Akutsu (Junki Tozuka/Kaoru Kobayashi), a dying former yakuza serving a life sentence, looks back on his life during the summer of 1986 and is oddly confronted by a flower —specifically the Housenka Flower (Pierre Taki). Can he turn it all around?
The Last Blossom, directed by Baku Kinoshita and which premiered recently at the Scotland Loves Anime fest, is an original story interested in taking that narrow view of that one moment in life that will burst like a bubble if you just focus on it for too long.
For me, this was one of the biggest surprises of the festival so far. You could say it’s simple, but I found it really effective. It looks at the idea of embracing what you really have left in the grand scheme of things, especially those little moments that define us.
The summer of 1986 is significant to Akustu because he takes in Nana (Hikari Mitsushima/Yoshiko Miyazaki) and her son Kensuke (Natsuki Hanae). What Akustu fails to realize, though, is that the yakuza lifestyle isn’t tangible; what is tangible is Nana and Kensuke. Now confined to prison, his cell enables reflection and honesty. I really appreciate Akutsu’s honesty; whether you admit it or not, it’s far easier to push away than to actually ask the question.
A lot of The Last Blossom has been done before—something spurs the protagonist to suddenly realize that they had someone or something that was always there yet slipped away so soon. It’s all done really well here. We see those small moments—Akustu is walking the beach with Kensuke to play a game of Go with Nana, when he reaches the end.
The use of “Stand By Me” from Ben E. King is fantastic. Akustu and Nana both hum the song, which, for them, embodies the idea that just being there is sometimes enough. Akustu and Nana, voiced by two different actors for their respective time periods, are real highlights of the film.
With 1986 Akustu, Kobayashi brings a sense of someone who is closed off, someone who is just frightened to say that Kensuke and Nana are really his family. Tozuka, then, has that flipside of regret: someone who has aged not just in terms of age but something that’s chipped away at them.
Mitsushima, who voices Nana in 1986, is afraid of Akustu’s inability to really accept that they are a family. Then, when you get Miyazaki, time has caught up with Nana. Still, she has the acknowledgment that Akustu did, without a doubt, love her and Kensuke.
The Last Blossom really reminded me of why I love film festivals. Despite not knowing at all what to expect, it completely surprised me.
Review Courtesy of Matthew Allan
Feature Image Credit from Anime Trending