Love, Chunibyo & Other Delusions! Take On Me

Yuuta and Rikka are in their final year of high school. They are together and Rikka still lives in the world she built; she never gave up the imagined order that began in her adolescence. In spring her sister Touka makes a decision: she will take Rikka with her to Italy. Rikka does not want to go. Nor does Yuuta. The two run. They set out and try to cross Japan from end to end; without money, without a plan, and with their friends after them. The journey begins as an escape and turns into a reckoning. Tatsuya Ishihara directs. Jun Fukuyama and Maaya Uchida are among the voices. The studio is Kyoto Animation. The film continues the television series of the same name; the series ran two seasons and this closes the story. The idea at its centre is known in Japanese as chunibyo, describing the imagined world built in adolescence that becomes a source of shame later. The narrative does not mock the condition; the imagined world serves a real function for Rikka and the film makes that plain. The imagined sections are drawn in a separate visual language and run through the real world. The road section builds a structure different from the series and brings a variety of places. Its limit is independence; without the series the characters' history stays incomplete. Another limit is length; the narrative is long and repeats in its middle stretch. Who it is for: followers of the series and viewers who like Kyoto Animation's work. Who it is not for: it is not an entry point, there is little event, and the humour repeats.