Artwork by Ariel Esteban Cayer
Promised to a record deal that didn’t work out, teenage Jun (Takuma Fujie, August My Heaven) arrives in Nagoya as a transfer student with dashed dreams. One day, his busking of songs by Exne Kedy catches the eye of fellow fan Ibuki (An Ogawa, Heaven Is Still Far Away) and the pair soon falls in love over their shared musical taste. But as adult responsibilities loom, prospects in Tokyo beckon and a global pandemic hits, they slowly drift apart… Until the legendary Exne Kedy announce a reunion tour.Â
Inspired by Kensuke Ide’s 2021 concept album Strolling Planet ’74, in which the frontman transformed his band into the fictitious 70s glam rock group Exne Kedy and the Poltergeists, Daisuke Miyazaki’s Plastic is a colorful, rock-inflected coming-of-age tale tracking the disilliusionment of Japanese youth. Following his breakout hip-hop drama Yamato (California) (2016, also included in this release) and the Osaka-set thriller Videophobia (2019), Miyazaki showcases a keen sensibility for epochal longing, teenage loneliness, as well as for the vanishing sounds and places of everyday Japan. Dreamy, even cosmic at times, Plastic is an atypical romance examining how love for art shapes us.