Chance Oshiro – Windows on Worlds

A well-meaning social worker finds himself dragged into an exploitative yakuza scam after trying to expose a colleague’s misconduct in Hideo Jojo’s adaptation of the novel by Somei Tamehito, A Bad Summer (悪い夏, Warui Natsu). Sasaki’s (Takumi Kitamura) colleagues are beginning to doubt he has what it takes for the job primarily because he is “too nice” and has trouble dealing with those who, to his superiors at least, are obviously misusing the system to claim benefits they aren’t entitled to. According to his hard-nosed colleague Miyata (Marika Ito), social welfare exists for those who find themselves “unavoidably” thrown into dire living conditions, which necessarily implies a degree of moral judgement on her part, while Sasaki is it seems keener to give people the benefit of the doubt and wants to try to help them even if it turns out they have been defrauding him.

“We must survive as bulwarks against moral decay,” Miyata intones, somewhat ironically, while pointing out that people who misuse the system make everything more difficult for “honest” clients. Sasaki later asks what exactly her morality is, but all she says is that the rules are the rules and any breach of them should be punished. The real world, however, is rarely so black and white. The truth is that it’s become too difficult to survive in this capitalistic society and a regular job alone no longer pays enough to support a single person let alone a family.

While Sasaki falls deeper into an abyss of exploitation, a widowed single mother struggles to find a job while caring for her son that will keep them fed and a roof over their head. A woman at the factory where she eventually finds employment tells her about the welfare system, but she says she feels bad about taking other people’s money. That she later succumbs to shoplifting out of desperation suggests it was more the shame, humiliation, and stigma that kept her from applying. When she does eventually ask for help, she finds Sasaki in a downward spiral shouting at her for being an irresponsible mother and emphasising that benefits are only for those who’ve exhausted all other options, which she of course has, but is still made to feel like criminal just for reaching out. Though she is a prime example of the people they exist to help, Sasaki turns his back on her with potentially tragic consequences.

Other people had suggested to the widow that she simply remarry, laying bare to the extent to which women are still expected to remain economically dependent on men even in the 21st century. Another single mother, 22-year-old Aimi (Yumi Kawai), was convinced to apply for benefits by her friend Rika (Yumena Yanai), a bar hostess in a similar situation, but is sexually exploited by her case worker Takano (Katsuya Maiguma) who threatens to expose that she’s been working more ours than permitted meaning her benefits would stop. It’s also Rika who convinces her to get her yakuza boyfriend Ryu (Masataka Kubota) involved to sort out Takano, but he has another clever plan to use Takano as part of a popular yakuza scam in which they round up homeless people who may not know the benefits system exists and get them to apply so they can take most of their money while housing them in shelters they own. The plan is foiled when Miyata claims to have received a tip-off about Tanako exploiting his clients and enlists Sasaki to help investigate.

Sasaki seems genuinely interested in Aimi’s welfare along with that of her five-year-old daughter Misora which makes him the target of a side scam being run by Yamada (Pistol Takehara), one of his own clients who’s been fraudulently claiming on the grounds of an old back injury. The tragic thing is that Aimi, who seems to have had a disordered childhood herself, positively responds to the compassionate care offered by Sasaki who drifts into a relationship with her that is romantic and borderline inappropriate, though he is not her social worker and hasn’t done anything wrong. Aimi begins to see a more settled, ordinary life for herself which is eventually disrupted by destructive force of yakuza violence as Ryu forces Sasaki to process claims for the homeless people he’s exploiting.

The wretchedness of his situation begins to destroy Sasaki’s integrity, which was according to Miyata their only real weapon against those who cheat the system. Unable to tell whether Aimi’s feelings for him were ever genuine, something she isn’t entirely sure of either, he sinks into a moral abyss having become all too aware of the chain of exploitation which exists in the contemporary society. The farcical, expressionist conclusion may signify that even when you fight back, nothing really changes and the only people who lose out are the most vulnerable, but there does at least seem to be a better life in sight for Aimi and Misora having escaped at least of the forces which were constraining them.

A Bad Summer screens as part of this year’s Japan Foundation Touring Film Programme.

Singing is serious business. In Nobuhiro Yamashita’s adaptation of the manga by Yama Wayama Let’s Go Karaoke! (カラオケ行こ！Karaoke Ikou!), it’s matter of life and death, metaphorically at least, for a young man confronting adolescence and a zany gangster who seems kind of lonely but is desperate to learn how not to embarrass himself at the boss’ big sing off so he won’t be subjected to a homemade tattoo of his most hated motif.

The irony is perhaps that this kind of yakuza at least doesn’t really exist anymore and “Crazy Kid” Kyoji (Go Ayano) is in many ways a ghost of bygone days inhabiting a Showa-era shopping arcade soon to be torn down and replaced by a luxury hotel. Meanwhile, high schooler Satomi (Jun Saito) is also facing a kind of apocalypse in that he’s a boy a soprano whose voice has begun to change. His encroaching puberty leads him to blame himself when the school choir only places third during the nationals not making it to finals. But it’s at this concert that Kyoji first hears his “angelic” voice and decides he’s the perfect person to teach him how sing, intimidating him into an impromptu karaoke session.

As Satomi later points out, adults don’t invite kids to karaoke and this arrangement would be odd even if Kyoji were not an old school yakuza with a severed finger in his glove compartment. Of course, Satomi’s frightened but cannot really say no offering a few words of advice by daring to tell Kyoji that his falsetto is “sickening” and he should stop waving his hands around if he wants to master the art of singing. It is also doesn’t help that his choice of song, Kurenai by X Japan, a hair rock epic mostly written in broken English, is a song of manly melodrama which requires a good deal of screaming. Despite having enlisted Satomi, Kyoji talks about one of his fellow footsoldiers as if he’s died when he’s only decided to get some professional singing lessons in an effort not to come last and end up with a lame tattoo.

Yamashita frames both their challenges as the same, Satomi fearing a social death and the death of his youth if he takes to the stage at what he’s sure would be his final concert and his voice cracks while Kyoji, ironically enough, does not really fear a literal death but the pain and humiliation of being branded by the boss for being bad at karaoke. Despite their differences a genuine a sense of friendship does arise between them, if also a possibly inappropriate homoerotic tension, as they support each other towards their shared goals and learn to sing from the heart which was apparently the real problem with Satomi’s school choir seemingly more obsessed with technique and correctness than the simple joy of singing.

Hovering on a precipice, Satomi exists in a liminal space in his own way as ghostly as Kyoji surrounded by the obsolete. In his school film club, of which he is an honorary member, they watch VHS tapes of classics such as White Heat, Casablanca, and Bicycle Thieves which can only be watched once because the player’s broken and you can’t rewind anymore. His world’s on the brink of eclipse, and his friendship with Kyoji is a harbinger of a darker, more adult world but also one that’s less frightening than it ought to be with its admittedly scary gangsters obsessed with karaoke and bad tattoos. He starts to wonder if Kyoji was even real or some kind of imaginary friend appearing to help him deal with his impending adolescence and what it means for his singing career, but is finally reassured by a piece of concrete evidence confirming at least that it did really happen if leaving him with a sense of loneliness once their quests have come to an end. Surreal in its cheerful darkness, Yamashita’s heartfelt drama is an advocation for the for the healing powers of karaoke and the importance of singing from from the heart no matter how it might sound to those you who may themselves shed a few manly tears over a song about lost love and absent friends.

Let’s Go Karaoke! screened as part of this year’s Nippon Connection

Original trailer (English subtitles)

Tag: Chance Oshiro

A Bad Summer (悪い夏, Hideo Jojo, 2025)

Let’s Go Karaoke! (カラオケ行こ！, Nobuhiro Yamashita, 2023)