Drowning Love

"At that time, I was still 15 years old,

believing I could know everything,

believing I could obtain everything,

believing I could offer everything to him,

and that I alone had the right to laugh it all off together."

Director Yuki Yamato, who directed this film, stated in an interview 10 years ago,
"I depicted two people destined for each other, but I did not intend to depict a fated love."

Kou and Natsume are certainly fated.
However, Natsume has a tendency to not forgive Kou for being an 'ordinary boy' in some way.

I want Kou-chan to be special.
I want him to be strong.
Kou-chan is my god.

I accepted the offer for the photo book because I wanted to beat that girl.

In the eyes of Natsume, who said that, it seemed as if the flames surrounding Kou, rather than the lens, were flickering like a mirage.

In the end, Natsume can only see Kou.

I have loved this film since it was released and have watched it countless times.

For Natsume, who worked as a model in Tokyo, the rural town of Ukigumo is nothing but boring, and she feels suffocated every single day. She is a girl who can only breathe in front of a camera.

Since meeting Ko in the forbidden sea, Natsume seems less like a girl in love and more like a baby excited to have found a fun new toy.

Boredom drives people mad, and
being eager for stimulation drives them even madder.

I, too, am prone to feeling bored, and I have yet to learn to love it.

Trust and the presence of responsible adults do not provide stimulation. However, I have recently begun to develop a sensibility that I did not possess when this film was first released.

Natsume is a girl who defines stimulation as fated love and a fated encounter.

I, too, expected that a moment would come—not just in romance, but in life—where my own life would be transformed by some dazzling flash of light.

However, the moment I, now 27, decided to define something as the most valuable thing in my life, it was not a flash, but a steady, quiet warmth that stood by my side, unchanging.

Would my teenage self be disappointed, wondering if there was nothing that changed things dramatically?

But if I could tell my younger self anything, it would be that the emotions you have yet to experience are unknown and worth exploring, and that it is perfectly fine for things to be that way.

The experience of realizing that something which had always been there was actually precious was far more sudden than any flash of light or bolt of lightning.

An event at 27 years and 5 months old.