Taiyou no uta タイヨウのうた [movie]

Nice touch with the sunflowers. Where are my tissues?

Unmistakable voice, even though I didn’t recognise her face at first, as soon as she sang I realised it was Yui. I knew it was going to be a sad film from the premise but I actually think it was a cheerful movie for the most part. Very pretty and sweet, just a little heartbreaking too.

 

If anyone’s voice could sound like the sunshine it would be Yui, she sounds like spring. To play a girl trapped in eternal night is more lonely than if it were some sombre serious person with a sad voice – Yui’s innocent smile and completely childlike presence is almost otherworldly and adds to the context of her character who can never leave the house during the daytime or properly feel the sunrise.

 

 Yui plays Kaoru, a girl who is allergic to sunlight and is slowly developing a serious nervous disorder that will ultimately paralyse and kill her. She goes out into the streets at night to play her guitar and sing, and can only see a short amount of the daytime from her bedroom window through tinted blinds.

Kaoru watches Fuji, (Tsukamoto Takashi) from her window every morning as he waits with his surf board for his friends. Eventually she sees him in the street one night, chases after him and blurts out a bizarre ramble of things about her self after pushing on to the railway tracks in the road. She mentions that she doesn’t have a boyfriend about 16 thousand times in her speech and her complete lack of shame for that moment shows how innocent and sheltered she is.

It is hard not to warm to her, especially after hearing her sing and it doesn’t take Fuji long to fall for her as she sings the song she had written with him in mind.

 

As she starts to become more disabled by her illness Fuji works hard to help her regain her strength and sing again, and watching her stay strong gives him the strength to become a better person as well.

It is so sad, there is no cure for this disease and very little treatment once the brain starts going into crazy nervous dysfunction mode, and deterioration passed this point is quite fast. From the outset it is obvious it will be quite upsetting but I think there is more to this movie than just a weepy story.

For a start, Yui sings a lot in this film, which can never be a bad thing. I love to watch her sing – she pulls these strained faces that don’t tell in her voice at all. There is something endlessly endearing about the expressions she pulls as she pours her heart out into her music. And of course, her voice is lovely. She has a very calm young voice that is absolutely impossible to miss.

I first heard Yui on the Bleach anime soundtrack – I think it was the first one; it was very near the beginning of the series a few years ago anyway. The songs featured in this movie are on my short stories.

Also in this film is Kishitani Goro who was the dad in samurai high school – loved him in that. He has a really nice character in this movie, he plays Kaoru’s father who tries anything he can to give her a good quality of life, including orchestrating a dinner with Fuji when Kaoru is too depressed to see him, in spite of how angry she might get at first.

It is a very sweet film but the sunflowers got me. You’ll know what I mean when you get to the end. I liked the movie even just as an excuse to listen to Yui sing for a while. She is actually the definition of adorable.

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