Friday, February 15, 2013

APRIL STORY (1998)


Uzuki goes off to college in big city Tokyo, waving goodbye to her family at the train station. She sits down and places her hand on the window, as if to touch her now former life one last time. 



She lies down in her still unfurnished apartment, wistfully soaking in this new space and its exciting possibilities.

 

From her interaction with the movers, we see that Uzuki is shy, awkwardly attempting to help them but just getting in the way.

 

It’s now the first day of school, and one by one the students stand up and introduce themselves. Uzuki waits nervously for her turn, afraid of revealing too much and risk embarrassment. When her turn comes, she says she’s “cheerful by nature” and that she likes listening to records, an answer that would seem to be effectively vague and innocuous. However, the students ask follow-up questions while she nervously plays with the hair, and one student playfully chides her uncool sweater, but this only compounds her embarrassment.




A classmate tries to befriend her at lunch by asking her if she wants to hang out sometime, but Uzuki claims that she is too busy, what with school and getting aclimated to a new life. Then again, maybe she’s just looking for an excuse to be left alone. 

 

However, this same classmate later convinces Uzuki to join the fishing club. This allows Uzuki to finaly integrate herself socially with the student body, despite not having any previous interest in fishing.

 

If she had actually opened up, she might have revealed that her real passion is reading.

 

In fact, she repeatedly bikes down to the local bookstore alone to browse. 



The boy that works there catches her eye, but she can’t bring herself to say anything to him. 

 

She heads back home and, perhaps realizing that she needs to get over her shyness, invites her female neighbor over dinner. 


Uzuki eventually musters up enough courage to head back to the book shop and strike up a conversation with the boy. 



What follows is described as “a miracle of love” by Uzuki, but certainly not in the Hollywood sense. We get the impression that she speaks not of happy endings, but of finding herself. 

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