24 hours to live

Music: The Astronaught by Something Corporate

This is the second of my old posts that I’m transferring from my old blog to this new one. I doubt I’ll move everything I posted, but while my brain cells refuse to cooperate by supplying me with chemicals to fight writer’s block, here you go. This one is a review I made for Ikigami, way back March of this year. Notes in [ ] are my post-post ramblings.

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No, I have not read past the second chapter of Ikigami: The Ultimate Limit, though I have every intention of doing so in the near future [As of this reposting, I still have not read past the second chapter, and now I’m not so sure if I can read it in the near future anymore. I’ll definitely read it, although I don’t know how long it will take before I finally find time to do so]. I have watched the movie though, spending two long hours waiting for the entire video to finish loading while I read, write, cook and check my e-mail.

I discovered Ikigami by accident. Now that I think about it, it’s all Takashi Tsukamoto’s fault (you’ll remember him as the computer-savvy Shinji Mimura in the film Battle Royale, the only rival of Hiroki Sugimura in my heart from that show) [I re-blogged about him a few days ago. And well, Shogo Kawada lives forever in my heart now as well, but he can never match up to the love I feel for Hiroki and Shinji]. I was looking at his biography in Wikipedia and going over the movies he had been in, and when I randomly clicked on a movie title, I discovered that Ikigami not only casted TakaC (Takashi’s nickname), but Liar Game’s Shota Matsuda as well. Throw in an interesting story concept to the mix, and it was a done deal. I wouldn’t have been able to resist even if I wanted to. Next thing I know, I was searching for the movie via the Internet, and then streaming it from a site that hosted Bloody Monday and Yamato Nadeshiko Shichi Henge as well (which I will write about sooner or later) [I haven’t written about either series, but yeah, who knows?].

Translated as “Death Paper” in English, Ikigami gives a feeling of George Orwell’s 1984, Tom Rob Smith’s Child 44 and the movie Equilibrium (starring Christian Bale), but whose characters ended up with a more depressing fate. The concept is interesting enough, and here I copy/paste the plot synopsis from Wikipedia because I’m too lazy to use my own words:

A place, somewhere, that bears a strong resemblance in history and environment to Japan. Its return to prosperity after defeat in war is due to a certain law, a pillar of the state. This is the Special Law for the Maintenance of National Prosperity. 24 hours before this capsule is to bring about death, an official of the Ministry of Health and Welfare brings a letter announcing impending death, an ikigami. Those who receive this ikigami letter have 24 hours of absolute freedom to do anything and everything they want. Kengo Fujimoto has made his way through university and taken a job with the Ministry. His work now is delivering these ikigami letters.

Shota manages to pull off a decent Kengo Fujimoto, although it was hard for me not to think of him as the genius Shinichi Akiyama from Liar Game. His transition from being a confused Ikigami delivery guy to a person who clearly disagrees with the law but cannot voice out his opinion freely in fear of being accused of committing a thought crime is pretty believable. The performances of other characters was more or less okay, some better than the others. I think I was too smitten by TakaC’s hotness to pay too much attention to his acting, but I think he portrayed Hidekazu Morio’s character pretty well. One that probably stands out is Riko Narumi’s portrayal of the blind Sakura Izuka, whose brother Satoshi was given the Ikigami that allowed her the cornea transplant that she needed to see again.

My biggest problem with the movie is that it barely leaves any hope for the viewer at the end of two hours. Of course there were hints of a rebellion igniting sometime soon, but it wasn’t given much attention, other than the snippets of flashbacks from the second story and the mysterious mention of “until that time comes” by Fujimoto’s mentor.

Then there was the issue of over-cheesiness in some parts, particularly the second part, which I liked the least. TakaC’s story was more or less melodramatic too, but it was saved by his sheer hotness (bah, I’m biased, bite me) and Yuta Kanai’s beautiful rendition of “Signpost.” Still, the thought of TakaC crying himself to pieces while he watches his best friend die on National TV was depressing (and a little disturbing), to say the least. The third part, “Satoshi and Sakura’s story,“ was less subtle in its drama, and probably the best of the three arcs.

Still, Ikigami was, overall, an interesting film that will make the viewer realize quite a number of things. A friend of mine said that reading Ikigami made him value life even more. To quote his own words, “For someone who would rather throw his life away –Ikigami beats the sense of life back into me.” The movie is depressing as hell, so depressing that I had to watch Yamato Nadeshiko Shichi Henge afterwards just to avoid getting nightmares, but the sense of helplessness it delivers comes with the nagging question about how a person should value a life, whether his own or someone else’s.

And now here comes the question one might want to ponder on after watching the movie or reading the manga: If you knew you only had one day to live, how would you spend your last 24 hours on earth? Would you spend it with the people you love? Would you use that time to get back at the people who made your life miserable? Or would you do that thing you love to do the most, knowing that you’ll never be able to do it again?

Ikigami: The Ultimate Limit shows three answers to this question. Hopefully, you can find your own answer too.