Love & Pop

Template:Expand language Template:More sourcesTemplate:Infobox film Template:Nihongo is a 1998 Japanese experimental coming-of-age film directed and co-written by Hideaki Anno, based on the novel Topaz II by Ryū Murakami. It was Anno's first live action feature-length film. The film was shot almost entirely on hand-held digital cameras and contains unorthodox camera work, including many different mounted camera positions, such as on a model train riding on tracks. The film also flips from widescreen to fullscreen, distorts (with effects such as a fisheye lens), confuses, and makes use of overlays stacked in layers to convey the character's emotions.

An official English-language DVD was released in 2004 by Kino on Video. In 2025, GKIDS announced that they would hold movie screenings for a 2K restoration of the film in North America. The film was first screened at the IFC Center in New York City on February 21, 2025 and then at the American Cinematheque Los Feliz theater on February 23, 2025.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Plot

Hiromi Yoshii is a high school girl living in Tokyo. She has three friends: Nao, who is interested in computers, Chieko, who is older and more mature, and Chisa, who plans to drop out of school to become a professional dancer. Hiromi feels that she lacks direction in comparison to her friends. All four routinely go out with older men in exchange for payment.

On July 19, 1997, Hiromi wakes up and goes to Shibuya. There, she meets Nao, who, earlier that day, had met a gay man named Kobayashi who loaned her a cell phone to leave voice messages for a dating service to gather contacts from young men. They then meet Chieko, and all three leave voice messages with the phone, stating that they are interested in meeting with older men that day.

Planning to go to the beach together soon, they meet with Chisa and go out to buy swimwear. While shopping, Hiromi finds a topaz ring on sale. She cannot afford it, but plans to gather the money and return to buy it before the shop closes later that day. All four friends then go to karaoke with an older man, who pays them well in exchange for giving him grapes half-chewed by them. Despite them getting the cost of the ring, Hiromi refuses to take the money for herself, insisting that they split the money evenly. Shortly after, the four part ways.

Hiromi receives a phone call from Kobayashi's boyfriend Yoshio, who says that Kobayashi's kitten is sick, and he is leaving Kobayashi. She then checks the messages she has received from interested men. She contacts one of the men, Uehara, and takes a taxi to meet him. Uehara takes her to a video rental store, with Hiromi posing as his girlfriend. There, they go to the adult video section, where Uehara grabs Hiromi's hand and uses it to masturbate. Disgusted, Hiromi runs away; Uehara pays her anyway.

Hiromi receives a call from Kobayashi, where she relays the information she had heard from the previous call. She chooses to meet another man who had left a message, who calls himself Captain EO, and carries a Fuzzball stuffed animal. The two go to a love hotel, where they talk and Hiromi fixes the stuffed animal. Hiromi takes a shower, but Captain EO intrudes, berating her for choosing to go on a date with him. He admits that he had planned to assault Hiromi, rape her, and steal her money, but does not. He pays her very little, and leaves.

Hiromi meets Kobayashi to return the cell phone. He thanks her for saving his cat's life, but says that he and Yoshio had broken up. Hiromi repeats one of Captain EO's remarks, to which Kobayashi replies that whoever had said that must see great value in her. Hiromi then returns home, and ruminates on her life and her failure to buy the ring before falling asleep.

While the credits roll, the four girls are shown walking side by side in ankle-deep water on the bottom of a large drainage ditch.

Cast

• Asumi Miwa - Template:Nihongo
• Kirari - Template:Nihongo
• Hirono Kudō - Template:Nihongo
• Yukie Nakama - Template:Nihongo
• Mitsuru Hirata - Kagegawa
• Mitsuru Fukikoshi - Yoshimura
• Moro Morooka - Yazaki
• Tooru Tezuka - Uehara
• Ikkei Watanabe - Kobayashi
• Tadanobu Asano - Captain EO
• Kotono Mitsuishi - Radio DJ (voice)
• Akira Ishida - Yoshio (voice)
• Megumi Hayashibara - Telephone Dialing Voice
• Nana Okada - Hiromi's Mother
• Leo Morimoto - Hiromi's Father

Production

Background

When a friend recommended Ryū Murakami's Fascism of Love and Fantasy to Anno, he found it so fascinating that he read several of Murakami's works. The work he was most attached to was The World Five Minutes Later, but he also felt that it would be "unrealistic to adapt it into a film." He was also reading this work at the same time, and thought, "This worldview is realistic, and sponsors would be willing to provide funding," so he submitted a proposal directly to Murakami's side.<ref name=":1">Template:Cite magazine</ref>

Anno commented on the film, "Hiromi, Chisa, Nao, and Chieko seem like they could be found anywhere, yet they're nowhere. I thought they were 'high school girls filled with an old man's dreams,' and found it fascinating."<ref name=":0">Template:Cite magazine</ref>

"If you don't start or get the things you want or desire when you want them, they will eventually disappear from you. This film depicts the current state of high school girls through compensated dating, a way to "get what you want" and "seek connection with others."<ref name=":0" />

When Murakami met Anno, Anno confided in him a clear production plan: "This work could be made into an animation, but it's not suited to that. It would be better as a live-action film."<ref name=":0" /> "I want to shoot it with a home digital video camera," "I want to do it in a late-night TV slot," and "I want to keep the budget low." Murakami immediately approved the film after hearing Anno's concept, which not only included his ideals of "I want to film this scene" and "I want that person to play the lead role," but also Anno's stance as a producer.<ref name=":2">Template:Cite book</ref>

The production budget was 100 million yen.<ref name=":0" />

While the final script was prepared in advance, the cast received daily script changes. Sometimes, the script itself did not even include instructions on how the filming would be done.<ref name=":3">Template:Cite magazine</ref>

Filming

Each scene was shot using five video cameras simultaneously, totaling 160 hours of footage for a running time of 110 minutes. Edited offline using Avid Technology's state-of-the-art nonlinear editing system, it was the first Japanese film to be produced entirely digitally.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> The use of video cameras (MiniDV) was primarily due to the need for mobility on set, as the entire production was done on location in Shibuya.<ref name=":2" /><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Regarding this production system, Anno commented, "When making a Japanese film on 35mm film, running three cameras simultaneously is a luxury and difficult to procure. With video cameras, tape was cheap, and I was able to borrow cameras from friends, so there were times when I was able to run six cameras simultaneously."<ref name=":1" /> As a result, a single scene could take up to 30 hours, with dozens of takes. Miwa recalled, "Lines that I couldn't remember at first ended up being memorized."<ref name=":3" /> The camera used was a Sony DCR-VX1000.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

DVD variations

An SR-Ban version was released in Japan on 24 July 2003 with the director's cut of the film. This contained with an additional two minutes of footage transferred directly from the original tape not present in the standard DVD versions released for US and Japanese marketsTemplate:Citation needed. The American version appears to be the original interlaced version, whilst the Japanese, non-director's cut, appears to have been de-interlaced and given the impression of a pseudo-progressive style. Both non-director's cuts have more subdued colors, whilst the director's cut is more vivid and the motion is fluid.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> This fluidity in motion is due to the 60 fps high frame rate, compared to the normal 24 fps frame rates on the non SR-Ban DVDs.Template:Citation needed

External links

• Template:IMDb title
• Love & Pop at Kino Video
• Into at Gainax
• Cast list at Gainax