Life is Politics!

It's never too soon to start plotting how to rule the world. We catch up with such an ambitious young man in high school in 2017's Teiichi: Battle of Supreme High (帝一の國, "Teiichi's Country"). A screwball comedy with just a pinch of genuine pathos, it's mostly about pretty boys being silly. Which is certainly a worthy enough subject, as legions of Japanese girls may tell you.

The quick cutting and cartoonishly exaggerated mannerisms will remind the viewer slightly of Amelie but this kind of live action cartoon isn't so groundbreaking in Japan as Amelie was in the west. We meet Teiichi as a young boy whose passion is for piano until his father, lost in the ecstasy of delivering corporal punishment, accidentally drops his son's head onto the piano keys.

This sounds like a serious episode but the filmmaking style places an ironic distance between us and the violence. It's more like watching puppies gnaw on each other's ears than human domestic violence.

Flash forward ten years and Teiichi (Masaki Suda) is entering the prestigious Kaitei High School. He wants to be prime minister of Japan. To do that, he needs to get on the council of ministers. To do that, he needs to get on the student council of Kaitei High. To do that, he has to be a class monitor. The first step in Teiichi's political career is to support an upper-classman's campaign for student council, and he chooses the suave and conspicuously artificial Roland Himuro (Shotaro Mamiya).

Naturally there's a scene where all the boys, wearing nothing but thongs (fundoshi, traditional Japanese underwear), play drums for an audience with fierce, earnest expressions.

But it's not all titillation, a lot of it is genuinely funny and sweet. I liked a scene where Teiichi, depressed in his bedroom, repeatedly has his door broken down by his friends.

There's also a very small and sweet romantic subplot between Teiichi and a girl played by Mei Nagano. The two cutely keep touch with each other via cup phones.

Teiichi: Battle of Supreme High is available on Netflix in Japan.

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