Cast:Nozawa Asako (Ueto Aya)
Aoki Kazuyoshi (Kamiki Ryunosuke)
Koichi (Nakamura Shichinosuke)
Momoko-sensei (Kikukawa Rei)
Aoki Kayori (Kojima Ijiri)
Nozawa Komoe (Tanaka Yoshiko)
This movie is based on the bestselling novel by Wataya Risa who wrote this at the age of 17 and achieved sales of about 500,000 copies which is a feat for a senior high school student author making her debut.
Ueto Aya plays the lead character, Nozawa Asako who is doubting her existence and purpose of living as she finds that she is just going with the flow and doesn't know what she wants to do. Her best friend, Koichi who she has been holding a torch for, chides her for living without an aim and tells her to take a break from school if she needs time to find what she wants to do. At his suggestion, Asako goes home to clean up her stuff and dump everything in the rubbish collection stand. She is lying on the floor, moping over her life.
Although she's only 17 and should have lots of potential to achieve things in her life, she feels that she's already 17 and has no chance of improving her life. Thus, she is swinging between these two extreme emotions and confused about what to do next. Kazuyoshi who comes to the rubbish collection stand, meets Asako and brings home her old Macintosh since she dumped all her stuff. That computer was a gift from her grandpa when Asako's parents divorced but she never got to use it since her grandpa promised to send emails to her but he was bad with technology goods.
Ever since that day, Asako would wait until her mother goes to work before returning home to spend the rest of the day, lazing around. In actual fact, her mother never realised that Asako's belongings had been removed and her room was empty. She is also a teacher at the primary school which Kazuyoshi transferred to after moving to the vicinity with his father and stepmom.
Kazuyoshi comes to look for Asako one day and offers her a part time job. Actually, Kazuyoshi makes use of the Mac he got from Asako and poses as a 25-year-old housewife on the Net. He met a fellow housewife, Miyabi who was sleeping around for money and she asked for help to man the erotic chat room she is operating due to her busy schedule. Since Kazuyoshi has to go to school in the day, he asks Asako to come to his apartment and operate the chat room until 2pm every day since she doesn't go to school. Although Asako has her reservations since she has never had sex before and isn't good with computers, she finally decided to go ahead upon hearing Kazuyoshi's reason for asking her to take part.
Initially, Asako couldn't really handle the people who come to the chat room because of her limited knowledge in erotic and sexual matters but as she gained more experience, she became well-versed in things she had never experienced before. However, a virus attack on the Mac makes it impossible for Asako and Kazuyoshi to continue with the chatroom. In addition, Kazuyoshi's mother finds out about them. Asako realises that 6 months has passed in a flash since she got involved in this job and she was even unaware that Koichi died in an accident. This series of events made Asako realise that she has to return to the real world to live instead of living her fantasies in the cyberworld. As such, she and Kazuyoshi part ways...
Although the first 10 to 15 minutes was quite slow, I must say that the momentum picked up once Asako and Kazuyoshi met and it's truly a very interesting movie. I don't mean the erotic chat room, that's not very explicit in my opinion. I'll talk more about that later.
As mentioned in my review above, Asako is basically a senior high school girl who doesn't know what to do with her life. She knows that she has youth on her side but somehow, she doesn't know what she can do to change her life. She's bored but doesn't know what exactly is making this happen. As such, her actions would seem to be rather drastic and incomprehensible like dumping her entire belongings including her wardrobe, bed etc at the rubbish collection stand and lying on the floor. It's very rare to see Ueto Aya act like her in her roles. Very natural and it's easy to identify with her troubles as if she is really Asako herself. And when you see her having that sensual aroused look while engaging in cybersex, I guess fans of Ueto would probably go wild upon seeing that especially guys. I was quite amused but I think she was very convincing and undoubtedly attractive in that scene.
Another must-watch scene is that part when the Mac crashed due to the virus and Asako was quite flustered over returning to the real world now that she cannot operate that erotic chatroom. Then, she told Kazuyoshi that he can touch her breast even though she rejected his request before. Don't think that they are indulging in any hanky panky but the atmosphere is so intense that I really imagined something like this to come from the two leads. Imagine Kazuyoshi telling Asako how he feels about touching her and his hands...I can't go on anymore or the content would not be suitable for minors. However, rest assured that this is not some sex flick. I feel that the two have great chemistry in this movie to bring out that feel between Asako and Kazuyoshi. Their relationship is a bit ambiguous and yet simple. Kazuyoshi requires help to man the chatroom while Asako needs help to break out of her routine. Simple as that but the rest is up to your interpretation.
I would never have known that Kamiki can be so good because this is completely different from his usual goody, timid boy roles. He's quite harsh with his words as Kazuyoshi who is a kid but knows much more than a kid should. I think he's even more knowledgeable about sex than Asako. Anyway, looking at him in Install and comparing him to Aikurushii, I just cannot reconcile the two roles to be from the same actor. Kamiki is doing well and hopefully, he can continue to perform.
I can't say that the message behind this movie is evident. It's very much left to your own interpretation of the situation but I think everyone did have a period when they were lost about what to do. I guess I'm not that extreme as Asako but I can understand her grouses. However, the monologue sections were sometimes too repetitive so I didn't really like the beginning of the movie. Otherwise, it would have been better. I would give it 3.5 stars out of 5 for the entire movie and suggest that you can take a look for yourself to judge whether it deserves better or worse.
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