Karakai Jozu no Takagi-san (2024)

A slow burn and communicating as if you can speak no more than 100 words a day.

I was super excited to watch this movie after the adorable drama, but it fell flat. Why? Because the characters lost the charm they had as students! The teasing that was once playful and fun now felt dull, and the reactions were as lifeless as a soggy noodle. It was all very sophisticated, mindful, and demure lol... and honestly, kind of boring for a two-hour movie. We knew they liked each other, but they could’ve taken the story in so many directions. They could’ve shown us their funny dating life or made them realize their love was more than just a teenage crush. But nope, they just kept circling around.


They threw in a side plot about two other students, but if you’ve seen a Japanese romance that isn’t a tragedy or comedy, you know exactly what’s coming: aesthetically pleasing shots, actors delivering deep “poetic” speeches about love and life, and supporting characters acting like they’re in a serious art film.


My main frustration? Nothing really happened.

They met, they were in love, and after five or so encounters and 10 minutes of vague, “what are we doing” dialogue, they finally confessed.

I’ll give credit where it’s due—the visuals were gorgeous, and the actors were cute, but the story? Meh. You’ll watch and think, *Oh, young love is so pure*, but honestly, they didn’t build on the solid foundation they had. It’s like having a fancy cake and realizing it’s just made of frosting—pretty, but empty.


But I did rate it 5+ so it's worth a try!

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Disconnected

This review was difficult to write because I came away from this movie confused and unsure of how to put my feelings into words. I’ve come up with a starting point which is that the movie felt flat. The story plateaued the entire time. There were no ups and downs. There were no highs and lows. There wasn’t really a climax, a low point, and a satisfying resolution that felt earned. I knew what the result would be at the end but when that result came to be, it felt like it wasn’t deserved or rather, it felt empty, it felt hollow.

The characters and their relationship:

I felt like on a conscious level, in my brain, I knew the characters liked each other because I was told that. I could see some of it manifest in their behavior but it felt more like I was being told something was true when I couldn’t really feel it. There was a disconnect between what I knew and what I felt. This was the biggest point I had trouble putting into words. The plot made sense and the ending made sense for the characters and was expected and yet it felt like it came out of nowhere and yet everywhere at the same time. Maybe there was a lack of chemistry between the actors but I’m not so sure that was the problem. It was like there was a disconnect between the narrative script and the movie we watched. It’s strange because they should be one and the same and yet they weren’t.

The characters themselves:

I think the characters felt stuck at 14 years old because that is where we left them at the end of the drama. It felt like because we just skipped 10 years and didn’t see them grow within that time, we weren’t able to see evolution. Their fix for this was just to keep the characters stagnant and the same as they were when they were 14. They didn’t feel like 24 year old people, they felt like 14 year olds disguised as adults. It was strange and threw me off. I know why they did that. They also needed to make sure we could associate them with their younger selves but it just felt off. They felt like giant versions of their middle school selves instead of their middle school selves who have aged 10 years.

Overall, it felt like it was trying to be heartfelt, and yet it just felt empty to me. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed it and watched the entire thing but I think it was because I kept waiting for that moment where something big happens, then something goes wrong, and then there’s a resolution. But nothing ever goes wrong, nothing really happens much. There are plot points and yet the plot feels hollow.

Give it a watch but don’t expect much.

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