Miona Hori – Windows on Worlds

Feeling hopeless in his professional life and surrounded by a city of frustrated, angry people, comedy writer Ippei (Mizukawa Katamari) decides to end it all by throwing himself under the evening train, but as fate would have it, services are interrupted because of an incident at the previous station. Reconsidering his decision, he refunds his ticket and goes back to his life, but he soon finds himself haunted, in literal figural senses, by the other person who died and, in some senses, ended up saving his life.

Like his earlier film Melancholic, Seiji Tanaka’s The Man Who Failed to Die (死に損なった男, Shini sokonatta otoko) is partly about the things we don’t see which in this case is that many people are struggling and have fallen into despair believing they have no one and nowhere to turn. Before he decides to die, Ippei is knocked over by a cyclist who curses at him for being in his way before riding on, while a woman out running has no option but to jump over him and then carries on her way. Later, he bumps into a man at the station who becomes angry and aggressive, ironically telling him that he should “fuck off and die”. The implication is that in this city everyone is so busy rushing about and overworked that it’s left them frazzled and impatient, overly focussed on the demands placed on them and unable to notice or reach out to others.

It’s another minor irony that Ippei works in comedy which is supposed to entertain people, cheer them up, and relieve their stress, but it’s actually very hard work and incredibly competitive. When he returns after his failed attempt to die, he’s cornered by his manager and a comedian who is annoyed that she hasn’t been given as many lines as the men and feels she’s being discriminated against on the grounds of her gender. Ippei tries to explain that she’s got the punchlines and there are fewer of them because the comedic rhythm, but it’s something that’s difficult to explain without performing the piece in front of an audience. He’s also been dumped by one of the groups he works with because they’ve chosen to go with a bigger producer who has better TV connections. The duo he’s working with now are struggling with some material that’s not really hitting home while preparing for a competition that’s only a couple of weeks away. Ippei suggests completely reworking the routine, but is obviously difficult for everyone and not least himself who’s going to have to come up with a killer idea in record time.

Which is all to say he’s under a lot of stress, and if he did just hallucinate the ghost of the man who died in place of him, Tomohiro (Bokuzo Masana), that would be understandable. Tomohiro has unfinished business, and thinks that Ippei should take care of it for him seeing as he technically saved his life, but what he wants him to do is kill the abusive ex who’s started stalking his daughter again now the restraining order’s expired. The film sort of suggests that Wakamatsu (Yutaka Kyan) became violent because of these same stresses after losing his businesses during the pandemic, but nevertheless he’s a frightening and controlling presence while Aya (Erika Karata) is quite clearly terrified of him. Once again, when Ippei interrupts Wakamatsu in the street trying to force his way into Tomohiro’s house, another passerby picks up his dog and walks on without stopping to check if everything’s alright. Perhaps it’s fair enough that they didn’t want to get involved in a dangerous situation, but to speaks to the ongoing indifference of society in which few are willing step in and help women like Aya and men like Wakamatsu are allowed to go on bullying and tormenting those around them.

Getting involved in Tomohiro’s quest does however help Ippei to get a handle on his life and an acceptance that having failed to die he’s still here and has a chance to start again. He begins to realise that the reason he wanted to die was that although he had achieved his dreams of working in comedy, it all seemed quite meaningless and he’d lost sight of what took him there in the first place. Rather than contribute to the angry society around him, he resolves to be happy for other people’s successes and understand that even if someone appears to be successful it doesn’t necessarily mean they aren’t struggling or in need of help too. Filled with a gentle absurdity and good humour, the film is despite its darker themes an argument for a little more compassion and solidarity in the face of the constant pressure of a fast-paced society.

The Man Who Failed to Die screened as part of this year’s Camera Japan.

Trailer (no subtitles)

Strangely enough, shojo manga adaptations can in fact be among the most problematic exercises in contemporary Japanese cinema. Targeted very specifically at adolescent girls, the romantic world that they present is often consumed by its own sense of blind innocence as the shy heroine eventually finds love with a “handsome prince” who, though sometimes an inappropriate figure, is either improbably gentlemanly or a “difficult” Mr. Darcy type who more or less bullies her into submission. Yuki Yamato’s adaptation of Miki Aihara’s Hot Gimmick, given the subtitle “girl meets boy” (ホットギミックガールミーツボーイ), however, seems to be well aware of the genre’s uncomfortable tendency to reinforce conservative social norms and normalise unhealthy relationship dynamics, even if it perhaps fails to entirely reject it in its broadly positive yet ambivalent conclusion.

Innocent and naive high schooler Hatsumi (Miona Hori) has been charged with secretly picking up a pregnancy test for her younger yet much more worldly sister Akane (Hiyori Sakurada) who ends up losing it on their way home from school. Unfortunately, it’s found by a schoolmate, Ryoki (Hiroya Shimizu), who uses it to blackmail her, forcing her to become his “slave” or he’ll send the test straight to her mother. For reasons not entirely clear besides her natural diffidence, Hatsumi goes along with it but is still carrying a torch for a childhood friend, Azusa (Mizuki Itagaki), who has since gone on to become a top idol. Unbeknownst to her, Azusa has in fact returned, apparently missing them all at the estate where he used to live. Increasingly terrorised by Ryoki, Hatsumi is more worried that Azusa will get the wrong idea and assume she is romantically involved with him. Meanwhile, her brother Shinogu (Shotaro Mamiya) is worried about both guys, overprotective in a disappointingly patriarchal way.

This is indeed a very patriarchal world. Unlike her sister, Hatsumi is romantically naive and terrified of the consequences of someone finding out about the pregnancy test even if Akane is fairly unfazed, simply brushing off questions from her mother by implying that someone is probably playing tricks on them. Hatsumi is preoccupied with the nature of “cuteness” and intensely insecure, which is perhaps why she allows herself to go on being manipulated by Ryoki even while knowing that is exactly what he’s doing. “I’m just stupid and unattractive” she’s fond of saying, fully believing that she has no right to her own agency because she is unable to see her own worth.

That essential insecurity seems to make her a magnet for all the creepy guys in a 10 mile radius. Talking to another somewhat imperfect boy, Akane tells him that guys like girls like Hatsumi who seem “vulnerable”, lamenting for a moment that that’s something she definitely is not (ostensibly, at least), but stopping short of reflecting on how dark a comment that might actually be or how the whole concept of “kawaii” is built on the idea of disempowered femininity. Azusa, who is originally posited as the “innocent” love interest, later turns out to be anything but, while Ryoki is later redeemed (to a point) in leading Hatsumi towards an awareness of an agency over her own body, while she, again problematically, turns to her protective brother rather than engage with the various ways in which all three guys have continually misused and manipulated her.

A intense subplot concerning the legacy of illicit romantic relations in the previous generation binds all of the troubled teens inside a net of moral resentment in which they embrace a kind of conservatism they reject their parents for rejecting. They are all, in a sense, attempting to break free of familial legacies, but find themselves paying for their parents’ mistakes while the parents themselves remain more or less absent, occasionally resurfacing to enforce obedience through shame. What Hatsumi comes to realise, however, is that the lesson they were teaching her was not quite wrong but misguided. Where they told her that she should guard her body because not to do so was shameful, she discovers that there is power in owning herself, that she is free to decide what she does and does not do with her body and has the right to grant or refuse access to it.

Nevertheless, her final sense of empowerment is undercut by her continued relationship with Ryoki who, while perhaps growing to accommodate a less misogynistic world view, is still a boy who tried to make her his slave and repeatedly calls her stupid even if eventually agreeing that the whole world turns in her. Yamato’s stylish visuals add to the sense of absurdity which defines the closing moments as Hatsumi at once affirms an awareness of herself as a being with worth and agency, yet also embraces her “stupidity” as she takes her first few diffident steps towards an assurance of adulthood.

Currently available to stream via Netflix in the UK (and possibly other territories)

Original trailer (no subtitles)

Tag: Miona Hori

The Man Who Failed to Die (死に損なった男, Seiji Tanaka, 2025)

Hot Gimmick: Girl Meets Boy (ホットギミックガールミーツボーイ, Yuki Yamato, 2019)