Given

Mafuyu is a high school student who always has a guitar and never plays it. It belonged to his boyfriend, who died, and the strings are broken. Ritsuka finds him replacing them and asks him to join the band. Mafuyu has told nobody that he can sing. The subject is not music but grief that cannot be spoken. Mafuyu has not talked to anyone for months and speaks for the first time on stage, which is why the first concert scene is not a performance but a confession. The form is calm and everyday: a rehearsal room, a school roof, train journeys. The song sequences are left unbroken and the animation is visibly more detailed in them. The production continues the television series of the same name and turns to two characters who stayed in the background there, the bassist Haruki and the drummer Akihiko. The source is Natsuki Kizu's manga. The series is regarded as one of the cases in which the genre of stories about relationships between men crossed into the mainstream in Japan, and taking the music seriously played a large part in that crossing. Hikaru Yamaguchi directs. Who it is for: viewers who like music anime and relationship stories built on grief. Who it is not for: anyone who has not seen the series; the film continues directly and introduces nobody.