Category: Romance

Undead lovers (2024) review

Matsui delivers a heartwarming romance narrative that, due to its fresh approach to certain tropes of the genre, rises above the common derivative romance drivel Japan usually produces.

My Sunshine (2024) review

A bittersweet celebration of youth – seishun, celebrates the importance of the encounter and of desire, the force that pushes the subject towards inter-subjective connection.

A Bad Summer (2025) review [Japannual 2025]

Hideo Jojo offers a compelling exploration of poverty within the Japanese societal field as well as the the structural possibility of exploiting the welfare system for one’s own gain.

How Dare You? (2025) review [Camera Japan Festival]

With her narrative, Mipo O delivers one of the most convincing arguments to parents to create space for the subjectivity of their child and to take their signifiers – their pleasures, pressures, worries, fights, and frustrations – seriously.  

After The Fever (2024) review

It is an exhausting experience, yet an experience that, if one succeeds to make it to the end, convincingly shows that the idea of romantic harmony is but an unrealizable fantasy.

Cha-Cha (2025) review [Nippon Connection 2025]

Mai Sakai light-heartedly perforates the fantasy of writability of The sexual relation and cheekily confronts the spectator with the radical misrecognition that structures the field of romance.

Yoyogi Johnny (2025) review [OAFF 2025]

Kimura’s choice to give the tragical dimension of love a deadpan comical twist pays off, creating a unique narrative that will resonate with youth and those who have kept in touch with their younger self

The Taste of Tea (2004) review

Katsuhito Ishii’s offers the spectator a satisfying kaleidoscopic exploration of the emotional fabric of life and the importance of familial bonds.

A Man (2022) review

A compelling and thrilling exploration of the reality of identity fraud and the damaging effect societal discourses can have on a subject and his ego.