Tori Girl (2017 Japanese Movie)

Tori Girl or Tori Garu is a Tao Tsuchiya film.

If a Japanese movie has Tao in it then I am watching it.  She is such a good and likable actress.

The only problem with this film is that I had to watch this without subtitles as the English sub has not been released yet.  🙁 🙁 🙁

Anyway, here goes…

Main Cast:

• Tsuchiya Tao as Yukina Toriyama
• Mamiya Shotaro as Taishi Sakaba
• Takasugi Mahiro as Kei Takahashi

 

I just finished watching the film and although I did not understand a word, I found it most exciting and compeling.  I was on edge especially the last 10 minutes of the  film when the rally finally took place.

The story is about a Birdman rally, which I know originated in a Selsey resort in England in 1971.  Bognor Regis is now the new home of this annual international summer competition attended my people around the world bringing with them their ingenious designs, each trying to go against the natural law of physics.

The idea was to be a ‘birdman’ and glide for at least 50m on air through sheer human powered flying machine a la Leonardo da Vinci design.

Yukina has just started at the University of Science, which she found rather underwhelming, especially with the lack of eye candy, until she met Kei.

She thought she saw him cycling before and she really liked him.  He was a handsome and charismatic young man who recruited her and her friend to join the Team Birdman Trial.  As soon as she saw him, it was more or less a foregone conclusion that she joins.

The first time she went into their club house, she was overwhelmed with the numbers of geeky guys, who were mostly sporting a pudding bowl haircut, in one place.  Again she started to have second thought about joining but Kei was there.

Yukina was a bit of a tomboy.  She can do boyish things if she puts her mind to it.  She can cycle like the best of them, she can also run and outshout anyone.

All was going smoothly until Kei introduced her to another member of the team, Taishi.  He was a guy straight from manga.  With sharp unruly hair who shouts rather than talk.  He is also rather anti-social to boot.  But he loves reading manga the girly type and listening to bubblegum music of girl group.  I love his characters, it is well developed.  He shouts and rants and rather crude at times but he has a heart of gold.

He was a brilliant cyclist, faster and with more stamina than Kei.

It was agreed that Kei and Taishi will be the participants for the Birdman rally representing the team.

On the trial run, everything started well but after a couple of minutes, the flying machine crashed, which left Kei with a broken leg.

Everyone was upset, in a doldrum, thinking that it was all over for the team.

Yukina convinced Taishi and the team that she can be a substitute as long as they train her.

After an intensive and extensive training, Yukina and Taishi flew the flying machine, cycling their way across the river.  Everybody was rejoicing as the machine continued on air for an impressive amount of time.

Here where it got complicated for me.  As I don’t understand Japanese, I don’t know whether Taishi confessed to Yukina or Yukina confessed to Taishi.  Or if they confessed to each other at all!  🙂 🙂 🙂  She did find out the boy she saw cycling the first time she went to the university was in fact Taishi rather Kei.

It ended with all of them happy and hugging.

It is a lovely story with or without subtitles.  Enjoyed it thoroughly.

---

Update:

Just watched the subbed movie.

Taishi did confessed to Yukina mid-air.  He told her he loved her again and again and live on tv as well.  But the naughty Yukina said she was not interested with him as he was not her type.  🙂 🙂 🙂  The audience were shocked of Taishi being dumped literally on air.  LOL

As a mini-revenge, Taishi told Yukina that Kei is dating the plain four eyed girl he was with him on the boat below following them.

That was hilarious!