Spring, 1941. Sixteen-year-old Toshihiko attends school in the coastal town of Karatsu, where his aunt cares for his ailing cousin. Immersed in the seaside's nature and culture, Toshihiko soon befriends the town's other extraordinary adolescents as they all contend with the war's gravitational pull.
Hanagatami is a 2017 Japanese war film directed by Nobuhiko Ōbayashi, based on a 1937 novel by Kazuo Dan. The film tells a story of the purity of youth beset by the chaos of war, inspired by Obayashi's own childhood. It revolves around Toshihiko, a sixteen-year-old teenager who moves in with his aunt in Karatsu, and develops friendships and romances with the inhabitants of the town as World War II rages. The film was originally conceived during the 1970s, before Obayashi made his feature film directorial debut with House (1977), but was not produced for another 40 years. Before production, Obayashi was diagnosed with stage-four cancer and was only given a few months to live.
