A romantic comedy that's quirky and quite touching, touching on themes of introversion, unrequited love, and the conversations we have within our minds while trying to find a partner and our path in life. The premise is straightforward; an awkward young woman with a thing for extinct animals has been carrying a torch for a guy for ten years, since middle school, and meanwhile she's pursued by a dorky guy from her office. The first half of it is entertaining though pretty light and frothy, but the second half has a really nice twist that gives it real depth. Mayu Matsuoka (who was also in Shoplifters) plays the young woman and aside from making her character so endearing, has several fantastic scenes, conveying grief especially well. It's a beautiful film with lots of unconventional moments (Amélie came to mind),and Director Akiko Ohku makes use of light and reflections in lovely ways. Very well done, a near miss for an even higher rating.

The girl is stuck on her high school crush from ten years ago. She still dreams of him and constantly talks about him, but hasn't seen him since. A new guy comes along and wants to be her boyfriend, but she can't make up her mind whether to move on and give up her love for the man from the past or not. It's charming at first, but then it gets a bit annoying. First of all, her new love interest is such a goofy guy, it makes no sense that she even considers him, and they very clearly have zero chemistry too. The girl also has some serious manic-depressive episodes almost, to a point where you go from finding her quirky in a cute way to legitimately crazy. The ending is not satisfying either.

Yoshiko is a shy office girl who - as we slowly realise - is even more shy than we think. She has vivid conversations with a lady on her bus to work, a local elderly fisherman, a guy in her 7-11 - but all these conversations are in her head, she has only one real friend, the girl who sits next to her in the office. Yoshiko's life is paralysed by her love for 'ichi' (one),the cool guy in her school she's been obsessed with for a decade. The problem is, Ichi was scarcely even aware she existed. Likewise, she is only vaguely aware of the doofus guy in her office (conveniently nicknamed 'ni' (two) who is clumsily trying to persuade her to be his girlfriend. After a near fatal accident, Yoshiko determines to do what it takes to engineer a meeting with ichi to find out if she can really make him love her.

This whimsical, witty and occasional surreal character study focuses entirely on Yoshiko, brilliantly played by Mayu Matsuoko, who was equally striking in last years Kore-eda film 'Shoplifters'. We see everything through this very unreliable narrators eyes. The film is ably directed by Akiko Ohku, but it is definitely overlong, it could have been trimmed by 20 minutes with no loss. The whole film is a very slight edifice, with its low budget frequently showing, but Matsuoko holds the screen in every scene so it never outstays its welcome.