REVIEW: Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac (Japanese Movie: 2010)

[Read this on UnitedJPop too. Click here].
Let's cut to the chase and cover the main reasons why a watched this film, there are three:
1 - Maki Horikita (One of my favourite actresses...yes, I DO have favourite actresses!)
2 - Ken'ichi Matsuyama (And he was playing a weirdo again...hooray!)
3 - Tegoshi Yuya (He is just one of my favourite people in general...not really a great actor, but I enjoy just seeing him).



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Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac is a Japanese film based on the book of the same name Gabrielle Zevin.
Naomi (Horikita) is a teenager with a passion for photography, tennis and the school yearbook (well, she is in the yearbook club at least). The super intelligent and sort of geeky Mirai (Yuya) is her best friend and equally sporty American boy "Zuckerman" (Anton Yelchin) is her boyfriend.
So, all is well...until Naomi decides to dive head-first down a flight of stone-steps on her highschool grounds. She did this because she wanted to save an expensive camera that she dropped...I can't say that I would have done the same, to be honest!
Naomi hit her head on the concrete, is understandably knocked unconscious and wakes up to the sound of an unfamiliar voice claiming to a doctor that he is her boyfriend. It transpires that this is the somewhat notorious weirdo of the school called Yuji (Matsuyama).
Naomi slowly realises that the bump to her head has caused her to lose all her memory of the past four years of her life.

Oh dear...

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ENJOYED
- Even though it is quite needless to say due to my opening paragraph, I did like the choice of cast. Horikita really is a great actress (I have seen about 3 dramas and now 2 films of hers). Also Matsuyama really does play a great weirdo character. Yuji is kind of like L, with an equally tragic background, but much more of an agressive streak within.

- It took me a while to adjust to it, but I thought the way that photographs would flash up and float in the air surrounding the characters, and then proceed to fade away whenever one was taken was a really good way of showing the audience what was being done without trying to constantly write the oppurtunities for photo-viewings into the script.

- The moments between Naomi and Yuji when they are together, both in and out of a relationship, were really tender a heart-warming. I liked the way that they found eachother through the fact that they both felt they didn't belong anywhere. I felt genuinely upset when Yuji's mental health deteriorated and caused him to push her away from him.

- There was the moment when Naomi gets her memory back whilst standing at the bottom of the stone steps down which she fell. I thought the cinematography of this part was amazing. The way that the film makers layered the memory over the present reality was quite unique.

DISLIKED
- Although I found the featuring of American students and English dialogue quite refreshing in a Japanese film, I found the whole "Tokyo America School" quite confusing. The English dialogue was also quite weak on the Japanese actors' parts, but that is completely understandable and I think that it is fine for a film that is not directly aimed at an English-speaking demographic. Plus, I also find it sweet. Ha. :)

- The film doesn't really have a solid start-to-finish structure. I felt like I just walked into Naomi's life at the time of her accident and then left when she graduated high-school. But then, with these sort of coming-of-age storylines - it is just a snippet of someone's life,

--------------------------------------------------------------------------OVERALL.I found this to be quite an enjoyable and strangely relaxing film (I don't know why). I thought that the overall story was quite thought-provoking. It was lovely in a way that Naomi's amnesia lead her to become more open to different people, even those these people had always been in her life to some extent. Her memory-loss ended up giving her a new perspective of her life. She was able to look upon it with a fresh pair of eyes in a way. It made me wonder what I would be like and do if I was in her position (but thank god I'm not! *Touches wood*).
I have already said about how I loved how Yuji and Naomi's relationship was portrayed in the film and that says something for me, as I usually dislike lovey-dovey parts!! :P

I would recommend this film to anyone who just wants to have a bit of a chill out and wants a good story with realtable characters (only if you are young though, I guess haha) ....AND a bit of lovey-smush story added in the mix. :D


P.S. - Watch out for Tegoshi's Engrish...."NOW I'M P*SSED!!" = Best line ever!! Haha.