of the frame, with minor characters surrounding the center. This evokes an emphasis on the start of loving feelings that will soon be shown by the characters.

Film aesthetics in Chuugakusei Nikki is also focused on the use of rain and darkness in particular. There are many shots taken in a lighting where it is so dark that the viewers can find it hard to identify what was going on at certain times which demonstrates the various moods that the film was implying. During scenes with rain, the characters are often in a state of either sexual desire, depression, or confusion.

Quotes

“I don’t care even though others see us like this”- Akira

This quote by Akira as he hugs Hijiri in public during the fireworks festival displays the resistance that Akira wishes to go against in order to portray how strong his love is for Hijiri. It is a very melodramatic line as it states that the character is willing to break both self and societal rules in order to push for a desired love life.

Other notes:

Controversy in Japan

When the 11-episode series was released, there was a clear drop on the ratings due to the split between two distinct groups of people with opinions for and against the topic of teacher-and-student’s forbidden love. With comments from people on “disgusting branding” as a result of the subtle theme of pedophilia, the series premiered with just a rating of 6.0%-a number much lower that the series that premiered before them of the same timeslot- 11.5%.

Mixed opinions leaned towards the idea that love is love; therefore, no barriers should interfere with two hearts that love each other.

Mildred Pierce

Mildred Pierce

What is Mildred Pierce about?

Mildred Pierce is a 1945 American film noir movie about a woman, Mildred Pierce, and an exploration of her life after the murder of her second husband, Monte.

The movie starts out with Monte's murder. The police first suspect Wally, Mildred's acquaintance, but then focus on Bert, Mildred's first husband. Mildred tells the police about her past to explain that Bert is not the culprit. Bert was a wealthy man who was business partners with Wally, but Bert and Mildred eventually split because he was having an affair. 

Mildred now raises her daughters, Veda and Kay, by herself. Veda is resentful because their financial position has gotten significantly worse, but Kay is not bothered by it. Wally is also interested in Mildred now that she has split with Bert. Mildred gets a job as a waitress, much to Veda's dismay. She meets Monte, who is a wealthy building owner, and he is willing to sell her a building so she can open her own restaurant. Monte also seduces Mildred, and they enter a relationship. Soon after,  Mildred's daughter Kay tragically dies, and Mildred is distraught. Her business, however, is successful, and she ends up running a restaurant chain.

Veda, still wanting to climb the social ladder, secretly marries Ted Forrester, a wealthy man. Mildred disapproves of this marriage. Veda agrees to end the marriage, but she does so in a scheming way. She lies and says that she's pregnant to get money from the Forresters. When Mildred learns this, she is very angry and rips up the check. Veda then starts performing at Wally's nightclub as a singer and acts in a very sexual way. Mildred is mortified and confronts her, after which Veda coldheartedly tells Mildred she will never be able to give her the life she wants. Mildred decides to marry Monte to attain this high stature and impress her daughter, and Veda comes back to live with them.

Mildred supports Monte and Veda with her restaurants, but her business is not enough to support their overspending and she begins to have financial troubles. She goes to visit Monte to talk to him, and catches Monte and Veda together. Veda tells Mildred that they are in a relationship, and that Monte is going to leave Mildred for her. Mildred runs off, upset, and after she leaves, Monte says that he would never marry Veda. Veda, angry, shoots Monte and kills him. Mildred finds this out and promises to protect her. She tries to frame Wally for the murder, but the cops admit that they already knew that it was Veda. They arrest Veda, and Mildred leaves with Bert, who was waiting for her outside.

Melodramatic Elements

There is much about this film that is melodramatic, and very similar to the Japanese melodramas we have seen. Obviously, social and economic class is one of the central themes of the film, which is a common melodramatic trope. Much of the conflict comes from Veda's constant need to be of a higher economic class, and Mildred's inability to give her that. This storyline is very reminiscent of Stella Dallas and Haha no Kyoku, in which Stella Dallas and Haruko are unable to give Laurel and Keiko the high-class lives they deserve. However, in Stella Dallas and Haha no Kyoku, the daughters are relatively happy with their lives and love their mothers more than they want to be rich and high-class, and the mothers are the ones who eventually decide that they want better lives for their daughters by allowing another woman to raise them. In Mildred Pierce, by comparison, Veda is the one that feels like she deserves a better life, and she resents Mildred, seeing her as an obstacle. While the mother-daughter relationship is tragic but also supportive and loving in the other films, it is toxic and hateful in Mildred Pierce. The women are pitted against each other, even in their own family. In fact, while Stella Dallas' and Haruko's main opponents are the women in their social class outside of their families, Mildred Pierce's main opponent is her own daughter, who she also loves, making for a very complicated and intriguing dynamic.

In many of the other films, particularly Japanese ones, family is strongly emphasized. Often times, conflict arises because the daughters want to marry lower-class men despite the wishes of their families. In this film, however, the mother eventually marries higher-class men because of the wishes of her daughter. Family still has this strong influence, but it is the daughter that holds the power over the mother. We see a sort of shift in power dynamics from the norm, which once again makes for a disturbingly unique turn of events. Family is almost painted in a negative light- Mildred's downfall is because of the love she has for her daughter and her desire to give her a happy light. The final antagonist of the film is the person that Mildred loves most.

Love is also the main theme that most of the melodrama films we have seen have had in common. This movie, however, does not have as strong of an emphasis on romantic love. Mildred marries two different men, but does not seem to particularly love either of them. It is presumed that she loved Bert at some point, but by the beginning of the film, their relationship is already strained, and they split very early on. Bert  emphasizes that this is at least partially because Mildred prefers her daughters to him. She also marries Monte, but she does so to appease her daughter and give her a bountiful life, not because she loves him. Wally is another man who pursues Mildred, but she scorns him, to the point where he seems predatory. In each of these cases, Mildred's love for these men is secondary to her love for her daughters, particularly Veda. The men are not the focus of the film- it is the relationship between the mother and the daughter, and the way it involves the men, that is the focus. These men are almost used as pawns by the two women in their motivations towards each other. Mildred marries Monte to get Veda back, and Veda uses Monte to try and anger her mother. Even Monte's death is a result of Veda's resent towards her own mother, and Mildred's attempted coverup of the murder is also a result of her love for her daughter. These two conflicting emotions are what drive the entire plot of the film, and this circular cat and mouse game of Mildred trying to get approval from her daughter but her daughter moving further and further away.

At its core, the movie is a classic melodrama. Much of the conflict comes from overexaggerated emotions or overreactions. The main driving force of the film is Veda's motivation to be rich, and Mildred's motivation to be loved by her daughter, which is a reaction to Veda's motivation. This is an exaggerated motive, and her hatred for her mother is unreasonable and could definitely be categorized as melodramatic. The climax of the film is when Veda shoots Monte, which is definitely a very extreme exaggeration and comes from an overflowing of emotions that is rather unrealistic. The drama in the film is definitely very forced, and would qualify it as melodramatic. However, as I discussed earlier, what makes this film stand out from other melodramas is the relationship between the mother and daughter, giving that relationship a dynamic that has never really been portrayed in film before.

The Girl Who Leapt Through Time

The Girl Who Leapt Through Time is a 2006 animated movie directed by Mamoru Hosoda. It is related to the 1967 novel The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, written by Yasutaka Tsutsui.

FULL SUMMARY:

The movie’s protagonist is Makoto, whose two close friends are Kousuke and Chiaki. The story begins on a day when Makoto is running a little late to school, and makes it just in time with Chiaki. However, the teacher announces a test that she is not prepared for, and she does quite poorly. Later in the day, she is doing a cooking project in school and a small fire starts at her work station, causing her some embarrassment. She is also tasked with bringing some material to the science laboratory, but when she does so, she finds a strange object on the ground, and when she accidentally falls on it, she gets strange visions. Brushing the incident aside, she plays baseball after school with her friends, and then leaves on her bike.
As Makoto is biking down a steep slope, the road closes as a train is about to pass. Makoto attempts to stop and wait for the train, but her bike’s breaks don’t work, and she speeds up as she goes downhill. When she reaches the train tracks, she is flung directly into the path of the train, but to her surprise, she finds herself back down the road, in the same place where she was a few minutes ago. She visits her aunt and describes the experience, and her aunt says it is a “time leap,” meaning that she returned to an earlier point in time. Makoto is interested by this and spends time attempting more long and high jumps in an effort to perform another time leap. She is finally successful, and she soon decides to use her new ability to fix the bad day she had. She goes back in time so that she shows up to school punctually, and she does well on the test. When she is cooking, she switches areas with a boy named Takase, allowing her to be far away when the fire begins. After school, she continues to use time leaps, this time to extend the leisure time she has with her friends.

The next time Makoto speaks with her aunt, her aunt cautions her, saying that other people might be paying the price when she uses time leaps for her own convenience. This idea bothers Makoto, but she dismisses it, reassuring herself that no one is being harmed. The next time Makoto is spending time with Kousuke and Chiaki after school, Kousuke receives a love confession from a girl called Kaho. Kousuke rejects her on the basis that he needs to focus on studying. Makoto later reprimands him for this, pointing out how brave Kaho had been to ask him. On her way home, Chiaki offers to give her a ride on his bike, since she didn’t have hers. She agrees, but becomes shocked when Chiaki asks her out during the ride. Unable to give an answer, she time leaps back a few minutes, and then tries to prevent the conversation from reaching that point. Chiaki asks again, though, so Makoto repeatedly uses time leaps, each time trying and failing to steer the conversation away from that topic. Eventually, Makoto gives up and goes back to the moment when Chiaki offered her a ride; she refuses this time, and goes in another direction. When she later discusses what happened with her aunt, her aunt suggests that she might eventually come to love Chiaki, but Makoto doubts it.

However, when Makoto is in school, she and her friend Yuri find that Takase is being bullied for the cooking incident which happened earlier. Chiaki defends Takase, who accuses Makoto of being the cause his troubles, since she switched spots with him before the fire. Chiaki defends Makoto and then tries to strike up a friendly conversation, but Makoto becomes too uncomfortable and leaves. After she does so, Chiaki and Yuri begin talking, and as time passes Makoto notices that the two of them have become much closer. Eventually, Takase tries to take revenge on the bullies, spraying them with a fire extinguisher as the whole school watches. Makoto tells him to stop, but he turns on her, still furious. He throws the fire extinguisher at her, but Chiaki moves to block it. Makoto does not want Chiaki to get hurt, so she uses a time leap to get him out of the way in time. When she does so, the fire extinguisher flies through the air without hitting either of them and smashes into Yuri, who is immediately taken to the nurse’s office. Chiaki visits her while she is recovering, and shortly afterward the two of them start dating. Makoto once again goes to confide in her aunt, and says that she doesn’t want to use her abilities to emotionally harm anyone. Her aunt listens to her, and shows Makoto a painting that she has been spending time restoring, explaining the historical background of the picture and the feelings it invokes.

At school, Makoto has a conversation with Kaho, the girl who confessed to Kousuke. Kaho says that Kousuke rejected her because he felt the need to improve his grades when Makoto aced the earlier test. Makoto decides to fix this problem, and she time leaps several times back to the point when Kaho confessed to Kousuke, each time interjecting with comments that are supposed to encourage Kousuke to say yes. Unfortunately, each attempt has the opposite effect, making it even harder for Kaho to speak to Kousuke. Finally, Makoto decides to tackle the problem at its root, and goes back to make sure that she fails the test, although in the process she finds out that she only has one time leap left. She is relieved to see that Kousuke and Kaho are getting along, but panics when Kousuke sends a message saying he and Kaho are borrowing her bike. Worried that the broken brakes on the bike will get them into the same accident she had, she races to the train tracks, hoping to make it in time. When she gets there, she doesn’t see Kousuke and Kaho, so she is relieved. She gets a call from Chiaki, who says that he has a question for her. He asks if she’s been doing time leaps, and in a panic, Makoto uses her last time leap to go back to stop the conversation. When Chiaki calls this time, she hangs up early, only to see Kousuke and Kaho speed by her on the bike, heading toward the oncoming train. She is unable to reach them in time, but just as the collision happens, time seems to freeze, and Chiaki is there. He reveals that he originally came from the future to see a certain painting, which happens to be the one Makoto’s aunt is fixing. Makoto comes to understand that the object she found in the science laboratory belongs to him, and that its charge was supposed to be used to replenish the number of times one could time leap. Chiaki says that he used his last time leap to save Kousuke and Kaho, but now he cannot return to the future, and since he has revealed his secret, he must go.

Chiaki disappears and things return to normal, but Makoto is very sad about what has happened. However, she realizes that Chiaki’s last time leap had erased hers, giving her back the ability to perform one more time leap. She goes back to the very beginning of the story, resetting the all the damage she had caused. This time, as she heads off to play baseball with Chiaki and Kousuke, she tells Yuri that she loves Chiaki, and Yuri accepts that. Then, Makoto encourages Kousuke to invite Kaho’s group of friends to play baseball with them, which surprises Kousuke, but he does so. Finally, she speaks to Chiaki in private, and tells him about everything that happened. Chiaki makes plans to return to the future, and later, when they’re saying goodbye, Makoto promises to keep the painting ready for him to see in the future.

ANALYSIS OF MELODRAMA:

            This movie appears to be primarily a science fiction story, as the plot is centered around a method of time travel brought from the future. However, the story itself is driven by the melodrama that occurs around the protagonist, who has extreme reactions to any sort of emotional discomfort. In this way, the movie’s focus is not on the potential power of her ability to time leap, but rather on how she chooses to use time leaps and the social problems that arise as a result.

One example of a character following a clear archetype established in melodrama is Takase, the boy who ends up in the cooking accident in Makoto’s place. After the incident, Takase is shown to be bullied and ridiculed by some of the other classmates, causing him to feel intense anger toward Makoto. His speech toward Makoto is aggressive and angry, and makes him start to fit into the stereotype of a villain. Later in the movie, Takase makes a big scene when he retaliates against the bullies. Although his anger has justification, the movie portrays him as merciless toward the bullies, continually spraying them with a fire extinguisher even when they plead for forgiveness. This act of revenge furthers his appearance as a villain. When Makoto tries to step in, he prepares to throw the whole fire extinguisher at her.

However, Takase’s transformation into the archetypal villain is accompanied by Chiaki’s rise as a hero. When Takase first accuses Makoto of being the cause of his suffering, Chiaki firmly steps in to defend Makoto, insisting that none of it was her fault. Similarly, when Takase throws the fire extinguisher at Makoto, Chiaki steps in between them, prepared to take the full blow of the hit. This, coupled with the fact that he has romantic interest toward Makoto, reinforces his role as the typical hero who boldly saves someone they are in love with to reach a happy ending. This development is redirected when Makoto interferes with his plan, time leaping to push him out of the way of the fire extinguisher. Although Chiaki is saved, Yuri gets hit and has to see the nurse. Chiaki goes to visit her, and shortly afterward Yuri and Chiaki begin dating as a result of this interaction. This once again portrays Chiaki as an archetypal hero, although this time to Yuri rather than Makoto.

Makoto herself is portrayed in a relatively melodramatic way, as she avoids pressuring situations to the point where her double-standards are blatant. For example, although her cooking accident does bother her, she does not see any problem when she has Takase deal with the same problem. She even applies double standards to her friends, as she tells Kousuke not to spend much time studying, but she is quite satisfied when her time traveling allows her to get a better grade on the test. Makoto also scolds Kousuke for rejecting Kaho after her brave love confession, but then repeatedly uses time travel to avoid responding to Chiaki when he asks her out. Makoto’s inconsistent attitudes in these situations fuels the melodrama in the story, as her desperate struggle to avoid these problems only complicates the relationships she has with those around her, resulting in issues that are much more serious than what she was originally afraid of.

Makoto’s inability to judge the severity of a problem is further demonstrated as the movie contrasts melodramatic situations of varying degrees of seriousness. For example, when Makoto gets into the accident with her bike, what goes through her mind are the regrets about the inconveniences she had that day. This juxtaposition of a life-or-death situation with Makoto’s melodramatic regret about her day shows how much importance Makoto attached to relatively trivial incidents. This same idea arises when Makoto avoids the cooking accident by switching places with Takase; to Makoto, causing a scene while cooking is the real problem, but she understands how much worse things could get when she later sees Takase being physically bullied by others. Another example of this type of contrast occurs as the movie approaches its climax. Throughout the story, Makoto kept avoiding Chiaki’s confession, and when Chiaki calls her to ask a question, it is expected that he will ask her out again. However, when he suddenly asks her if she’s been time leaping, she is shocked and immediately does a time leap. Chiaki’s breakaway from the anticipated question creates a clear distinction between Makoto’s desire to avoid Chiaki’s confession and the possible implications of Chiaki’s awareness.

The use of time travel to avoid facing responsibility ties into the concepts of giri and ninjou. From the beginning of the movie, it is made clear that Makoto prefers to do what she wants rather than what she should be doing; a primary example of this is how, throughout the movie, she keeps putting off making a decision about her academic future. Once she attains the ability to time leap, she uses this to continue dodging responsibility, and she herself feels that she can do anything with her power. In some ways, this is an extreme example of the contrast between giri and ninjou: Makoto’s use of time travel allows her to completely escape situations associated with giri, while ninjou can be seen as she allows herself to always take the easy way out and have as much fun as she wants. One of the most prominent instances of this in the movie is when Chiaki decides to ask Makoto to go out with him during their bike ride home. Makoto knows she has to give some kind of a response, but since she doesn’t feel comfortable doing so, she uses time leaps to try to prevent the subject from ever coming up. This doesn’t work, so she eventually decides to simply go home in another direction, skipping the bike ride entirely. The choice she makes is emphasized by the sign indicating a fork in the road right where she decides to take another path.

Makoto’s two close friends clearly notice her tendency to seek the most convenient solution without thinking about the future, and toward the end of the movie, after Makoto has resolved the major crises, they both give her advice. Kousuke tells her to keep an eye on where she’s heading, and Chiaki reminds her to not act impulsively without thinking. These are both ways of telling Makoto to do what’s best for her in the future and not just in the moment. At the end of the movie, Makoto’s development in this regard can be seen as she finally makes a decision about her future studies.

 

Floating Clouds (Film)

Ukigumo

Ukigumo is a post-war masterpiece directed by Naruse Mikiyo (1955).  This is the unsettling love story of Tomioka and Yukiko, who repatriated from Indochina after Japan's defeat in World War II. Naruse captures Japan's transitional state from post-war destruction, leaving the general tone in the film feeling "aimless," scattered, and drifting (like the clouds in the title). 

PLOT:

Tomioka (Masayuki Mori) and Yukiko (Hideko Takamine) meet in Indochina during the war at a Vietnam forestry mission. Although Tomioka has a sharp tongue and basically flirts through insults, Yukiko falls for his charm and with only some hesitation, receives Tomioka's gestures. The beginning of the movie is the only time Naruse shows "happier times" in which Yukiko and Tomioka are in love, aside from flashbacks that the two have when stuck in their post-war reality. The majority of the movie takes place in poverty-stricken Tokyo, with streets barren and remnants of broken buildings scattered along the ground. 

When she returns to Japan, Yukiko struggles to find her place. With little family to go to for help, she is put in a position where life has little to offer -- with the exception of Tomioka's love. But Tomioka is a womanizer, freely indulging himself with whoever he sees a connection, in spite of being unable to leave his wife. Yukiko comes back to him, creating an endless cycle of betrayal and disappointment. Despite her determination to win Tomioka's heart, she is independent, even selling her body to generate her own income. 

Unlike Yukiko, Tomioka struggles to find a job in tough economic times. The storyline grows more complex when the two take a trip to Ikaho Onsen as a couple and stay the night thanks to a lucky meeting with Seikichi, a man who takes a liking to him due to Tomioka's ties to the military. Seikichi's wife, Osei, immediately connects with Tomioka. The following day, Yukiko realizes they had spent the night with each other, but she does nothing and leaves Ikaho with him. 

Yukiko, who is now pregnant, visits Tomioka once again in the following scene. She discovers that he is living with Osei. Yukiko borrows money from her only distant relative, Iba (also her abuser), and decides to get an abortion despite Tomioka's expression of support. In her hospital bed, Yukiko learns that Osei was murdered by Seikichi. She returns to Iba and plays wife for some time before Tomioka returns to her to ask for money as well as announce the loss of his wife's battle to tuberculosis. 

In their final meeting, Yukiko learns that Tomioka will be moving to a faraway island. She leaves Iba with his money and joins Tomioka on his journey. Just when the possibility of a happy storybook ending is amidst, Yukiko falls deathly ill to tuberculosis and grows sicker on the trip to the island. Although they make it to the island, Yukiko ultimately dies alone while Tomioka is at work. Tomioka shows his only moment of vulnerability here as he cries with her in his arms, flashbacking to their first moments together in Indochina. 

AIMLESSNESS

According to Catherine Russell, the title Ukigumo itself is a common metaphor for an aimless life. Tomioka and Yukiko are the embodiment of what was expressed as the common "post-war" struggle, aimless, struggling to get back on track to live a "normal" life. 

The melodrama in this film is driven by the characters' attempts at dealing with struggles created by elements out of their control. As lovers, Yukiko and Tomioka are constantly on the move and unable to settle down, from Indochina, Tokyo, Ikaho, to the island in Kyushuu. According to Russell, the "relentless flow of the narration" creates a sense of a void. Yukiko must take on new jobs and roles in her life simply because it what she must do to survive. Tomioka struggles with finding any job at all and uses but makes up for his lack of control in his work life as a womanizer. 

By understanding the reasoning behind ties that bind the characters together, the story's melodrama is heightened. 

UTOPIA INDOCHINA VS DYSTOPIAN POST-WAR JAPAN

Peter Brooks characterizes melodramas through the conflict of "good and evil played out under the surface of things." In Ukigumo, there is a stark contrast between "happier days" during the war, when Tomioka and Yukiko live in Indochina and post-war Tokyo. The opening scenes look dreamlike and straight out of a storybook. The two work in an elegant mansion, are cared for by house servants and are dressed in all white. Almost in a kind of utopia, they embrace each other for the first time in the privacy of a grand rainforest.

When the couple is shown together in Japan, the streets are often crowded and barren. The two wear worn-out, dark clothing. Yukiko's hair is often in a messy ponytail, unlike her hair in Indochina, where it was styled prim and proper. 

When Yukiko falls to tuberculosis, she dies alone in an empty room, struggling to close a window that won't shut from the harshness of the rain. The cherry on top among the sad course of events: Tomioka is ultimately doomed to drift aimlessly, having lost the only remaining figure who can put him back on the course of a life that will attain happiness. 

聲の形 / A Silent Voice

(Spoiler alert for people who want to watch the movie!)

[Blog 3]

“聲の形 (Koe no Katachi)” or “A Silent Voice” is an animated film that premiered in Japan September 17, 2016. The story is about a teenager named Ishida Shouya, who tried to commit suicide, but stops himself right before he jumps off the bridge. We then get a flashback of his life up until now, and we see that in elementary school, Shouya and his friends bullied a deaf girl in their class, named Nishimiya Shouko. Shouko transfers out of the school, and Shouya is singled out as the only bully. He becomes a social reject until high school. Shouya and Shouko meet again, and their friendship starts to grow. But the past problems bubble up, and destroys the progress they made. During the night of a fireworks festival, Shouko heads home early, planning to jump off her balcony, but is saved just in time by Shouya, who falls off the building instead. Shouya is hospitalized, and enters a coma. Shouko has a dream one night where Shouya says goodbye, and in a panic, runs to the bridge where she and Shouya feed the koi. Shouya wakes up from his coma, and runs to the same bridge, hoping to find Shouko there. Shouya apologizes for the way he treated Shouko, and asks her to help him live. The two of them go to Shouya’s school festival, and Shouya finally allows himself accept the forgiveness Shouko has given him.

The part that makes this a melodrama is definitely the characters, in my opinion. There are some characters that don’t really get a redemption arc like Shouya, and are seen as bad through the whole movie. For example, old elementary school friends Ueno and Shimada, are seen as bad from beginning to the end. Shimada makes one appearance during their high school years, but he doesn’t want to become friends with Shouya again. Ueno, who also bullied Shouko, is shown to even hit her and push her in a ferris wheel during high school. Ueno, throughout their years, consistently blames Shouko for all the friendships falling out, and says that Shouko needs to apologize and stop apologizing. Another classmate, Kawai, bullied Shouko as well, but denies her involvement with it until she cries, making people side with her, which makes her bad too. She manipulated others for years in believing she was innocent. Then, there are characters that are definitely good. Nagatsuka is one of them. Nagatsuka is one of Shouya’s friends; they become friends after Shouya stands up to one of Nagatsuka’s bullies and prevents his bike from being stolen. Throughout the whole movie, Shouya is seen as a very overprotective friend, always siding with Shouya and believing in him, even when Shouya pushes him away.

君の膵臓をたべたい / I Want to Eat Your Pancreas

(Spoiler alert for people who want to watch the movie!)
[Blog 2]

“君の膵臓をたべたい (Kimi no Suizou wo Tabetai)” or “I Want to Eat Your Pancreas” is an animated film that premiered in Japan September 1, 2018. The story is about a cheerful and popular girl named Yamauchi Sakura, who is diagnosed with a terminal illness in her pancreas. One day, her diary, titled “Living With Dying”, is discovered by her classmate, Shiga Haruki. Haruki is very aloof, and really only cares about reading, and because of his personality, Sakura says that she wants to befriend him. The reason being is because even if he knows her secret, he’ll be able to maintain his composure, and spend time with her like she isn’t dying. The friendship deepens, and soon, Haruki starts to understand human emotions and nature, while Sakura gets the friendship that she wanted and needed before she died. The title of the movie come from a little fact that Sakura tells Haruki; in ancient times, people would eat the diseased body part of someone else so that the diseased person could live. Haruki tells Sakura that he wants to eat Sakura’s pancreas, which is the last thing Sakura sees from Haruki before she’s murdered by a serial killer.

The part of the movie that definitely makes this a melodrama, in my opinion, is towards the end; Sakura’s murder. She was just released from the hospital after a scare, and Haruki had told her that he wants her to live; that he wants to eat her pancreas. He’s waiting for her at the cafe they always meet at, but as hours pass by after his last text to her, there’s no answer. He waits for her until the cafe closes, and then makes his way home, where he sees on the news that Sakura was murdered in the middle of the sidewalk on her way to the cafe. Though the serial killer was briefly mentioned during the first part of the movie, me, as well as other watchers, thought that it was a passing part of the story; it wouldn’t have any outcome in the end. But once we all had hope that Sakura would beat her illness, that Haruki is learning to treasure life with Sakura, she’s suddenly killed. This sort of story, with this exaggerated end, to a character’s life, definitely made it a melodrama to me. When Sakura died, I didn’t want to believe it; it was just so sudden, so emotional.

Floating Clouds (Novel)

"Floating Clouds" is a post-war Japanese melodramatic novel which focuses on the relationship between two characters, Yukiko and Tomioka. At the start of the novel Yukiko has arrived back in Japan after working in Indo-China as a secretary and seeks to reunite with her former lover Tomioka. Their affair in Da Lat was meaningful to them both, and is seen as an escape from the bleak postwar setting of Tokyo, however, Tomioka refuses to be with Yukiko and continually plays games with her, sees other women, and disrespects her.

One of the foremost melodramatic themes throughout the novel is time. In melodrama, time, or specifically being "too late" or "too early" adds tension. Often there are situations when characters discover harsh truths, or things they aren't supposed to know because they are too early or too late. In the novel, after engaging in a sexual affair with Seiko, Tomioka and Yukiko go to bathe the next morning. Unbeknownst to Tomioka, his clothes had been neatly folded in a carrying cloth the night before by Seiko. Because Yukiko finished bathing first she had a chance to notice these clothes, Hayashi writes, "Yukiko quickly finished and left the bath. When she went to the hamper to find her discarded clothing, she saw that Tomioka's things in the hamper next to hers had,  during the last few inutes, been wrapped in a blue carrying cloth." (142). After questioning Tomioka Yukiko "felt a pang at her heart... (she) tried to tell herself that he often tried to get away with this sort of thing and that it was her fault for losing sight of that fact." (143).
"Floating Clouds" continually refers to their affair in the past as a tragedy. Yukiko and Tomioka met too early, as Tomioka was still married and they would both be returning to Japan after the war. When the two finally accept their feeling for each other it is too late as Yukiko passes away from Tuberculosis.

(above: poem written by Hayashi Fumiko detailing the fragility and sparseness of life - written on a literary monument dedicated to her)

"Floating Clouds" connects the feeling of post-war depression and hopelessness to male characters who pity themselves as victims over women. There is an excess of emotion in righteousness around Tomioka and Iba especially who believe women have it easy. There is something to be said about the characters' masculinity in an era where their country has admitted defeat.
Tomioka believes that he is doing Yukiko a favor by refusing to be with her, while he strings along other women, which turns out to be an empty gesture as it only causes Yukiko more grief. Iba takes in Yukiko when she is at her lowest however his past sexual assaults destroy any chance of his actions being seen as any sort of humane gesture.

The novel and the film relate the story in different ways that can be seen as more or less melodramatic. The film focuses highly on the characters and their relationship with one another on a personal level, whereas the novel seems to depict the characters relationship within post-war society.
The novel for that reason strikes me as more tragic, however I think the film, along with its ability to show more nuanced emotions, and facial expressions, is more melodramatic.