The best Kotone Furukawa’s movies of 2021

An unexpected love triangle, a failed seduction trap, and an encounter that results from a misunderstanding are the three episodes, told in three movements to depict three female characters and trace the trajectories between their choices and regrets.

Two people meet each other after missing the last train home, leading to a beautiful relationship over five years.

Arakawa Ao lives happily on his own and hardly ever leaves Shimokitazawa, where he works at a vintage clothing shop, goes to occasional concerts and hangs out at his favorite bar. Then, he gets an unusual request to appear in an independent film.

The novelist Shiga Naoya lives with his wife Haruko and their 4-year-old daughter Saeko. He is paranoid about Saeko’s health, making her wear heavy clothes even in summer in order to prevent her from catching a cold. Their child before Saeko died due to an epidemic, and he believes thorough enforcement is a natural consequence. In 1918, the Spanish flu reaches Japan. As the number of infected people grows, Shiga starts to suspect their servant Ishi might have gone to watch a travelling entertainment troupe’s performance which drew a great number of villagers. It is something Ishi is likely to do. But when Shiga questions her, she says that she did not go. However, she makes him have misgivings on a regular basis and he decides to take this opportunity to make her quit. An uproar ensues. Shiga feels that he has become a tyrant and refrains from kicking her out but he loses all reason and faith in humanity amid the pandemic…