god i love this film. a fuckin punch in the face to the weird ethno-nationalist weebs who watched too many ghibli films or waifu shows and decided japan is just Like That. this is a film about the trash, about the landfills, about the cemeteries, about burnt down buildings and apartments full of garbage, about the side of the city no one wants to face. the stores kick the main characters out for being homeless. the hospital charges them all the money they have, even the streets themselves are a danger at one point. The city is not a glorious shining beacon of progress, it's a trashy, fucked up city where the most beautiful places of refuge are hostess bars full of drag queens and cardboard shacks on the side of the road
and just like the main characters, the film looks at the trashy, fucked up weirdo city and goes "this is the most beautiful thing i've ever seen and i love them so much". Has any film ever loved tokyo so much? it paints a face on every window, a smile on ever wall. In doing so, the city is no longer a setting, it's a character itself. The city stares at the main characters; an egotistical, delusional trans woman, a gambling alcoholic endlessly dodging who he is, and a child who can't come to terms with a mistake she made, and sees itself in them. It too is broken, it too is nothing like what people dream it should be. And yet, it is also beautiful beyond measure.
Hana is my favorite trans woman maybe in any fictional story ever. she is mistreated, misgendered, joked about, and confuses everyone she meets. But above all this she is loved. her friends would die for her. Her mother misses her and when she sees her she celebrates. And Hana loves back, like maybe no one else can; her love starts the film itself, and her love ends it with her glorious ride. Every time i see her staring at the sun I smile so wide that I start crying.
What a beautiful, beautiful film.
