Having said that, the story itself is almost too painful to watch, for several reasons. It is basically the story of painful, dysfunctional teenage romances. Dysfunctional because in real life, I think there would be different outcomes with both of the romantic relationships explored by the film. The author/screenwriters chose to go the "Japanese Trainwreck" route, which is frustratingly common in Japanese story telling. Rarely is there ever a "happily ever after". Instead the audience suffers silently with an hour's worth of painful unrequited love. It is almost as if half the population of Japan has been traumatized in their teenage years by unrequited love or love lost by forced separation, and half again must relive this through some form of art or film. Beyond that, the story seems to end abruptly, with no real closure to either of the important story threads. Frustrating.
