Shishunki Gokko 思春期ごっこ

Ladies and Gentlemen, here we go! The last of the long awaited yuri movies since a year ago today and another of Miki Honoka’s series of dominating projects. This is her best performance to date in any of her works that I have seen and if anyone who watches this does not fall for her till the end of time, I pray for thy wellbeing. She was so good that she made my relationship with this movie so complicated. Even now as we speak, I still find myself lost as to where to place this movie on my list!

Now please there is no reason to panic! Let me assure you that this is a legit yuri movie and in fact there is no het anywhere in sight so stay calm and read on. I have watched this movie about eight times since I got my BD and yet every watch produces a different feeling from me towards the end. But while by that I usually mean that it gets better and better, this time it went back and forth, meaning that I might love it today, but then I watch it again and I am left so angry I wanna throw something! These feelings alternate so you can imagine my confused state as to how to rank this movie!

Remember how back a few months back when I got that Spin off DVD and I mentioned how there had to be a catch for us to be given such an awesome extra of a movie that wasn’t even out yet? Well, watching this movie I was once again proved right. I no longer feel positive about being right anymore! For some reason I am sure that had it been any other movie, the happenings of this movie wouldn’t have affected me that much after all the experience I have but this movie infuriated me from time to time.

From Little Trip (Houkago Lost), to the new movie where she plays a ghost that couldn’t move on to this, I am only praying that poor Miki Honoka did not get irreversible emotional damage from all the hurt her character in all three movies, all three movies that were released in a row suffered through! I obviously haven’t watched the third one (for which she cut her hair I would like to believe but there is another reason I think she cut her hair but much later on that) but the two that I have watched, her character was hurt so deeply that she cried. Her tears in Little Trip were a cake walk for her cries in this movie, let me tell you! I cry every time I watch that scene, but once again, I am getting ahead of myself as usual.

Miki Honoka as Takane & Aoyama Misato as Mika 

The movie stars Miki Honoka, a girl that most, if not all of you will be familiar with by now. She first appeared on this blog, and my gaydar too, all the way back in 2010 I believe, when I found out that there was going to be a Live Action Marimite movie and she was playing Yumi, our main character! She was so young back then! She has starred in a lot of dramas and movies since then. She also has a twitter account in case some of you want to join the stalker list that I am on. Honoka plays Takane, the best girl as she is the one once again, that falls in love with the other main of our story.

Aoyama Yuki plays Mika, Takane’s classmate, best friend and secret love, well, until the climax of the movie that is. She loves books and her favourite author is Hanaoka Namie, a librarian at the local library that is a washed out writer despite still being a young woman. Namie plays a major role in the fate of Takane and Mika’s relationship. Mika’s dream is of course to be a fictional writer and though most will miss it, also very intelligent. Sure Takane called her an idiot but I don’t think she was that air-headed. Let’s just say for now that the secret love thing might have been Takane’s view on things. Then again there is the way she acted during the climax but that was kind of realistic, maybe so it is kind of hard to judge her. Before I drive myself crazy, let’s just get this over with, shall we?

All yuri fans out there, I wish to take this opportunity to mention something that I just realised, thanks to this movie. There is no denying that we have to suffer a lot mostly due to BAD ENDs or getting disappointed when for some reason the writers, or the directors get wet feet and suddenly turn our lesbian characters straight or dump that destination of the story all together.

Even with all that, I realised that most of the time, we always get the best stories! It’s not just me, right? I find all yuri stories more thought out, more feel-inducing, more impactful than the normal romance stories. I just figured this out recently so if anyone is looking for a reason as to why they love yuri despite all the pain, here is the reason.

Shishunki Gokko’s story falls into that same awesome story category. Before the movie, no one would think that it would be as serious as it turned out to be. I too was expecting cute girls doing cute things, or straight up fluff yuri (since we knew already from the synopsis that it would be yuri) so I was not fully prepared for what we got.

The final trailer kind of hinted at the seriousness when we saw that look on Takane’s face as she stared Namie down! But even then I did not think that it would be as deep as the movie actually turned out to be. If I were to promise you something about this movie it’s that it takes yuri seriously!

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