Shibuya Maruyama Story (AKA Shibuya-ku Maruyama-cho) is a 2007 over two hours long romance J-movie [Yeah, like I can’t believe I just heard about it this week! I FAIL]. The theme of the movie is that Shibuya is like this centre of the world where romance blossoms and also where troubled people go to heal their hearts. It has two separate stories which are only connected by places (Shibuya of course, a restaurant and a Love Motel) but other than both being about romance, they are two separate movies.

The first part is about a schoolgirl who despite having a boyfriend already, falls for the new teacher. As expected, I cut the movie in two and threw this first part into the recycle bin immediately afterwards cleaning up said bin.

Sayonara part 1. So if you want to watch that part, you will have to get the whole movie yourself. It’s only the second part that I am interested in after all.

The second half of the movie stars Riisa Naka (as Yumi), one everyone should know by now as ‘The Girl Who Leapt Through Time’ (She voiced Makoto in the animated movie as well) and was the lead in ‘Yankee-kun to Megane-chan’ J-drama too. It was in the drama that Riisa-chan caught my attention. In this movie, she co-stars with Yumiko Hara (as Ariyoshi). I confess that I know little about Yumiko-san.

Naka Riisa

Hara Yumiko

Yumi is a very honest and nice girl in high school. Her classmates and even her friends take advantage of this to their amusement like bullying her and always living off her hard work but all through this, Yumi never stops smiling.

One of her classmates Ariyoshi watches all this in the background. She is the lone type of girl that spends her free time on the rooftop taking naps. One day though she decides to confront Yumi when Yumi finds her math note-book she had lent to her friend in the trash bin. Ariyoshi informs her that it was her friends that did it and is confused since she thought they were friends. Yumi defends her friends still but Ariyoshi doesn’t force the issue and instead goes to the roof top as she usually does on breaks.

Yumi follows her up and gives her some of her lunch probably as a thank you for earlier. As they eat, Yumi’s ‘friends’ invite her to go buy lunch together. There was no doubt that Yumi would be buying for all of them. When she hesitates, they wonder if she already ate, she answers ‘no’ as she hides her packed lunch behind her back. Ariyoshi who had been watching silently all the while, invites Yumi to go with her to Shibuya. Yumi turns out had never been to Shibuya before so she excitedly agrees and off they go.

Yumi has a blast in Shibuya as they do girly things like shopping and all that and as they walk, Yumi holds Ariyoshi’s hand out of the blue. Ariyoshi is startled and asks Yumi if she isn’t embarrassed about it but the naive girls answers with a questions as to why she should be.

Ariyoshi leaves it at that but she doesn’t pull her hand away and the two have fun all evening.

Black in school, life continues on as before. Yumi is still being made fun of by her so called friends. They even threw the gifts she spent her money buying for them while in Shibuya into the bin. Yumi is only human though and the bullying start getting to her. She begins to lose her smile but Ariyoshi takes her to Shibuya again to cheer her up seeing as she seemed to really enjoy it the first time.

They visit arcades, continue shopping, eat at a cake shop and soon Yumi is back to her cheerful self. Later on as they walk around Shibuya, Ariyoshi finally confronts Yumi on something that’s been bothering her for a while. She tell Yumi to show her true feelings and not put on a façade. She tells Yumi to laugh only when she’s happy, to cry when she’s sad and to be mad when she’s angry.

Yumi is touched by the speech and breaks down right there on the street among crowds of people. Ariyoshi is there though as she hold Yumi until she cries her worries away. It was probably Friday so they spend the night on the streets of Shibuya upon Yumi’s request to stay, to which Ariyoshi replied that she did not mind.

The following day is spent in Shibuya having even more fun, all the worries of the world forgotten. They stay another night having slept in a karaoke room. The following night though, Ariyoshi starts to feel sick as her body is not used to the change in the usual protocol. And so Yumi finds them a room to stay in and remembering the Motel street they had passed on her first day, she helps Ariyoshi to one of the Motels. It’s a love motel and hilarity ensues when the receptionist starts questioning them.

Really, instead of telling the truth that they just needed a place to rest for the night, they went for convincing the receptionist that one of them was a boy.

Oh you!

After refreshing up, Ariyoshi starts to feel better and they two start girl-talking. Then they fight over who should have the free love lollipop and soon the conversation goes down THAT road.

And by THAT I mean the ‘Have you ever been kissed’ talk!

And so there I am, rubbing my hands in anticipation of that inevitable kiss happening knowing already that there is no way in hell Yumi has ever been kissed and totally looking forward to Bad Girl Ariyoshi teaching her, only for the atmosphere to be broken by the damned rabbits in the next room.

The two instead end up listening in on the occupants next room do it like said animals. With the interruption, the conversation shifts to more serious matters as the two talk about themselves and this time, more about Ariyoshi herself. turns out not even she is spared from life’s problems as she has insecurities.

Yumi comes out of her shell and comforts Ariyoshi. She gives THE speech this time and within it, kind of confesses her love for Ariyoshi, which of course does things to Ariyoshi’s insides and soon she is crying her eyes out too. Yumi embraces Ariyoshi as she cries, having come to the point where they both now know everything about each other and come to terms with the world and their place in it, together.

At school, Yumi now publicly keeps the odd Ariyoshi company, even in class and when their crude classmates start their silly games, Yumi finally snaps at them having had enough and not willing to let her girlfriend take shit from no one! Needless to say, shocked silence follows which is shattered only by Yumi and Ariyoshi’s laughter.

The moment after where they touch fore-heads  made me go all funny inside too.

They visit Shibuya at the end and they look so happy together, showing us that truly…

Love Conquers All

I loved this movie!

Japan rarely makes these kinds of movies but when they do, they are ones to remember.

If you want to see Yumi & Ariyoshi’s love story, Go get it: Shibuya Maruyama (MF)