世界の中心で、愛をさけぶ

Wow, can I just say, wow. So this movie, 「世界の中心で、愛をさけぶ」 (Crying Out Love in the Center of the World) this movie, is really... impressive. Now, I'm a little hesitant, I'm not trying to claim that I know good movies from bad movies, but this movie really charmed me. I thought the story was so sweet and, haunting almost.

For a little background; this movie came out either last year or the year before. When I first came here and I was getting to know the kids I would ask them about their favorite things and a lot of them said this movie Sekaino Chushinde, Aiwo Sakebu was their favorite and they asked if I'd seen it (of course not, I'd say). Then again a few months ago the students had to write papers on their favorite movies and I'd say a good 15-20 wrote about this movie, so I'm thinking it must be pretty good... I decided that my Japanese was finally up to the task just the other day which encouraged me to finally rent it and so voila... I have now seen this movie and feel compelled to tell you about it (but I won't go into the plot because, if possible, I'd like people to watch it for themselves, in fact, I feel that to give any sort of hint would almost ruin it. I knew from my students the gist of the story and I think it would have been more interesting to not have known what I knew.) I'll just say... it's a tear-jerker.

One last thing... One of the reasons I waited so long to watch the movie was because I knew my Japanese wouldn't be decent enough to understand it but three things to address here 1) I have been studying (in a half-assed-I-live-in-this-country-and-everyday-is-studying type manner) and I've really improved my abilities, especially in kanji (漢字) 2) I was actually quite surprised to see, when I rented the dvd, that it had the option of English subtitles (so if you can rent Japanese videos near you, check it out!) and finally 3) just to brag - I watched the movie in Japanese and used the Japanese subtitles rather than the English ones and I understood it! I definitely missed a few things, but I'd say at least 75%... hell yeah! another 10 years and I might be fluent (hehehe).