Goth

After a recent reading of Otsuichi's Summer,Fireworks and My Corpse, excellent synopsis here, watching Goth seemed almost a mandatory thing to do. I've not read the novel so can't compare between the two, although I've read that there are differences between the manga adaption by Kendi Oiwa and the novel so I wouldn't be surprised if there were differences also with the film adaption. Directed by Gen Takahashi and released in 2008, Goth has similarities with Summer, Fireworks and My Corpse, Otsuichi's young characters appear stuck in the confines of the urban, the film opens with a park scene that appears normal enough until a woman notices a woman sitting on the steps of a fountain, she has her arm severed, alerting a passing policeman they discover the woman is dead, a crowd gathers,amongst them a high school girl watches the events. At school the following day the class are told to be on their guard for strangers, especially the girls as the recent murder is similar to a previous murder. The camera follows Itsuki as the class finishes up and he walks to the library, the atmosphere of the film begins to change as he walks, in the library he meets the girl who we saw at the beginning of the film observing the scene at the park, they exchange books, he hands her a volume of H.P Lovecraft, 'Give me your thoughts on it?' he asks. The two meet again at her favourite cafe/bar and Itsuki notices that her appearance is similar to that of the two victims, they decide to begin to investigate the murders, and come to the conclusion that the murderer is displaying his victims like art,and takes their hands as a memento, afterwards he follows her home and we learn from her mailbox that her name is Morino. They visit the scenes where the victims were found and Itsuki asks Morino to lie down in a river where one of the victims was discovered, he visualizes a cut in her wrist opening up, whilst joking around with his friends we learn that Morino had attempted suicide.


The murderer strikes again, the victim is discovered by Itsuki's younger sister, and at the cafe/bar Morino tells the story of the accidental death of her sister whilst the two were playing a game, Morino describes the events of her sister's death against the melancholy reverberations of a distant piano. Morino finds a notebook on the floor of the cafe which is the diary of the killer, Itsuki questions the authenticity of the book, but it contains a map which they follow to the mountain where they find the fourth victim, finding the victim before the police proves the books authenticity, but they decide on not handing the book to the police,'If there's a fifth victim it's our fault.' The notebook leads Itsuki to an abandoned school, meanwhile Morino disappears, Itsuki's sweat falls onto the Kanji of the notebook giving him a clue to the identity of the murderer, the film stars Rin Takanashi and Kanata Hongo.