Happyend

Billed as sci-fi, Happyend is actually closer to films like Dazed and Confused or The Last Picture Show. It catches a bunch of Japanese youngsters just as they start the transition away from high school and on to the next thing. If there are the end of times coming down the track, they are not the impending annihilation of the planet after alien invasion but approaching adulthood. There is a sci-fi element, though it seems to be there as a cover rather than as an integral part of the plot. We’re in an authoritarian world where ethno-nationalism has its feet in the zeitgeist’s stirrups. In the high school where our two main guys, … Read more