Dis­cov­er the punk­ish ener­gy of man­ga-inspired com­ing of ager

In the open­ing sequence of Blue Spring, with a Grad­u­a­tion Cer­e­mo­ny audi­ble in the back­ground, teenagers Kujo (Ryuhei Mat­su­da) and Aoki (Hiro­fu­mi Arai) pick a lock to the roof area of the sin­gle-sex Asashi High School, lit­er­al­ly open­ing the door to their own future. From their new­ly unlocked van­tage, the two child­hood friends and a small gang of seniors can look down upon even their most aggres­sive fel­low pupils, and gain a height­ened per­spec­tive on their lives to come.

Writer/​director Toshi­a­ki Toy­o­da had already proven him­self an astute chron­i­cler of losers with his first two fea­tures, Pornos­tar and the doc­u­men­tary Unchain, and in this his third film, adapt­ed from the 1993 episod­ic man­ga of Taiyō Mat­sumo­to (‘Tekkonk­in­reet’, ​‘Ping Pong’), he once again focus­es on Japan­ese males strug­gling to find a place or purpose.

On the rooftop, these ado­les­cents engage in a game of chick­en, as point­less as it is poten­tial­ly self-destruc­tive: they hang over a ledge four storeys above the con­crete ground and see who can clap the most times before regain­ing his pur­chase on the met­al rail­ing. It’s a game designed to deter­mine who is the gang’s ​‘boss’ – who is tough enough to set aside his fears and to take the great­est risk with his own life in order to prove an arbi­trary supe­ri­or­i­ty over the oth­ers. Kujo wins with eight claps but, ever aloof and dif­fi­dent, imme­di­ate­ly sees through the mean­ing­less­ness of both the exer­cise and his new­ly won status.

His response, a sort of ennui-laden insou­ciance, might be mis­tak­en for cool, but in fact masks an intro­spec­tive spir­it that dri­ves this nat­u­ral­ly tal­ent­ed young man to ques­tion every­thing. ​‘Gloomy freak’ and ​‘total nerd’ Kujo is a lost soul, try­ing to work out where he is head­ed, and whether it is worth even both­er­ing – and Blue Spring tracks his and his friends’ rites of pas­sage at this key time of tran­si­tion in their lives, tee­ter­ing between youth and adult­hood, life and death.

“What do you want, fuck­er? What do you want, you shit?” school tough guy Hori asks Kujo, fac­ing off against Kujo the moment that he has been declared boss. ​“What the hell do you want?” This chal­lenge will quick­ly earn Hori a bro­ken nose, but his repeat­ed ques­tion is key in a film about aim­less, hope­less, clue­less youth. Kimu­ra (Yusuke Oshi­ba) has always want­ed to get draft­ed for the base­ball Nation­als, but after mis­throw­ing a ball, has fum­bled his oppor­tu­ni­ty and his life’s dream, and is now look­ing for a new goal.

The gang’s gofer, fresh­man Yoshimu­ra (Shugo Oshi­nari), just dreams of becom­ing a full mem­ber of the crew, while fol­low­ing in Kimura’s shad­ow. Mean­while Yukio (Sousuke Takao­ka), who con­stant­ly prac­tis­es ​‘Beau­ti­ful Dream­er’ on his gui­tar, risks hav­ing to repeat a school year because of his bad grades, and claims to have only ​‘vague dreams’. Akio wants to rise above the shit (lit­er­al­ly, in one hilar­i­ous­ly cor­po­re­al scene) and to fly high, and to prove him­self to Kujo.

Mean­while the ail­ing lon­er known as Ghost (Eita) is pre­vent­ed from hav­ing a future by a ter­mi­nal dis­ease, but is still always run­ning not walk­ing – when, that is, he is not painstak­ing­ly remov­ing cater­pil­lars from the school’s blos­som­ing cher­ry trees, inspir­ing Kujo to observe: ​“Peo­ple who know what they want scare me.” Kujo, of course, is full of doubts about his own future. Soon, how­ev­er, Kujo is him­self gar­den­ing too, plant­i­ng and water­ing flow­ers under the watch­ful gaze of teacher Hana­da (Mame Yamada).

This act of nur­tur­ing a liv­ing thing to full bloom, while observ­ing the plants that are too dry to flower, is an obvi­ous metaphor for the boys’ own, some­times stunt­ed process­es of matur­ing. For all these young men are equal­ly ridicu­lous, pathet­ic and beau­ti­ful in their rebel­lious quest for self-def­i­n­i­tion, even as, in one way or anoth­er, they all release their grip on child­ish things.

Absurd, melan­cholic and vio­lent. But with the vio­lence pre­sent­ed oblique­ly, and off-screen – unlike in the much more graph­ic Crows series which it has obvi­ous­ly influ­enced, and whose third instal­ment Toy­o­da him­self direct­ed in 2014 – the punk­ish Blue Spring shows male com­ing of age not just in all its com­pet­i­tive bel­liger­ence, but also in its bore­dom, its direc­tion­less and its dis­en­chant­ed res­ig­na­tion. In the end, only some of the kids will be alright.

But Toyoda’s film per­fect­ly cap­tures youth’s fleet­ing yet hes­i­tant spring­time and sets it to a vibrant rock and blues score. Toy­o­da is still mak­ing films today (although they rarely if ever screen in the UK). So if you have nev­er heard of him, and are look­ing for your new favourite con­tem­po­rary Japan­ese direc­tor, catch Toy­o­da in ear­ly bloom with Blue Spring.

Blue Spring is released by Third Win­dow in a Dual-For­mat Blu-ray/D­VD edi­tion on 13 May. Toshi­a­ki Toy­o­da: The Ear­ly Years (Pornos­tar, Unchain, 9 Souls) is avail­able in a lim­it­ed edi­tion Blu-ray set via Third Win­dow.