KISSPEPTIN CHRONICLES

恋脳EXPERIMENT

By Shiika OKADA

PARALLAX FILMS - as SALES All rights, World

Drama - Completed 2023

Can we ever be freed from the "curse of love" that dictates "women must be pretty and fall in love"?

A humorous and at times affecting chronicle of an artistic girl’s life and loves from elementary school, through university, into young adulthood.

    • Year of production
    • 2023
    • Genres
    • Drama, Female director
    • Countries
    • JAPAN
    • Languages
    • JAPANESE
    • Duration
    • 110 mn
    • Director(s)
    • Shiika OKADA
    • Writer(s)
    • Shiika OKADA, Kazune OKADA
    • Synopsis
    • Elementary schoolgirl Shigusa is an only child who likes to spend time alone illustrating scenes from her life. One day, Shigusa decides she wants to experience having a boyfriend and arbitrarily asks a kid in her cram school class to go steady. Shigusa is also the target of romantic advances from her creepy teacher, raising the ire of her female classmates. Her illustrations grow increasingly distraught. Years later, Shigusa is now in arts university and living with her boyfriend Saeki, who studies modern dance. Saeki’s friends criticize him for losing his edge so he breaks up with Shigusa, whom he feels is holding him back. The episode inspires Shigusa to create an art installation based on her journals and objects from their life together. Jumping ahead, Shigusa is interning at an advertising firm, where she’s sexually and power harassed by her boss. Her boss’ soft spoken colleague Eiji empathizes with Shigusa’s situation. The pair begin a relationship, but it falls apart over the course of one memorable hiking trip. Shigusa mounts yet another art exhibition, this time absurdly staged as her own funeral. Time passes and Shigusa is supporting herself as a videographer. She reconnects with Saeki, who’s now a theatre director teaching weekly classes. Matured Saeki apologizes for their university-days breakup. Shigusa’s self-imposed pressure to get married “before it’s too late” is relieved and she has an enigmatic encounter with herself as a child. During an artistic session with Saeki, Shigusa breaks through to another side of herself through a different form of expression…