Like Grains of Sand

Fortunately this film isn't just another repetition of the Japanese highschool drama genre - even though all characters are students and a reference to bullying is not missing. Instead, we witness the very complex relationships between Yoshida, leaving Shimizu for Aihara (or at least he tries to), and his friend Ito, whose love for Yoshida seems to have little chance for success. In the end we have a coalition of Ito and Aihara - who may or may not be in love with Ito (or with Yoshida, who knows) - teaching Yoshida a lesson. This is not a film about homosexuality either, indeed one message of the film may be that it doesn't matter if a boy loves a boy or a girl. Anyway, the complexity (even incomprehensibility) of the motivations of the characters is a most realistic and just reflection of the motivations of modern Japanese teenagers. Or in other words: the film captures exactly the same thing which Banana Yoshimoto describes in her novels; what it is however...