Just For Fun / A Youth Like This

"I get the feeling we'll someday look back fondly on these times when nothing happened"

A Youth Like This is an independent 20-minutes Japanese short film directed and writted by Tomoko Kuroki starring Asuka Katou, Yuri Tamura, Kotomi Komiyama and Hina Nemoto. It was presented as a Double Feature in the same function with the much more well-received "A Stupidcool Daily Life" for the Firefly Light Festival of the Harajuku Makuhari High School.

The Second Literature Club just discovered the Student Council is about to close them out of noting the Club doesn't really do any activities to justify their existence but they are given one last chance to conserve their club if they win them in a Baseball Game.

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A Youth Like This provides examples of :

• Acting for Two:
  • Emiri Ucchi plays three characters: two of the girls who reject joining the Literature Club and Echi, the Secretary of the Student Council.
  • Hikari Itou also plays one of the girls who reject joining the Literature Club and the Referee.
• Adam Westing: Hina Nemoto plays a more depraved version of herself.
• Ambiguous Situation: The movie never clarifies if the Student Council were really raping Kichida or if it was just a rumor.
• As You Know: The ending has all the main characters outright describing their assorted fates to one another, even though by all rights, they should be well-aware of them.
• Author Avatar: Tomoka Katou is a very obvious self-insert of Tomoko, the director and writer of the movie, up to having a similar hairstyle and being President of a small club that doesn't do anything of value besides having a good time in high school, which was one of her failed dreams.
• Awesomeness by Analysis: Shizue is capable of analyzing the speed and angle of Kichida's pitches, which allows her to mathematically predict where the ball will go and hit it perfectly.
  Sasayama: To think a beginner could hit one of Kichida's throws...it seems we'll have to take you more seriously.
  Shizue: That's the power of math!
• Babies Ever After: Tanaka is pregnant with Kichida's baby in the epilogue.
• Big Eater: Implied. Shizue noted how fast the rest of the Club ate the ramen and the Distant Finale has one of the girls mentioning the club spends more time eating that reading.
• Brutal Honesty: The Referee has no issue revealing she was bribed.
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: The epilogue doesn't mention what happened with the rest of the Student Council besides Kichida.
• Club Stub: The Literature Club consists of only four members. One of the conditions they have to meet to keep it afloat is to get at least five, at least one of whom must be a first year student. They find one in Shizue. At the end, it's down to three members, since Nemoto died and Glasses has apparently skipped a year and is heading off to a university, leaving it questionable how long it will be preserved.
• Cool Kid-and-Loser Friendship: Mari is very popular and social while the rest of the Literature Club is looked down by the rest of the students.
• Convenient Replacement Character: Shizue becomes the fourth member of the Literature Club after Nemoto dies
• The Danza: Tomoka Katou shares a surname with her actress Asuka Katou and Shizue Hirasawa has an almost identical name with Shizuku Hirasawa, who plays her.
• Deadpan Snarker: Glasses has a sarcastically dry remark for everything. Many characters in-universe complain about her constant retorts.
• Deceased Parents Are the Best: Implied. Shizue joins because Tomoka reminds her of her dead mother but the issue isn't touched again after she mentions it.
• Dick Dastardly Stops to Cheat: The Student Council are already much better than the Literature Club at baseball. That doesn't stop them from bribing the referee and using nunchucks in the game.
• Distant Finale: The final scene happens 6 months after the events of the main story by the time of the Graduation.
• Down to the Last Play: Tomoka takes up the bat while the Literature Club has two outs, bases loaded, and is tied with the Student Council, meaning that whatever she does will determine who wins the game. As it turns out, the Literature Club.
• Dumb Jock: Sasayama. She's described as having the strength and intellect of a gorilla.
  "So she's basically a gorilla."
• Easily Forgiven: No one holds a grudge against Kichida for killing Nemoto. In fact, Mari hooks up with her afterwards and has her baby.
• Eating Contest: Mari suggests having one instead of the Baseball match but her idea is discarded immediately.
• Esoteric Happy Ending: It ends with Mari getting pregnant while still in high school, Hina's dying, and Tomoka's repeating the year for lack of attendance. All of these are revealed while the characters are smiling and talking about what they should eat.
• Executive Meddling: Originally, the scene where Nemoto starts making lewd noices had her doing them on screen before a teacher deemed inapropiate for a school festival and asked it to be edited out, which is why in the movie proper the scene changes to scenes of landscapes.
• Extreme Doormat: All the members of the Second Literature Club besides Glasses put up no resistance to the posibility of their club closing.
• The Friend Nobody Likes:
  • Nemoto. No one appears to enjoy her company or the lewd sounds she makes while practicing her voice acting, going so far as to tell her to die after she goes through one extended session. Which might be why none of them are broken up about her death.
  • Kichida's only part of the Student Council because she's a notorious delinquent they want to keep a close eye on. And implicitly use as a sex slave.
• Forgotten Fallen Friend: Nemoto, her death is briefly mentioned and then everyone simply moves to a another subject.
• Graduate from the Story: Downplayed. Is mentioned in the Distant Finale that is Graduation time already but we don't actually see it happening and the characters were 2nd years so they were not gonna graduate anyway.
• Happiness in Slavery: Downplayed but despite her being forced as a sex slave and as a member of the council, Kichida doesn't seem to dislike being a part of the council.
• Hated by All: Besides Mari, all of the students seem to think rather poorly of the other members of the club which is why they had a hard time finding anyone willing to help them against the Student Council.
• The Heavy: Even though Sasayama is only the vice-president of the Student Council, which would make her The Dragon, she's a far more active antagonist than the actual president. She's the one who announces the shutdown of the Literature Club, gives them the ultimatum to beat the Student Council in a baseball game, and plays a meaner game.
• Hermaphrodite: Kichida has "both sets of equipment" and the male organs appear to be fully functional, which allows her to impregnate Mari.
• Idiot Hero: Tomoka's the president of the Literature Club, but she's not the brightest bulb. To wit, she calls a meeting to make an important announcement, forgets what said announcement was, and then just spends the bulk of it playing an old mobile game on her phone. It's only after she hears Nemoto's obscene sucking sounds that she remembers that the club is about to be shut down.
• Improbably Female Cast: Every character in the movie is female. There are no boys to be found anywhere, not in the Literature Club, not in the Student Council, and not even as extras. Mari is even impregnated by another girl, albeit one with "both sets of equipment".
• Informed Attribute:
  • Tomoka, Nemoto, Glasses and Mari are mentioned to be fast eaters by Shizue but in the previous Ramen scene the four girls are shown eating the ramen calmly.
  • The Student Council President is said to be extremelly intelligent and described as having an IQ of 150. We don't really see her say or do anything particulary intelligent.
• Informed Flaw: Mari isn't good at eating contests according to Glasses. However, she along with the other three core members of the club are shown to be incredibly fast eaters in the second ramen restaurant scene.
• Informed Loner: Tomoka is described as a gloomy and uncharismatic loner. However, she comes across as generally cheerful and optimistic, and was able to convince Shizue into joining the club after one conversation (immediately after the latter completely shut down Glasses), which implies the opposite of all those traits.
• Japanese Delinquents: Kichida is said to be a super delinquent who's only in the Student Council so that they can keep an eye on her. Though there are rumors they regularly sexually assault her too.
• Karma Houdini:
  • If it's true that the Student Council were constantly raping Kichida, then they completely escape any repercussions for doing it.
  • Kichida herself doesn't suffer any consequences for killing Nemoto.
• Killed Offscreen: Nemoto died in some point before the epilogue for the Dead Ball she got hit back in the baseball game
• Lame Comeback: Tomoka doesn't have the most spirited response to Sasayama's pre-game taunt.
  Sasayama: I'm impressed that you didn't run away.
  Tomoka: Ah, yeah.
  Glasses: You can give a better response than that.
• More Popular Spin-Off: "A Stupidcool Daily Life" was originally made as a complement to this movie but got a much better reception of the audience.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: The Student Council already had the power to close the Literature Club and no one in it was putting up any resistance in the first place. The club ends up staying in place because the Council allowed it to on the condition that its members beat them in a game of baseball.
• No Budget: The film was shot entirely with smartphone cameras and with a bunch of the director's friends and acquaintances for no pay.
• No Name Given: The girl with the glasses who is only refered like that or simply as Glasses.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: We don't see Tomoka hit the ball at the last play, but considering her team won the baseball game, it's implied that whatever she did was magnificent.
• Oh, and X Dies: Early on, the film pauses to inform the viewer that Nemoto would die for real. The end unceremoniously reveals she died offscreen from getting hit by a dead ball in the baseball game. None of her friends seem bothered by it.
• Offstage Villainy: The Student Council doesn't really do anything evil while they are on screen, they just wanted to close one club for very reasonable reasons and gave them a chance to fight for it in a Baseball Match. But off-screen they bribed the referee and raped Kichida, according to the other characters at least.
• Only Sane Man: Glasses. Who is the only character who lampshades the inconsistencies of the movie.
• Perpetual Smiler: Mari is always seen smiling even in the worst of situations.
• The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: A plot point. The Second Literature Club is getting shut down because none of the characters do the activities they should be doing. The very last line of the movie lampshade they spend more time eating ramen that reading.
• The Power of Friendship: Zigzagged. Tomoka says that if the Literature Club combines their strength, they'll win the baseball game for sure. She then immediately follows afterward by saying that they'll win for sure if she keeps the Student Council from scoring anything by herself. Lampshaded by Glasses, who asks her which one is it supposed to be.
• Psycho Lesbian: The entire student council, who are said to regularly rape Kichida.
• Reality Subtext: The writer and director of the film had at one point in the past tried to form a club without any real stated purpose, which was soundly rejected by her school's student council. So she wrote a story about a school club that comes under fire from the student council for not doing its stated purpose.
• Real-Person Cameo: Mako Tanaka who inspired the character of Mari makes a brief appearence as one of the girls who reject joining the Literature Club.
• Reverse Grip: Sasayama, vice-president of the Student Council, is capable of hitting a home run while holding the bat this way.
• Running Gag: Mari and Tomoka's arguments over where they want to eat. Mari always wants ramen, while Tomoka wants katsudon.
• School Clubs Are Serious Business: The continued existence of the Second Literature Club is so important that its members are willing to go on a quick recruitment drive, beat the Student Council at a game of baseball, and even spend money bribing the umpire to set the game's rules in their favor. Likewise, the Student Council are willing to do the same thing to shut the club down (even though they could have done so easily without the trouble).
• Second Year Protagonist: All the Members of the Literature Club besides Shizue are in 2nd year. Tomoka repeating the year in the Distant Year makes her still this trope.
• Serial Rapist: All of the members of the Student Council are rumored to have sexually assaulted Kichida frequently.
• Sixth Ranger: Shizue Hirasawa who joins to the Literature Club just to be the fifth player on the Baseball Game.
• Teen Pregnancy: Mari gets impregnated by Kichida, who had "both sets of equipment" before she graduates from high school.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Sandwich: Inverted. There's a scene where the Literature Club eats at a ramen restaurant. They barely converse at all and spend the whole scene just eating. They later go back to it with their newest member, Shizue, who in turn spends most of the scene eating ramen while they wait for her to finish with empty bowls. It's implied both scenes were filmed back to back within the hour and nobody bothered ordering more food.
• Token Romance: Neither Mari nor Kichida ever interact, but they hook up offscreen some time after the baseball game and conceive a child together.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Ramen for Mari and katsudon for Tomoka, which is what each of them suggests every time someone asks what they should eat.
• TV Genius: Shizue is an expert mathematician, and she showcases it to the Literature Club and audience by reciting Pi out loud.
• Underdogs Never Lose: Played straight. The Literature Club is forced to play a game of baseball against the Student Council to keep their club from being shut down. Even though the Student Council are much better players who are willing to cheat to win, the Literature Club manages to prevail by cheating even harder.
• Unskilled, but Strong: Mari's batting stance is wrong, and she swings the bat downward like a club, but she's still capable of hitting a home run.
• Villain Has a Point: Even the members of the Literature Club admit that they don't do anything related to reading in their club and that the Student Council is completely within its rights to abolish it.
• What Could Have Been:
  • The original idea for the movie was to recreate that feeling of previous problems before a school festival by setting up the filming of someone holding the data while running to the school before the time to project the movie runs out at the same time the rest of students buy time by ad-libing.
  • Later on, it was considered the same idea as a Framing Device but was dropped after the director messed up the introduction.
  • A subplot involving Mari getting a male love interest, played by Tomoki Kuroki was considered.
• Writing by the Seat of Your Pants: The ending was written barely two days before the Festival, and it was only filmed and edited the day before it. Also many scenes were added that weren't in the orginal script once they realized the movie was running too short.
• Write Who You Know: Mari Tanaka is inspired in Mako Tanaka, a friend of the director and the actress who plays her.
• You Remind Me of X: Shizue decides to join the Club partly because Tomoka reminds her of her dead mother. Although the description she gives is closer to Glasses, which Tomoka lampshades.