Unlike French cinema’s intellectual love or Italian cinema’s physical passion, Japanese romance finds ecstasy in the mundane. In Tony Takitani (2004), a man falls in love with a woman who has a compulsive shopping addiction. Their relationship is defined not by dates, but by the silence of a walk-in closet. In Like Father, Like Son (2013), the romantic subplot is about a wife holding a family together while the husband learns to be a father.

Historically, Japanese cinema avoided explicit LGBTQ+ romance in mainstream theaters, but recent years have changed that.

Shunji Iwai Relationship Vibe: Ghostly longing & mistaken identity.