My first exposure to April Story was in an elective course at university. I still remember that it was a Saturday, and there were only a few people sitting in the classroom that could accommodate a hundred people, because it was an elective course, and it was a brainless course such as film and television appreciation, and most of the people adhered to the principle of "compulsory courses to escape, elective courses to escape". The teacher is a relatively rich middle-aged woman, this situation is also not strange, did not name, after a simple introduction, played the film.
At the beginning of the film, the family bids farewell at the station, and with the perspective of the heroine Yuno Tsukizuki (Takako Matsu), we come to the place where she is about to start her new life, Musashino University in Tokyo.
At the university's orientation meeting, everyone introduced each other, and when the students asked the heroine why she chose this school, the heroine couldn't say why. At noon, in the face of the invitation of her classmates to go shopping on the weekend, she also politely refused, she was originally an introverted and shy girl. In the strange land of Tokyo, one person eats, one lives alone, one person watches movies, and one person visits bookstores. These things are too commonplace, like a running account without nutrition, and some impatient students sneak away when the teacher is not paying attention. However, in the second half, the heroine meets her senior in the bookstore where she often buys books, and the secret in the heroine's heart is slowly revealed to the audience.
Why did the heroine choose to come to this school? Why do you always visit this bookstore? Because of one person, Gakuzen Yamazaki (Seiichi Tanabe). Those seemingly unrelated things are connected in an instant, and it turns out that this is a poem about a crush. Because of the crush, the female protagonist with poor grades studied hard and was finally admitted to the school where the senior was. In the eyes of the teacher, this is a miracle, but the heroine herself believes that if this is really a miracle, it is a miracle of love.
At the end of the film, the heroine stands in the rain with the red broken umbrella lent to her by the senior, with a smile on her face, and her clear eyes are full of beautiful visions for the future. For an hour and seven minutes, Shunji Iwai used a prose-like narrative technique to show us a fairy tale-like beautiful story. At that time, I was still unfinished, why did the heroine not confess? Why aren't the male and female protagonists together? Such an ending is too cryptic to fit my brain's definition of a perfect ending.
Later, I was relieved. The meaning of liking someone is to make yourself better. I like you, I like me who like you like this, I like me who makes myself better because I like you, I like me who can stand with you one day. Every little bit of approach is the source of my happiness, like you, is my secret, but also my weapon. The so-called most romantic thing is that there is no later thing, we may no longer have intersection, but the traces of growth will not be erased.