Sefure no Pride: Hatsukoi Regular Edition Blu-ray

“I won’t fall in love.” Hideo Jojo’s Hatsukoi begins a two-part adaptation of Yoriko Minato’s Sefure no Pride. The rules appear simple: no dates, no anniversaries and no jealousy. Yet after former classmates reunite and spend a night together, their feelings and expectations refuse to remain so clearly defined. First serialized in 2011 by Futabasha’s Jour Comics, the manga reached more than 4.3 million print and digital copies before its film adaptation twelve years later. Its complicated relationships and candid treatment of adult desire have attracted a readership centered on adult women.

Aika Yukihira plays Shoko Morimura, a twice-divorced temporary worker bringing up her daughter alone. Her first leading film role came in Watashi no Dorei ni Narinasai Chapter 2, followed by work including Life: Untitled, Ichikei’s Crow and Reversal Orchestra. This film also marks her first appearance alongside her mother, actress and singer Mayumi Terashima, whose credits include Pink Cut. Sho Aoyagi portrays Shoko’s first love, the divorced obstetrician and gynecologist Kazuki Kitada. After receiving a Japan Movie Critics Award for a newcomer for Today, I’ll Start Our Love, the Gekidan Exile actor appeared in HiGH&LOW and Alice in Borderland.

Moemi Katayama, seen in We Couldn’t Become Adults and The Eternal Minute, plays their classmate Hanae Shindo. Musical and stage actor Shinya Niiro, known on television for The 13 Lords of the Shogun, appears as Shoko’s supervisor Kuriyama. Yota Kawase brings experience from more than three hundred productions, including Shin Godzilla, Tonkatsu DJ Agetaro and the drama Asagao. Minako Tanaka, whose work includes The City That Never Sleeps: Shinjuku Shark, Mo Dare mo Aisanai and Shiawase no Jikan, also joins the cast.

Director Hideo Jojo has worked on more than one hundred productions across a range of genres, from On the Edge of Their Seats and To Be Killed by a High School Girl to Believers and Love Nonetheless. Having begun in pink cinema, he received an excellence award at the 28th Pink Grand Prix for Etsuraku Kosaten. Here, intimate scenes accompany close attention to Shoko’s uncertainty and Kazuki’s hidden history, giving the relationship drama the turns and emotional complications of a daytime serial.

Shoko is thirty-six, twice divorced and supporting her daughter through temporary work. At a high-school reunion she meets Kazuki again and accepts his invitation to a hotel. After experiencing intimacy for the first time in years, she hopes their connection might develop into a relationship. Kazuki wants something more casual and proposes that they become friends with benefits. Shoko struggles to accept the unexpected arrangement. She then learns that Hanae is already involved with Kazuki, while Kuriyama begins pursuing Shoko himself. Kazuki’s insistence on keeping emotions at a distance is tied to a past he cannot reveal.

The regular edition includes the theatrical trailer.