Till We Meet Again on the Lily Hill

Yoichi Narita's 2023 Japanese film follows Yuri, a high school student who runs away from home. When she opens her eyes she is in 1945, and she meets Akira, a young pilot assigned to a suicide attack unit. The film sets the two times side by side. Yuri knows the future and cannot change it; the narrative is not about how the war is told but about young people being sent to die. It is adapted from a novel written for young readers, and that is its audience. The tone is close to melodrama and the emotional emphasis is open. The military order itself is not put in question. Who it's for: those who like Japanese youth melodrama and time-travel stories. Who it's not for: viewers expecting the political responsibility for the war to be addressed; the film does not enter that argument.