Story

This film by up-and-coming director Shinya Tamada is a full-length adaptation of "Boku no suki na onnanoko", a love-fantasy essay that Akutagawa Prize-winning writer Naoki Matayoshi wrote for a special issue of Bessatsu Kadokawa in 2017.
Exploring the hesitation and conflict clouding a man's search for the "ideal woman", the story distills romance itself—not relationships—into painful, heartbreaking vignettes.
As the dialogue-heavy script unfolds with a remarkably natural feel, the familiar tropes and silly tendencies of "people in love" take on a stark, revealing clarity.
In all, the film balances Matayoshi's sympathetic affirmations of how we people go about our lives and director Shinya Tamada's careful, meticulous attention to how those ideas can come to life through scripting and direction.
This isn't your standard "romance flick"—it's a subdued, penetrating look at young love with a comedic touch.

Notes

Kato, a scriptwriter, is in love with Miho—but he can never manage to muster up enough courage to make the relationship anything more than a platonic friendship.
Seemingly oblivious to Kato's feelings for her, Miho is always calling him up and spilling her guts about her own love problems.
She's in love with someone else, it turns out, but Kato swallows his pride—hearing about it all is almost too much to bear, but he wants to be with Miho as much as he can.
It bleeds into Kato's work. The script he's working on for a TV drama mirrors a lot of his relationship with Miho.
One day, after seeing an episode of the drama, Kato's friends tell him that his views on love are all mistaken, that he shouldn't delude himself into thinking that his dead-end crush on Miho will go anywhere.
Emboldened and motivated, Kato finally decides to tell Miho exactly how he feels.

Cast

Daichi Watanabe
Nao
Taiga
Aki Asakura
Eri Tokunaga
Junpei Goto (Jaru Jaru)
Shusuke Fukutoku (Jaru Jaru)
Takayuki Hamatsu
Hiroshi Yamamoto

Director・Work Data