Aki tachinu

Twelve-year-old Kenzaburô Ôsawa moves to Tokyo with his mother, Nobuko Otowa; his father died the previous year. Miss Otawa has a job at a tradition inn, so the boy stays with his uncle's family. They run a fading greengrocer in a neighborhood disappearing into business towers. He doesn't get along with the boys in the neighborhood, but makes friends with Futaba Ichiki who, it turns out, is the daughter of the woman who owns the inn Miss Otawa works in. She is the loved but ignored daughter of a man from another city, who visits occasionally. When Miss Otawa disappears with a client, and the girl's father comes along and insists on her mother moving, both youngsters feel like they're disappearing like the neighborhood, a glimpse of the blue sea, and the helmet beetle they're looking for.

Do the Japanese have a saying like "children should be seen and not heard"? Mikio Naruse, who often made movies about women's powerlessness in Japanese society turns his auctorial talents to children, even less regarded in Japanese society. It's a sad and very effective tale of loneliness in the crowds of a dirty, uncaring town.