All about Lily Chou Chou is not very good

A review on All about lily chou chou, written and shot by Shunji Iwai

When I think about all about lily chou chou, the first thing that comes to mind is either that image of a boy with headphones standing in the rice field or that scene of them running through the rice field.

I’ve seen this image countless of times, Instagram, Tiktok, Pinterest, you name it and I’ve seen it. It’s been tossed around so many times that at this point the movie has become an aesthetic for people, to the point people are grouping the show with acts like Lamp and Ichiko Aoba because their album covers is very nature-ish (I guess?). So I just caved and finally watched it to find out what it was about.

For those who have not watched it a brief synopsis of the show is;

Yuichi Hasumi runs a fansite for Lily Chou Chou, a singer who he is obsessed with and posts on it under the alias “Philia”. Yuichi is a shy and socially awkward kid and is viciously bullied by his former classmate, Shunsuke.

Yuichi finds himself sucked into his now-tormentor's gang. He is ridiculed and coerced into doing Shusuke's dirty work, and finds solace only in the ethereal music of Lily Chou-Chou and chatting with his online friends on his fan website. Things become far worse for everyone when Yuichi is assigned to supervising Shiori Tsuda, whom Shusuke has blackmailed into enjo kōsai. Kuno, Yuichi’s crush is raped by Shusuke's lackeys after unwittingly offending the school's girl gang.

“Wait…Huh Bullying? Rape? Compensated dating? How is any of this similar to what Lamp and Ichiko Aoba stand for?” was my thoughts when watching the show.

Honestly, I can’t say I enjoyed it at all. For such a critically acclaimed show, the 2 hour 30 minutes felt like an eternity.

First and foremost, I have to admit, I was not prepared for the sinister themes presented in this show at all. Sometimes the shots were so disgusting to the point all I could is watch in disbelief.

Secondly the show was incredibly slow, sometimes you’ll just have scenes of someone getting beat up with just a soft piano playing in the background. Or a whole dialogue between people on the chat forum.

To add to that, the show was really fragmented, they would jump from present to past to present. And constantly jumping from character to character, if you’re not paying attention you’ll start to mix them up.

While All about Lily Chou Chou is well known for its stunning shots and artistic scenes, sometimes the visual are straight up difficult to watch. Having to watch purely text for five minutes straight or a whole sequence on a shaky camcorder, artistic value aside, doesn’t hide the fact it can be incredibly jarring for the audience.

Spoiler alert, there’s supposed to be this huge twist at the end, but before that so many things had happened that when it finally got to it I was just not surprised at all. In fact I was just waiting for it to happen.

Well the show kinda has it’s saving grace in it’s soundtrack, I thought it was very well put together. Tracks like glide and and Experiment of Love were particularly good and made the show slightly more bearable.

After reading reviews of the show online the consensus is that it’s about parasocial relationship between Yuichi and Lily or how teens too often than not find solace in an online space, while I think it is relevant, I definitely don’t think it’s the main point of the show. In my opinion, I thought it was the show was commentary on the glaring issues that Japan has, and how it negatively affects teens. More specifically, things like bullying, sexual assault and their heavy reliance on the internet and how all that can drive one to the brink of insanity.

Well, honestly not much more to say other than it was not as good as they say, but what’s extra worrying is people’s perception of the show, or in this case the perception people online are giving off. Grouping things just because their albums look alike or because they’re all Japanese is so misleading, it’s got me question if people even watched Lily Chou Chou because they don’t sound the same and they sure as hell don’t convey the same message. Did they just see an image of a boy standing in a rice field with y2k headphones on Pinterest that they immediately go “Damn, that’s so me, that’s my aesthetic” It’s ridiculous man.

If you’re prepared for a draggy 2 hour 30 minute show of very dark stuff, go ahead and watch it. If not, just don’t.