These films appeal to viewers regardless of their own perspective since they strike a mix of emotional sensitivity and exquisite images.
Japanese BL emphasises the emotional connection between characters so that spectators may sink themselves into the romance, unlike Western LGBTQ+ films with their social struggle focus.
In This Article
Egoist (エゴイスト) (2022)
Country: Japan
Release Year: 2022
Runtime: 120 minutes
Genre: Drama, Romance, LGBTQ+
Where to Watch: Netflix Japan, MUBI, International Film Festivals
Plot Summary: After losing his mother at fourteen, Koosuke starts working as a Tokyo fashion editor wearing beautiful clothes as emotional armour. Koosuke at last lets his defences down and finds real love when he meets Ryuta, a guy ignorant of his own attractiveness. Still one issue: is this love real, or only self-gratification?
Review: “Egoist” creates a love tale in which sexuality isn’t the main focus, therefore subverting LGBTQ+ movie norms. Director Daishi Matsunaga crafts a story so universal that changing the male leads with a heterosexual couple wouldn’t affect its emotional impact.
The film’s arresting images alternate between Tokyo’s urban grace and private moments catching minute emotional changes. The subdued performance of Suzuki Ryohei exactly balances Miyazawa Hio’s inherent appeal.
Though it’s a meditation on vulnerability and if actual selflessness can exist in relationship, what connects most is not a narrative about gay love. This intellectual profundity helps “Egoist” to transcend basic classification into something really meaningful.
Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence (戦場のメリークリスマス) (1983)
Country: Japan, UK
Release Year: 1983
Runtime: 123 minutes
Genre: War, Drama, Historical
Where to Watch: Criterion Channel, Amazon Prime
Plot Summary: Commander Captain Yonoi develops unusual attraction for imprisoned British officer Major Jack Celliers in a 1942 Japanese POW camp. Although cruel Sergeant Hara punishes inmates, particularly those with gay inclinations, the refined Yonoi is enthralled with Celliers’ resistance and attractiveness. Their illicit attraction acts against a backdrop of war, ethnic diversity, and the struggle between obligation and want.
Review: Examining East-West cultural issues through repressed desire, Nagisa Oshima’s masterwork goes beyond mere “gay film” description. The movie controversally proposes that rather than nature, wartime solitude encouraged gay behaviour by circumstance.
The eerie score of Ryuichi Sakamoto has become to be as legendary as the movie itself. David Bowie’s casting is excellent; his unearthly charm exactly catches the “otherness” that intrigues Yonoi.
The movie explores more general issues of nationalism and cultural expressions of feeling by means of homoeroticism. Lawrence’s observation that “Japanese are an anxious people” who “can’t act alone” strikes a strong comment on collectivist rather than individualistic society that goes much beyond its wartime backdrop.
Rage (怒り) (2016)
Country: Japan
Release Year: 2016
Runtime: 142 minutes
Genre: Mystery, Drama, Thriller
Where to Watch: Netflix Japan, Asian streaming services
Plot Summary: Three enigmatic individuals show up in different parts of Japan following a Tokyo double murder where the culprit writes “rage” in blood. Returning to her father in a coastal town, a disturbed young woman encounters the silent Tetsuya. Despite his doubts, gay man Yuma grows close to the mysterious Naoto in Tokyo. Teenager Izumi meets drifter Tanaka on an Okinawan island. Every community faces their concerns about the outsiders among them as a national manhunt moves on.
Review: Lee Sang-il creates a strong tapestry on trust and prejudice from three separate stories. Though advertised as a thriller, “Rage” is actually a reflection on how terror erodes personal relationships.
The way the movie handles its gay plot marks fresh territory in Japanese movies. The connection between Yuma and Naoto is one of three equal narrative threads examining universal trust concerns, not exotic or sad. Their sexuality guides but never defines their personalities.
Through its three settings—coastal town, Tokyo’s gay community, and Okinawa—the film presents a remarkable cross-section of Japanese society. Every place creates unique emotional resonance and visual character.
Although the Okinawan plot provides the most fulfilling ending, all three stories gently question audience expectations in intelligent ways that go across cultural boundaries.
My Beautiful Man: Eternal (劇場版 美しい彼〜eternal〜) (2023)
Country: Japan
Release Year: 2023
Runtime: 108 minutes
Genre: Romance, Drama, Coming-of-age
Where to Watch: Japanese theaters, Festival circuit
Plot Summary: Quiet loner Hira becomes hopelessly in love with Kiyoi, the attractive “king” of their university. Following challenges to be a couple, they start cohabiting peacefully. Hira begins working as a photographer’s assistant as they approach university graduation while Kiyoi becomes known as an actress. Hira distances them so as not to impede Kiyoi’s profession. Their basic quarrel is Hira sees Kiyoi as a god to be worshipped, while Kiyoi just wants them to be regular lovers—a gulf they try to close.
Review: Overcoming various genre restrictions, this movie carries on the popular BL drama series, raising television content to cinematic standards. To investigate interpersonal power dynamics, Director Shiraki Shinzo compares the entertainment business with the realm of artistic photography.
While Yagi Yusei gives startling depth to what could have been just a “beautiful object,” Hagiwara Riku adds subtle complexity as Hira, whose admiration approaches unhealthy obsession.
The film’s power is in showing how much as clear mistreatment may harm relationships, pedestals and adulation can also do. Emphasising this universal dynamic helps one to connect regardless of sexual orientation.
Though there are sporadic dramatic elements, “My Beautiful Man: Eternal” is a grown-up analysis of what it means to really see someone beyond idealization—and be truthfully seen in return.
The Lady Shogun and Her Men (大奥) (2010)
Country: Japan
Release Year: 2010
Runtime: 126 minutes
Genre: Historical Drama, Alternative History, Romance
Where to Watch: Amazon, Japanese DVD imports, YouTube
Plot Summary: A sickness known as “Red Face Pox” has devastated the male population in an other Edo-period Japan, hence negating gender roles. To help his underprivileged family, nineteen-year-old samurai Yunoshin Mizuno leaves his childhood sweetheart to serve in the Ooku, the shogun’s inner chamber. Men today are uncommon and valuable, hence the Ooku has evolved into a male harem where attractive men fight for favour and power. When new female Shogun Yoshimune shows in, the male courtiers start fresh waves of curiosity and conflict.
Review: This gender-flipped Edo period drama deftly remarks on power relations in both historical and present Japanese culture based on Fumi Yoshinaga’s manga. From costly costumes to painstakingly created sets, the extravagant production design faithfully captures the court of the shogun.
Navigating a society where masculine beauty has become cash, Ninomiya Kazunari gives Yunoshin amazing complexity. Director Kaneko Fuminori strikes a mix of humour from gender role reversal and sober investigation of how power corrupts whatever its wielders are.
Though the idea could have been a straightforward “what if” scenario performed for laughter, the movie offers a careful analysis on how social systems ensnare people of either gender and how privilege functions even in cases when conventional hierarchies are reversed.
Monster (怪物) (2023)
Country: Japan
Release Year: 2023
Runtime: 126 minutes
Genre: Drama, Mystery
Where to Watch: Hulu Japan, International Film Festivals, Amazon
Plot Summary: When Minato, Saori’s quiet, mature-beyond-his-years kid starts acting oddly, widowed mother Saori worries. Saori addresses the school when Minato says his teacher Mr. Hori is tormenting him, only to get mixed reactions and covert discrimination over her single-mother background. Saori starts to find her son has a secret side at school as hostilities rise. Another lad, Yori, starts to take front stage in the developing mystery.
Review: Under what first looks to be a school bullying thriller, Kore-eda’s “Monster” deftly hides an LGBT coming-of- age narrative. The movie’s twin Cannes (Best Screenplay and Queer Palm) prize honours its careful treatment of young LGBTQ+ identity.
The “Rashomon”-like framework reveals important events from three angles, therefore highlighting how misunderstandings grow when one views events via limited vantage points—perfect for showing the difficulty of identifying LGBT experiences in childhood.
While Ando Sakura shines as a mother whose protectiveness blinds her to her son’s reality, the amazing young performers capture pre-teen emotional complexity with incredible accuracy, thereby serving the emotional centre of the picture.
Unlike earlier films examining young same-sex attraction, Kore-eda incorporates this idea within a more general study of how adults project their fears onto the behaviour of children, therefore ignoring what’s really happening in their inner worlds.
Close-Knit (彼らが本気で編むときは、) (2017)
Country: Japan
Release Year: 2017
Runtime: 127 minutes
Genre: Drama, Family
Where to Watch: Netflix, YouTube, Amazon
Plot Summary: Young Tomo shares a house with her erratic mother who regularly disappears with other men. Tomo runs to her uncle Makio when her mother disappears once more and leaves just grocery money. She meets Rinko, Makio’s live-in partner, a transgender woman who offers the mother warmth she has always wanted even though Tomo first shocks her. Tomo discovers the security she longs for as the three create an unusual but loving family; until her mother unexpectedly comes back to take custody.
Review: Emphasising acceptance above rejection or trauma, Naoko Ogigami’s delicate drama handles transgender concerns with amazing sensitivity. The way family dynamics are handled here feels both aspirational and really Japanese.
Ikuta Toma’s portrayal of Rinko avoids stereotypes; her transsexual identity matters but does not define her. Emphasising Rinko’s caring quality and knitting prowess equally with her gender trip, the film Perfect metaphor for how families might be created instead being inherited is knitting.
Handcrafted knitted breasts, which neatly link transgender identity with the film’s examination of what constitutes real parenting, reflect mother love.
“Close-Knit” defends transgender rights by means of sincere storytelling rather than overt messaging, a novel method in Japanese LGBTQ+ film, by rejecting to centre society biases but nevertheless admitting them.
The Cornered Mouse Dreams of Cheese (窮鼠はチーズの夢を見る) (2020)
Country: Japan
Release Year: 2020
Runtime: 130 minutes
Genre: Romance, Drama
Where to Watch: Asia-focused streaming platforms, Festival circuit
Plot Summary: Kyoichi Otomo wanders through passive relationships with women, often cheating from indecision. After seven years, his college junior Imagase—now employed by Kyoichi’s wife—appears in his life and offers an unexpected offer: he will hide Kyoichi’s indiscretions in return for sexual intimacy. The usually indifferent Kyoichi first feels the painful intensity of true love as Imagase relentlessly pursues him.
Review: “The Cornered Mouse Dreams of Cheese” transcends easy classification as an erotic film despite its R15+ rating. Setona Mizushiro’s manga is turned by director Isao Yukisada into a sophisticated adult romance emphasising emotional vulnerability instead of physical closeness.
The film shines in capturing Kyoichi’s inner trip and exploring how real love drives confrontation with tendencies of emotional avoidance. Ohkura Tadayoshi gives this character analysis great subtlety, which helps to explain his resistance and metamorphosis as whole.
The chemistry among the leads generates history and obvious conflict. Narita Ryo keeps Imagase from being predatory by deftly preserving sensitivity under his assured exterior.
After a lifetime of emotional avoidance, the film presents a mature analysis of desire that resonates globally—capturing the terrible vulnerability of giving oneself to another—alternating clean closure for emotional complexity.
Beneath the Shadow (影裏) (2019)
Country: Japan
Release Year: 2019
Runtime: 114 minutes
Genre: Drama, Mystery, Post-disaster
Where to Watch: Asian film festivals, Japanese DVD imports
Plot Summary: Inspired by Mayusuki Shumata’s Akutagawa Prize-winning book, the film chronicles Konno Shuichi’s apparently normal life and his obsession with enigmatic colleague Hiasa, whose reclusive behaviour and erratic location generate an always changing relationship. Konno loses all touch with Hiasa during the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami and starts looking to find out whether he survived. As Konno investigates Hiasa’s relationships, he discovers sinister, unseen facets of his life that drastically alter his view of who Hiasa truly was.
Review: Director Tatsushi Omori deftly explores connection in post-disaster Japan in a subduedly tragic manner. “Beneath the Shadow” is especially remarkable since it allows neither classification to oversimplify its narrative, therefore functioning as “post-3.11 literature” and as LGBT film simultaneously.
The movie keeps a careful uncertainty regarding the precise basis of Konno’s obsession with Hiasa—is it romantic attraction, or just the human need to really know another person? This ambiguity reflects the post-disaster national spirit of Japan, in which earlier certainties vanished into more flexible questions about identity and connection.
Scholars have pointed out that Shumata’s book receiving the esteemed Akutagawa Prize marked the beginning of “earthquake literature” as a separate genre in Japanese criticism. The movie adaptation keeps the subtle connection between personal and national trauma—how events expose what lurks beneath our well crafted surfaces.
By use of careful timing and subdued acting, the movie generates an emotional aftershock that persists well beyond actual destruction. Like the best post-disaster stories, it implies that understanding what remains and what has been irreversibly transformed may be more vital than regaining what was lost.
Taboo (御法度) (1999)
Country: Japan, France, UK
Release Year: 1999
Runtime: 100 minutes
Genre: Historical Drama, Psychological Thriller
Where to Watch: Criterion Channel, Kanopy
Plot Summary: Beautiful young Kano and lower-ranking samurai Tashiro are enlisted by elite Shinsengumi samurai force Kyoto in 1865. While Kano keeps dubious ties with other members, rumours abound that they are lovers. When murders happen, commanders suspect Tashiro. Actually, the mysterious Kano, whose beauty has sent the whole disciplined warrior group into anarchy, planned these executions.
Review: With relentless intensity, director Nagisa Oshima’s last feature film examines the homoerotic undercurrents of samurai culture. Though the historical context of the movie could point to a conventional period piece, “Taboo” is more of a psychological thriller looking at how desire disturbs hierarchical power relations.
Oshima said in interviews that his idea stemmed from considering the emotional ties that develop inside tight communities: “Having witnessed the joys and sorrows of human combination, witnessing the formation and dispersal of groups… The drive to establish a group mimics sensuality. Beyond common values, love is what finally ties people together.”
One of the most unforgettable cinematic performances ever is still Ryuhei Matsuda’s as the androgynously beautiful Kano. Speaking nothing, his presence creates a gravitational pull that throws off the strict samurai order, therefore reflecting the core thesis of the film—that desire is essentially revolutionary.
The stoic commander of Takeshi Kitano stands for order continuously threatened by the turbulent force of desire. The movie contends that all collectives—from military formations to creative movements to political groups—are finally joined together and split apart not by doctrine but by the erratic currents of human love, hence rendering “Taboo” as much a political film as a sexual one.
Let Me Hear It Barefoot (裸足で鳴らしてみせろ) (2021)
Country: Japan
Release Year: 2021
Runtime: 130 minutes
Genre: Drama, Coming-of-age
Where to Watch: International film festivals, Asian streaming platforms
Plot Summary: Naoki and Maki start recording “sounds from around the world” for Maki’s blind foster mother, who dreams of travel but suffers terminal illness. The young guys get drawn to each other as they work together but lack emotional vocabulary to communicate it, so they simply engage in increasingly aggressive roughhousing that results in injuries beyond bodily.
Review: The delicate quality of director Riho Kudo addresses the difficulty of capturing love devoid of the ability to articulate itself. The primary metaphor of building synthetic “sounds of the world” exactly matches how the protagonists try to create emotional authenticity without appropriate models or words.
With great realism, the movie catches a certain type of male emotional constipation. The protagonists can only express their developing attraction by progressively violent roughhousing—physical contact masked as usual male bonding that lets them touch without asking why they need to. Some of the most moving scenes in the movie are created by this physicality, when anger and sensitivity blur.
Many viewers will be familiar with Naoki’s character’s adolescent experiences—the frustration of realising emotions without the emotional resources to handle them leading to self-sabotage and misplaced hostility. The acting brilliantly catches this paradox, which helps to explain even Naoki’s most unpleasant times.
“Let Me Hear It Barefoot” reflects the reality that loving someone does not always provide the emotional wisdom to cultivate that relationship, hence it presents no simple solutions. The film’s mixed tone recognises that many young men find their deepest connections unrealised possibilities rather than experienced experiences since they are unable to adequately show affection.
Pornographer the Movie: Playback (劇場版ポルノグラファー～プレイバック～) (2021)
Country: Japan
Release Year: 2021
Runtime: 110 minutes
Genre: Romance, Drama
Where to Watch: Asian streaming platforms, DVD imports
Plot Summary: Erotic novelist Kijima and editor Kusumi have strong feelings for one another but emotional distance has been caused by misunderstandings. Both must choose whether a shared future is feasible or whether their relationship—like many in Kijima’s books—is destined for a bittersweet ending as they battle inner conflicts and communication barriers.
Review: “Pornographer the Movie: Playback” transforms what started as a niche drama into an unexpectedly complex meditation on artistic partnership and emotional vulnerability, as the last chapter to a popular BL (Boys’ Love) series. This movie develops a more confident, mature voice while the previous ones occasionally followed genre rules.
Focussing more on the psychological qualities of the key connection than its physical dimensions, director Kaneko Katsuya approaches the material with restraint and sensitivity. This change in focus lets the movie investigate how artistic people’s work and personal relationships always entwine and influence each other, sometimes corrupting the other.
The way Takezai Terunosuke portrays the emotionally reserved writer Kijima presents a striking picture of an artist whose professional inquiry of desire contrasts with his personal inability to communicate his own desires. The path the character travels towards emotional integrity matches his development as a writer.
Though “Mood Indigo” (the second book) is still the critical favourite among the trilogy, “Playback” offers the most fulfilling ending for the characters. The movie succeeds in addressing its principal connection with the same seriousness and complexity that would be given a heterosexual romance, therefore producing a love story that transcends its genre beginnings.
Ossan’s Love (おっさんずラブ) (2016)
Country: Japan
Release Year: 2016
Runtime: 72 minutes (special episode)
Genre: Romantic Comedy
Where to Watch: TV Tokyo, International streaming with Japanese dramas
Plot Summary: Domestically passive bachelor Haruta depends on his flatmate Maki for everything. His relaxed schedule is destroyed when he learns his middle-aged employer Kurosawa has been surreptitiously gathering his pictures. Maki also declares his love before handling this revelation. Self-described “busty lolita housewife,” Haruta discovers he at the centre of an unplanned gay love triangle.
Review: What started out as a special episode would later become among the most watched LGBTQ+ love comedies in Japan. By putting a straight protagonist at the centre of same-sex romantic aspirations, “Ossan’s Love” brilliantly subverts BL clichés and generates comedy from his astonishment rather than from queerness itself.
The deft screenplay puts 33-year-old Haruta in love focus from both his 25-year-old flatmate Maki and his 55-year-old boss Kurosawa, therefore establishing two different relationship dynamics that complement each other thematically. Haruta, a self-described “busty lolita housewife,” is forced to reevaluate not only his sexuality but his whole attitude to relationships after confronting male suitors.
“Ossan’s Love” succeeds by avoiding typical BL mistakes including non-consensual approaches or power imbalance exploitation. Rather, it finds comedy in universal romantic awkwardness while honouring its homosexual protagonists. The outcome is a show appealing to viewers outside of usual BL ones.
The performances find the ideal mix between emotional realism and comic exaggeration. Though his lovesick boss may easily fit a stereotype, Yoshida Kotaro’s sentiments are endearingly honest instead. Popularity of the special episode resulted in a complete series, feature film, and spin-offs, therefore securing its reputation as a landmark in mainstream Japanese LGBTQ+ representation.
Funeral Parade of Roses (薔薇の葬列) (1969)
Country: Japan
Release Year: 1969
Runtime: 105 minutes
Genre: Avant-garde, Drama, Experimental
Where to Watch: Criterion Channel, Janus Films, Amazon
Plot Summary: While under conflict with the manager, Eddie, a transgender hostess in a Tokyo nightclub, has an affair with the owner. Flashbacks expose Eddie’s horrific upbringing and possessive attitudes towards his mother that became violent. Tragic events ensue as pictures show a startling relationship between the owner’s choice Eddie over the management, inspiring a terrible ending modelled by Greek tragedy.
Review: Over five decades after its debut, Toshio Matsumoto’s ground-breaking film still shocks and questions spectators. The film would be important just as a formal experiment with its experimental methods—flashbacks, reverse negatives, overexposures, slide projections, symbolic images, fast-motion long takes, and changes in classical music. Still, its investigation of Tokyo’s underground gay and transgender society makes it a monument in queer film.
With its artistic audacity, the movie notably inspired Stanley Kubrick’s “A Clockwork Orange”. Matsumoto’s method combines the sophisticated accuracy of art cinema with documentary-like rawness to produce an unexpected fusion that reflects the film’s thematic merging of high culture and underground life, beauty and violence.
“Funeral Parade of Roses” suggests universal human patterns playing out in underprivileged communities by masterfully incorporating aspects of Greek tragedy (especially the Oedipus myth) into its representation of Tokyo’s LGBT underground. Among the film’s transgender characters, Peter expresses this transcending quality: “I am a wound and a sword, a victim and an executioner.”
Beyond its technical mastery and cultural relevance, the film’s relentless portrayal of the protagonist’s psychological trip makes it still profoundly moving. It is imperative viewing for appreciating the development of LGBTQ+ film since it achieves a multifaceted humanity hardly seen in representations of sexual minorities from this age by refusing to either praise or criticise its protagonists.
A Touch of Fever (二十才の微熱) (1993)
Country: Japan
Release Year: 1993
Runtime: 114 minutes
Genre: Drama, Coming-of-age
Where to Watch: Rare screenings, Japanese DVD imports, YouTube
Plot Summary: Shinichiro, a high school student, falls in love with College student Tatsumi from a gay bar. Tatsumi shields Shinichiro from harassment even though he works there just for money and is not gay. Tatsumi’s classmate starts to feel something for him as another girl plans to bring Shinichiro and Tatsumi together. Four people negotiating identity and connection find a bittersweet web of young longing created by their intertwining needs.
Review: The first movie of director Ryosuke Hashiguchi revealed a unique new voice in Japanese film that would subsequently be known globally with films like ‘Hush!’ Seeing “A Touch of Fever” today, one can already discern Hashiguchi’s trademarks—that which would evolve in his later works: the intentional placement of odd coincidences, children’s melodies used to punctuate emotional events, and little recurring gestures exposing character psychology.
The English title of the movie—”A Touch of Fever”— brilliantly catches its core. Twenty is indeed a time of little feverishness, when feelings flow strong and life decisions become of great weight. Young individuals jump right into relationships and circumstances, only seeing the suffering they have caused others and themselves later.
The emotional relationships among the characters are shockingly subtle. Instead of concentrating just on unmet gay love, the movie builds a complicated picture.
Hush! (ハッシュ!) (2001)
Country: Japan
Release Year: 2001
Runtime: 135 minutes
Genre: Drama, Family
Where to Watch: Asian film festivals, Japanese DVD imports
Plot Summary: Challenging their comfy Tokyo schedule, meticulous lawyer Shiro and his hairstylist friend Kenji travel to Kyoto. When beautiful young Tabuchi starts working for Kenji’s salon, their relationship suffers. Both men discover fresh means of communicating emotions and reaffirming their dedication in this sophisticated study of established love as they negotiate this obstacle and explore Kyoto’s gastronomic treasures.
Review: Among the best Japanese LGBTQ+ films ever produced, Ryosuke Hashiguchi’s “Hush!” is With sun-drenched images and lifelike performances, it offers a startlingly advanced study of alternate family forms that feels very modern even by today’s standards.
Unlike what viewers may think, the movie does not follow the three heroes into a battle narrative. somewhat, their relationship stays somewhat harmonic; the real conflict arises from society and biological family members who try to force conventional wisdom on their decisions. This strategy lets Hashiguchi investigate the more general question of how social conditioning and blood ties shape our definition of family.
The movie looks at not only homosexuality but also the nuanced interaction among sexuality, blood ties, and chosen relationships. By setting its characters in particular family histories, Hashiguchi positions their challenges within Japanese society rather than in a utopian void.
“Hush!” achieves something unusual with its depth, honesty, and bright visual aesthetic: it’s a film about alternate family forms that seems really hopeful without becoming cloying or simplified. By depicting same-sex relationships with the same complexity and nuance allowed of heterosexual ones, it marks a significant turning point in Japanese gay film.
Maison de Himiko (彩虹老人院) (2005)
Country: Japan
Release Year: 2005
Runtime: 132 minutes
Genre: Drama, Family
Where to Watch: Japanese DVD imports, Asian film festivals, Amazon
Plot Summary: Saori hates her father Himiko for leaving her family years ago. Reluctantly, Saori takes a work at the nursing home where her ailing father resides—a place for old gay men—after her mother passes away leaving debts. Beginning a road that changes her view of family and same-sex relationships, she finds the attractive young man who brought her there is actually her father’s current partner.
Review: Using the unusual backdrop of a gay elderly care facility to examine issues of reconciliation and chosen family, director Isshin Inudo crafts a film that is sad but finally life-affirming. The picture keeps a careful mix between poignancy and light humour despite its major topic.
As Saori, Shibasaki Kou gives a subtle performance that captures the emotional essence of the movie—that which results from hatred to understanding. Reminding audiences of the special difficulties experienced by Japan’s older LGBTQ+ population who lived much of their life in the closet, the silver-haired ensemble of elderly gay characters offers depth and historical background.
Originally titled “Mezon do Himiko” (Maison de Himiko), the Japanese historical figure Himiko—a shaman queen—is subtly referenced in the movie, therefore tying in with its themes of change and unorthodox leadership. Western translators rightly called it “Rainbow Retirement Home” to reflect its distinctive location.
Although some viewers would find some parts melodramatic, the movie presents a rare and important representation of LGBTQ+ aging—a subject hardly covered in movies. “Maison de Himiko” offers a more whole picture of the range of LGBTQ+ experiences by emphasising the last chapter of a gay man’s life rather than its commencement.
What Did You Eat Yesterday? (昨日の美食 電影版) (2021)
Country: Japan
Release Year: 2021
Runtime: 126 minutes
Genre: Slice of Life, Romance, Food
Where to Watch: Netflix Japan, Asian streaming platforms, Comic, Amazon
Plot Summary: When disturbed young woman Asako suggests bearing Katsuhiro’s baby and forming a three-person family, gay couple Katsuhiro and Naoya’s quiet lives is thrown off. Although free-spirited Katsuhiro finds interesting, pragmatic Naoya items irritate him. Katsuhiro’s family’s outside criticism drives the trio to clarify what family means to them and whether they would follow their unusual route in front of social expectations.
Review: Unlike most LGBTQ+ films that centre on coming out or relationship beginnings, “What Did You Eat Yesterday?” honours the peaceful beauty of known love. Director Toda Akira creates a sophisticated depiction of middle-aged gay domesticity in which the key issues emerge from universal interpersonal challenges including communication difficulties and insecurity rather than from sexuality.
The slow tempo of the movie and its amazing food photography produce nearly meditative effect. Every meticulously made meal becomes a metaphor for caring and loyalty as Shiro uses cooking to convey what he finds difficult to articulate with words. The real and lived-in chemistry of Nishijima and Uchida captures the easy rhythms of a couple who know each other profoundly.
The Kyoto trip removes the protagonists from their routines to expose fresh aspects of their relationship, therefore acting as the ideal narrative device. The film gently raises the daily love story of these common men to something approaching the holy by putting them against remarkable temple backgrounds and kaiseki feasts.
From early films like “A Touch of Fever” to more current hits like “My Beautiful Man,” Japanese BL films have provided a special venue for tales of male love.
Their appeal is in stressing the path two individuals discovering each other despite challenges and putting emotional ties over explicit material.
Many go beyond basic classification and combine aspects of family dramas and coming-of-age narratives to provide depths beyond the focal romance.
Selected for their outstanding quality and high ratings among both critics and viewers, this carefully chosen Japanese Gay Movie List includes eighteen Beautiful Stories of Male Romance and Connection. These films share the same emotional resonance and artistic quality as acclaimed Western counterparts that explore tender same-sex relationships and summer romances. If you enjoy these Japanese perspectives, you might also appreciate similar storytelling approaches in other international coming-of-age films that capture those fleeting moments of discovery and connection. These are exceptional movies by any definition, not alone great LGBTQ+ productions.