Welcome to the first trailer post of the week
Come back tomorrow and the day after for more trailers.
OAFF is underway and I’m covering it from the UK. I was hoping to go for the 2025 edition but recovering from a knee fracture took priority and I had to go back to work. Despite this injury (or because of it), I still managed to fulfil my writing duties and cover the festival for the programme, and I am writing and publish reviews!
What are the first set of trailers for new films released this week?
A Bad Summer 
悪い夏 「Warui natsu」
Release Date: March 20th, 2025
Duration: 114 mins.
Director: Hideo Jojo
Writer: Kosuke Mukai (Screenplay), Tamehito Somai (Original Novel)
Starring: Takumi Kitamura, Yuumi Kawai, Marika Ito, Katsuya Maiguma, Pistol Takehara, Haruka Kinami, Masataka Kubota, Yumena Yanai,
Website Twitter: @harenokuni2024 JFDB IMDB
It has been a couple of years since a Kosuke Mukai screenplay has been put on screen. He was one of the pillars of post-2000s Japanese cinema, particularly with collaborations with Nobuhiro Yamashita.
Mukai’s last two films were My Broken Mariko and A Man, both in 2022, the former popular with mainstream audiences and the latter a critical hit and award-winner.
The director is Hideo Jojo and he has a background in pink film but has broken into the mainstream and maintained his prolific output.
There’s a sterling cast with Takumi Kitamura joined by it-girl Yuumi Kawai (Sayonara, Girls.) and Katsuya Maiguma (Ken and Kazu, I Am Kirishima – due to screen at OAFF) and Masataka Kubota (My Broken Mariko, 13 Assassins).
It is based on a novel of the same title by Tamehito Somai, who won the 37th Seishi Yokomizo Mystery and Horror Award for Excellence for his efforts. Early reviews of this look good.
Synopsis: Mamoru Sasaki is a timid civil servant who works in the welfare section of city hall. When a colleague, Yuko Miyata, warns him that one of their seniors is forcing a female welfare recipient into a physical relationship, When Mamoru investigates, he visits Aimi, the single mother at the heart of the case. She is on the verge of abandoning a child but denies having any affair. Mamoru falls for her little realising that she is part of a criminal scheme that will cause him to have a nightmarish summer…
彼方の家族 「Kanata no Kazoku」
Release Date: March 22nd, 2025
Duration: 81 mins.
Director: Taro Kawasaki, Eisuke Sakauchi
Writer: Eisuke Sakauchi (Screenplay),
Starring: Yukihiro Aizawa, Masato Yamauchi, Yuki Watanabe, Yuta Watanabe, Tomoki Kimura,
Website Twitter: @MInc2017
I wrote about this one for last year’s Osaka Asian Film Festival. It is one of two films that were screened in the Housen section that are getting a release this month.
Every house has a front door and behind every door is a family drama.
For main protagonist Kanata, he and his mother have relocated from Fukushima to a new area, sans the father who they lost during an earthquake when he was a child. As he is wont to do, he pushes people away, uncertain of how to talk about his old man until he meets Riku, the son of his much-admired homeroom teacher. Gradually won over by Riku’s brightness, Kanata finally begins to open up and discovers another boy living in the shadow of his father.
Faraway Family is a story about trauma and its inheritance, all wrapped in a 3/11 storyline that ably links dramas from Kanata’s past and present to show how the ideal of a “family” is often out of reach and we can never really know what is going on in a person’s life until they let us in.
This drama quietly depicts the memory of the disaster and its rebirth that continues to the present day through the interaction between a high school student who lost his father in the Great East Japan Earthquake and a classmate who has problems with his father.
Megami Korin Before 
女神降臨 Before 高校デビュー編 「Megami kourin Before koukou debyu- hen」
Release Date: March 20th, 2025
Duration: 102 mins.
Director: Kazunari Hoshino
Writer: Sumire Suzuki (Screenplay), Yaongyi (Original Webcomic)
Starring: Koki, Keisuke Watanabe, Keito Tsuna, Yuka Sugai, Karen Miyama,
Website Twitter: @MegamiKorin_JP IMDB
This is the first of a two-part movie adaptation of a Korean webcomic. They were directed by Kazunari Hoshino, who has mostly been working in the drama field. His last film was the movie adaptation of Team Batista from 2014.
Leading lady Koki is the daughter of Takuya Kimura. Her last roles were the Icelandic film Touch (2024) and the so-so Takashi Shimizu horror Ox-Head Village (2022). Interestingly, Karen Miyama, voice actress on Precure films and A Letter to Momo (2012).
Synopsis: Reina Tanigawa was targeted by high school bullies because they think she’s unattractive and has since started skipping school, but she soon learns makeup techniques that totally change her appearance and she transforms herself into a beautiful girl. When she transfers to a new school, she begins what she hopes is her perfect school life but her classmate Shun Kanda discovers what she looks like without makeup and, in order for him to keep it secret, she becomes her servant. Meanwhile, Yu Igarashi, a guy who has history with Shun, takes an interest in Reina…
The Boy and His Dog 
少年と犬 「Shonen to inu」
Release Date: March 20th, 2025
Duration: 128 mins.
Director: Takahisa Zeze
Writer: Tamio Hayashi (Screenplay), Seishu Hase (Original short story collection)
Starring: Fumiya Takahashi, Nanase Nishino, Kentaro Ito, Rikka Ihara, Lina Arashi, Kiyohiko Shibukawa, Akira Emoto,
Website Twitter: @shonentoinu_mv JFDB IMDB
This is an adaptation of the Naoki Prize-winning novel.
Takahisa Zeze is another pink film director who has become a mainstream fixture. As an example, his last film was One Last Bloom (2023).
Tamio Hayashi is also a bit of a journeyman creative as he has works across multiple genres. Interestingly, he has the dog-based movie Inugoe (2006) to his name. He has done the thriller Golden Slumber (2010), the mystery Snow White Murder Case (2014), war movie/war remembrance The Eternal Zero (2013)
Synopsis: Six months after the Great East Japan Earthquake, Kazumasa Nakagaki, a young man who has lost his job and turned to crime, encounters a dog named Tamon who becomes a part of his family but Tamon, who is always looking southward, disappears one day. Tamon next encounters a girl in Shiga Prefecture who has a sad secret and rescues her. Kazumasa catches up and a new life beckons but Tamon soon leaves as he is on a journey to keep a promise to a boy.