To quote the film's official description:

"During the COVID pandemic, the number of new films being made dropped dramatically, so the production team challenged themselves to produce an eight-story omnibus film in the record time of five months. To maintain safety, the stories revolve mostly around only two characters and the crew was kept to the bare minimum. Each story was created around a single situation and lasted no longer than 15 minutes while spanning several genres, from comedy and drama to romance and science fiction."

This is quite interesting. Apart from anything else, it's like the opposite of other films being made these days. Modern cinema expects its audience to be doing something else while they're watching, probably involving mobile phones, and most of the time can be followed even with the sound off. Hah. Well, not this. It's a dialogue-heavy COVID-era anthology of two-handers with almost no physical action. Most of its episodes feel like stage plays, or even radio. RESULT: you need to watch it properly. You've got to pay attention, listen to everything that's said and detect nuance.

Also, if you can't find a subtitled copy of this film (NOTE: I couldn't) and you don't speak good Japanese, forget it. A smattering of language ability won't cut it. There's a lot of dialogue and it's often allusive, indirect and cleverly written. You'll need to be able to read a few words too.

Each episode stars a comedian (often a bit older, uglier and/or otherwise more interesting to look at) and a more conventionally pretty actor/idol/rapper. There's also no gore or nudity, unless you count an old bloke's backside (briefly) in the "Rap Battle In A Bathhouse" episode. No one suffers violence. Daisuke Yamanouchi is on his best behaviour. The film's family-friendly and could safely be shown to children and grandparents, if they're Japanese-speaking. Anyway, here are the episodes (with creator summaries that I swiped):

Two grumpy blokes are in a bar. One's a failed entertainer and the other's been his manager for eight years. One of them will eventually admit that he wants to ditch the pride that stops him from having honest conversations. They don't get on very well... but their relationship gets nicer when the director puts piano music on the soundtrack. This one's understatedly charming.

Goto comes into Shiraishi's bar to order crepes, or so I thought. Hang on. That's not a crepe. Listening more carefully, I discovered that he'd actually requested a "mirukureepu", i.e. mille crêpes (French cake made from layers of crêpes). Well, never mind. This is a romantic-ish scene, as the title suggests, but it keeps being surprising and our heroes have daft ideas about love confessions. This made me laugh... but DO NOT IMITATE THEM. It won't work. They're also lying idiot hypocrites, albeit lovable ones, and you'll be in suspense as to whether it'll work out for them. The episode's really good, by the way.

This one's kind of bonkers. It's not really narrative-driven and is carried mostly by its two actors' screen presence, although the good news is they both have lots of that. Hannya has sunglasses and a little beard, is scary and made me think "yakuza". Ryuji Akiyama is a heavy, jovial bloke with a cowboy hat and a ton of personality. I could spend all day watching his reactions, although you'll understand completely why Hannya's annoyed to be in the same public bath as him.

The old lady running the bathhouse starts jamming a turntable and our heroes have a rap battle.

Yow. This one hurt. Daisuke Yamanouchi took the harder-edged episodes. Kana Kurashina plays a vegetable, lying in a hospital bed with a breathing mask and a machine that goes bleep. She's been there for three years. She's actually conscious (and bored out of her bitter, misanthropic mind) but no one's realised. Unfortunately, a nice man keeps coming to visit her and bring flowers. Something magical happens and the vegetable gets one last chance to say what's on her mind... and ouch. Also, don't miss the punchline.

This has reminded me that I need to catch up on Hisoshi Matsumoto's films (all co-written by Mitsuyoshi Takasu). Big Man Japan and Symbol were extremely strange, so I need to watch the other two films he's directed: R100 and Scabbard Samurai.

Makoto Ueda lives up to his reputation with a time-travelling comedy in his shared universe of time patrols, etc. It's a two-hander on a single static set, but it's full of Moffatty plot ideas and it made me laugh. You could have turned this into a full hour-long TV episode and it's completely different to this anthology film's other episodes. (There was magical realism in the last episode, Kindness, but it still looked and sounded as completely real-world as all the others. This, on the other hand, goes full-on SF/fantasy.)

Hmmm. I should also look for more of Makoto Ueda's time travel films/TV with Junta Yamaguchi.

Two sisters who always hated each other (if we believe them) are clearing out their late parents' house after the funeral. We're back to gentle, understated realism, although we often hear the dead parents narrating their diary entries. This one's nice.

I didn't understood this one. One bloke visits another in hospital. They chat, play music and don't really do much... but then the scene rewinds and plays again, the same as before. Sorry, I don't get it. Presumably I missed something. I should rewatch with a Japanese dictionary to hand.

A grumpy middle-aged man has a not-a-son who calls him "dad". This is a bit odd, but gradually you'll start to realise. Oh, that girl they keep talking about. She must be... ah. This episode quietly builds up to a conclusion that doesn't do anything, but packs an emotional punch. There's a reason why the filmmakers chose to end the anthology film on this.

So that's that. It's a cool little anthology and I admire the fact that its creators set themselves this challenge at a time when the Japanese film industry had largely shut down. Its episodes are quiet and mostly avoid genre, but it's not afraid to do something a bit different and it can surprise you with slow-building emotion and/or gentleness. The most shocking episode is Kindness, but I liked almost all of them (and I should reserve judgement on Canon in Unison). Definitely recommended... but only if you understand Japanese.