Koi ni Itaru Yamai (2025)

Although a lot happened, there is little meaning to be found.

This film being advertised as romance with darker elements feels rather misleading. It attempts to be a romance, but the developing connection between the leads did not lead to me investing in their relationship. It attempts to have mystery elements, but failed to make things less than obvious. The strongest point of the film feels like a cop-out, in the sense that it brings about room for debate on the effects and ethics therein of manipulation? But saying that still feels like a stretch.

In this film, a lot happens. The first quarter of the film sets off at a good pace, where it feels like it will comment on humanity or school life in some way, but it goes on not to do this. So it isn’t really a human drama. Neither Miyamine nor Kei gives viewers enough to make this a psychological drama. Crime and thriller are also not appropriate genres for the events or atmosphere. I already mentioned that the romance here is not given enough development, and I am capable of enjoying a subtle romance, but I didn’t really feel the leads connect here.

So, I come back to this. In this film, there are a lot of things that happen, and everything is somewhat intertwined, but if this were a book, it feels more like a history textbook. I have been shown the events that took place and who did what and why, but not in a way that evokes any more emotion in me than reading a list of things I need to memorise for a test.

Looking past the story, the acting was….fine? I don’t know if it was a casting issue or a directing issue, but the character meant to be the most psychologically fascinating showed no signs of depth below the surface. The leads were outshone by the supporting cast.

I am not a reader of the original material so I cannot speak for whether or not this is a good adaptation of a pre-existing work. I suspect the original would have had far more psychological aspects.

This review may make it sound like I disliked or hated the film, which I didn’t. However, it felt meaningless to me somehow. I was interested enough to watch it but it failed to stand out to me in any positive ways, in spite of a strong opening quarter.

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