Sachiko Yamanoura feels herself to be the unluckiest person in the world. Her unluckiness may tens towards the superficial in that she has terrible luck with men and is the sort of person who always manages to step in gum and pick the tako-less takoyaki, but her perception of it seems to be impacting her quality of life This is partly because she has an odd conception of the world in which she believes that fate is decided by gacha capsule toys and therefore exercises very little agency over her life to the extent that she is continually unable to break up with her financially exploitative boyfriend who not only forgets her birthday, but chooses that particular day to bring another woman back to their flat.
It’s this romantic dimension that occupies most of Ryosuke Hayazaka 50-minute drama as Sachiko is abruptly hit by car and wakes up in an afterlife where a smartly suited version of herself invites her to choose a new lover for her next life from the Gacha Life machine. It apparently contains only men she is compatible with and therefore allows her to experience what it would actually be like to date them as a sort of advanced mental fantasy. What quickly becomes clear, however, is that none of these men are very good options for her and even the ones who looked good on the surface had hidden issues. She briefly considers dating her 45-year-old boss who did actually remember her birthday and otherwise appears to be kind and considerate, but it turns out that he is already married and fleeing domestic responsibility after his wife has given birth to their first child.
The real issue is that she’s still dealing with the fallout from the abrupt disappearance of her fiancé three years previously who left alone to travel the world the morning after proposing to her. When he suddenly reappears, she considers picking up where they left off but is continually insecure that he will suddenly disappear again. A popular influencer host, meanwhile, offers the opposite sort of comfort in making it his business to tell her what she wants to hear in soft and non-threatening tones while all the while planning to exploit her by recruiting her as a member of his cult-like pyramid scheme selling lucky water. A student she interviews at her company similarly claims that luck is his special skill, but when she considers dating him, she finds out that he’s overtly close with his mother and she’d need to pass an interview with her first if she wanted to be his girlfriend.
A series of speed dates provide a little more real life detail as Sachiko is subjected to the obviously married guy, the bully who insists no one else is going to want to date her, the guy who wants an open relationship, and the evangelistic polygamist who wants her join him in a new era. She certainly does seem to be unlucky in drawing all these men none of whom seem to be very viable prospects for a long-term relationship or even genuine romantic connection. But at the same time, it’s entrusting her life to luck that put Sachiko in this position. If she accepted that luck was something she could make for herself rather than continually accepting an unsatisfying status quo and basically allowing all these men to treat her badly, she might be able to find a degree of satisfaction in her life that may or may not include romance.
Each of the rounds included the option to “pass”, but really Sachiko had that all along without really realising. Eventually she realises she doesn’t really need to pick any of these men and is free to stop drawing gacha rather than constantly waiting for the machine to spit out the winning ball. Shot in a 1:1 frame to mimic an Instagram reel, the film has a youthful, contemporary vibe informed by current dating mores and though it may present a rather bleak view of the prospect of romantic fulfilment in a chauvinistic society does at least allow the heroine to recover herself esteem and finally break up with her no-good boyfriend, refusing to let luck rule her life and finally taking control of her own destiny.
The Unluckiest Girl in the World screened as part of this year’s Raindance Film Festival.
Windows on Worlds 