Take a look at the 15 movies you'll be hearing about in fall 2024.

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Take a look at the 15 movies you&#39;ll be hearing about in fall 2024.

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Aspiring to be admitted to a good university and to become a lawyer, Tasiro Yuusuke, a tenth-grader from Kyushu, enrols in a prestigious high school in Tokyo. Plans are made for him to live in his uncle's house, part of which is rented out while his uncle is abroad on business. A realtor's mistakes leaves Tasiro sharing the house with Kei Yamaba, the most beautiful girl in the school, who is also his classmate. There is the risk that their unexpected 'co-habitation' will be discovered by the school authorities. While he grows increasingly attracted to her, he is often irritated by her innocent and nonchalant attitude towards their predicament. They each develop other romantic attachments, but end up turning to each other...

Hiroko Yakushimaru in Tonda kappuru (1980)

I&#39;ll make this simple for any potential viewers: if you&#39;ve ever watched a slice of life anime and you were bored by it or didn&#39;t like it, then The Terrible Couple isn&#39;t for you. It&#39;s based off of a manga by Kimio Yanagisawa, named Tonda Couple, with the same premise. Even the music is done by a composer who primarily worked on anime at the time. Interestingly, the manga was published as a shonen manga, meaning is was primarily targeted at young boys and I just don&#39;t see how this romantic-drama would really appeal to that sort of audience. There is a poster early into the film advertising Tomorrow&#39;s Joe (a boxing manga and anime, used by the boxing club for promotion), which was also a shonen manga that I think has a much wider appeal to that audience, but that&#39;s irrelevant to this movie...so moving on. This is Shinji Somai&#39;s directorial debut, having been assistant director on 3 films prior. Speaking of assistant directors, Kiyoshi Kurosawa assistant directed The Terrible Couple under Somai as well as Sailor Suit and Machine Gun the following year. Somai already has a penchant for his signature dynamic long takes here and they were easily the part that most kept me drawn into the film. It seems his way of shooting has a way of bringing out the best in actors, and it clearly does so here. The leads, played by Hiroko Yakushimaru and Shingo Tsurumi, deliver fantastic performances. Side note, the characters are meant to be freshmen in high school which means they are 15-16 years old and the actors were actually that age at the time of filming, that shouldn&#39;t be noteworthy but it&#39;s always great to see high school kids actually played by age appropriate actors. The story is pretty standard for a romantic-drama, emphasis on the drama, but again the acting and filmmaking elevates it to be more bearable than others of its kind. The relationships amongst the main characters are all very realistic, outside of perhaps being a bit too simplified and presumably cutdown for time. And even though The Terrible Couple clocks in at just over 2 hours, it feels as though we are missing the details that I imagine might have been present in the manga. Toshinori Omi&#39;s character seems the most affected by this issue, we get just enough of him so that it&#39;s clear that he feels undesirable and lonely, but he lacks the development to justify him informing the vice-principle of Kei and Yusuke&#39;s living arrangement or calling in a fake bomb threat just before that. And at the end, when they are playing human whack-a-mole, he breaks down and the others seem affected by this but it&#39;s unclear why; as if there was something missing from the plot development to tie it all together. Again, if slice of life anime is something you enjoy, then you&#39;ll probably like The Terrible Couple; otherwise you may want to avoid this.

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Tonda kappuru

Somai out the gate has a masterful vision and style, and does not feel like a first film; I strain to find areas that do not feel completely at ease on screen. Interesting because his style is so unusual. Little details go with the passage of time, bonding the film with us the viewer. Like the teacher scolding them for laughing, then being a comedian by semester 2, or how the boy won&#39;t eat the cooking at first then he loves it. It&#39;s a wonder seeing the relationship develop. And the dread around the edges of them falling for other people. It is a film that seems to leave you with little on the surface but there is an incredible amount of clockwork. Like the ending. The ending of the movie is so sad and yet her exit seems uplifted. There are so many unanswered questions that provoke the imagination. It is like, here is what would happen, and let&#39;s do the opposite to see what happens, and it does this constantly. I suspect it&#39;s because she can close the book forever, and that shocking snub doesn&#39;t define her story. She has so much going for her, and so much life ahead, that the movie has to give her this Minnie Mouse send-off. You can also see how she is going upstairs, while he is going down a tunnel below, showing a narcissistic self-destruction ahead for him. He is a boy that can&#39;t see the good that is in front of him. If you think you have seen all the film masters, you need to dive in Somai&#39;s work. They are as vital as anything I have seen.

User reviews

Tonda kappuru

Slice of Life, But For Real

Delightful

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