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The films scheduled for this window in Japan had technically opened their doors in the morning, but most of the public was still tethered to their desks.
From nine until five, the box office hovered at a modest 110 million yen. When divided among the six major competing titles, it averaged out to a lukewarm ten or twenty million yen per film.
To the Moon, for instance, had only managed to scrape together 8.7 million yen by 5:00 PM. The performance was within the realm of "normal expectations," considering that students and salarymen hadn't yet been liberated from their responsibilities.
However, as the evening rush approached and the atmosphere shifted. By 7:00 PM, the daily box office had surged past 200 million yen, and the total for To the Moon had climbed to a more respectable 15 million.
Masuyo was among those standing in line at 7:10 PM, waiting to enter a screening of the animated movie. She had no interest in the gritty world of The Lame Detective, nor did she care for the bombastic CGI of the disaster flick Fallout. Trees in the Distance was more her style, but the lead actress was currently embroiled in a messy scandal that had turned her into an industry pariah; Masuyo, finding the actress's private life distasteful, decided to boycott the film entirely.
Naturally, her gaze had landed on To the Moon.
'An animated movie, huh?'
Masuyo glanced at the ticket stub in her hand, a flicker of curiosity in her eyes.
While To the Moon was a legendary name in the world of light novels, it was essentially a foreign concept to someone like her who only consumed mainstream movies, dramas, and anime.
She only knew what was written on the ticketing app's description: "Tear-jerker," "Heartwarming," "Mind-bending." These labels felt contradictory to her.
"Whatever. I'll just see it," she muttered to herself. "I've sat through plenty of trash movies in my life. Even if To the Moon is a dud, it won't be the worst I've seen."
With that thought, she successfully navigated the queue and entered the theater.
Since it was the start of a long holiday and the timing of this particular screening was perfect for a post-movie late-night snack, the hall was surprisingly full, well over half the seats were occupied.
The cinema followed the age-old tradition of bombarding the audience with ads before the start: insurance, luxury condos, and trailers for blockbusters coming in the next two months. During this lull, the couples seated near Masuyo were chatting animatedly.
"Why didn't we see Trees in the Distance?" a girl asked her boyfriend. "I don't mind anime, but for a romance, Trees had a way bigger budget and way more marketing than To the Moon, right?"
"Trust me, you made the right choice," the boy replied instantly. "The original novel this is based on is incredible."
"Wait, you actually read a light novel?"
"Of course I did."
"So, what happens in it?"
"You'll see soon enough."
"The description said it's a 'tear-jerker.' Is it really that sad?"
"Nah," the boy said with a mischievous grin. "It's actually very heartwarming. You'll be laughing by the end. Why else would I bring you here tonight?"
Listening to their banter, Masuyo felt a twinge of irritability. Everyone else was there in pairs, while she spent her days in a repetitive loop of work, eating, and sleeping. Sigh.
After enduring seven minutes of pre-roll ads, the lights finally dimmed to a hush. The movie began.
In adapting To the Moon for the big screen, Sugar Man Pictures had inevitably made significant changes.
The original novel was over a hundred thousand words long; a literal scene-for-scene adaptation would have resulted in a four-hour marathon.
Consequently, world-building segments of the prologue were condensed. The foreshadowing and setup were mentioned briefly to keep the pace brisk. A movie, after all, needs to seize the audience's attention within the first few minutes. Sure enough, only five minutes in, the story had already reached the point where Dr. Eva and Dr. Neil utilized their machine to dive into the dying memories of the elderly Johnny.
This was where film and animation held a distinct advantage over prose.
Scenes that required paragraphs of text in a novel could be conveyed in a single, evocative frame. Moments that might have felt redundant on the page were transformed into engaging cinema through the power of high-quality art and a soaring musical score.
This was especially true when River, the heroine, first appeared on screen. The animators had captured the elderly River with heartbreaking detail, clutching a paper rabbit, sitting on her bed, listening as her beloved husband Johnny played "For River," the song he had composed specifically for her.
Every line of emotion, from her silent longing to her clouded confusion, was etched onto her face.
The narrative unfolded in reverse, moving from the elderly River to her middle-aged self, and finally to the day of their wedding. The film expertly balanced detail and brevity, knowing exactly when to linger and when to skip forward. For those whose interest was piqued by the fast-paced cinematic cuts, they could always seek out the tankobon volumes later for the full literary experience.
Inside the theater, many people had been scrolling through their phones during the opening credits. But as the mysteries began to pile up, the screens went dark and eyes turned to the silver screen.
Why does Johnny want to go to the moon?
Why is River obsessed with folding paper rabbits?
Why would River rather die than simply voice her true thoughts?
The first hour was a masterclass in building suspense.
By the time the midpoint arrived, Masuyo was completely spellbound. While these segments might have felt dry in a novel, the visual and auditory immersion, the silhouettes of Johnny and River against a setting sun, their dance at the lighthouse, the awkward charm of their teenage courtship, kept the audience glued to their seats.
Masuyo was ready to give the film a solid 7/10. Between the gorgeous visuals and the haunting music, she felt the price of her ticket was well-spent, even if the story hadn't fully "hit" her yet.
But the narrative was about to take a sharp, vertical drop.
At the eighty-minute mark, Neil and Eva finally utilized the scent of a dead squirrel to bridge the gap in Johnny's memory, a gap created by the beta-blockers his mother had forced him to take as a child.
They finally reached the deepest stratum of his childhood.
The visual style of the film shifted abruptly. The BGM for "For River" swelled once again.
There was a hilltop, a fallen log, and two children, young Johnny and young River. It was their very first meeting, following a festival celebration.
Unlike the text-heavy description in the book, the animation used just a few poignant scenes to establish the connection. Because of the earlier explanation of River's developmental condition, her inability to communicate in a way society deemed "normal", Masuyo suddenly realized that River's cryptic talk about lighthouses and stars was a metaphor for her own soul. And then, the conversation turned to the constellations. They began to trace the shape of a rabbit using the stars in the night sky.
After over an hour of watching, Masuyo felt the first violent tremor in her chest.
The entire theater fell into a deafening silence. Every eye was fixed on the screen, where a sea of brilliant stars poured across the Milky Way. Beneath the silver glow of the moon, a boy and a girl stared up at the heavens.
"Let's look for the rabbit in the sky!"
"I've already found it,"
"See? There are the two feet. And the moon... the moon is the rabbit's belly."
The scene progressed toward their inevitable parting.
Before they left, the boy gave the girl a gift: a beanbag and a platypus doll.
Masuyo felt her heart shatter. 'So that's why... that's why River spent her entire life with that platypus doll never leaving her side.'
"Will you come back?" the girl asked.
"Yeah, of course."
"What if you forget... or if you get lost?"
"Then we'll always meet on the moon, you silly."
What if you forget or get lost? Then we'll always meet on the moon...
Masuyo's vision blurred instantly with tears.
Basic theater etiquette dictated silence and avoiding the distracting light of a phone, but she could no longer help herself. An hour of narrative foundation had been laid just for this single line.
Then we'll always meet on the moon.
The meaning behind the paper rabbits in River's old age.
The reason Johnny could remember nothing after River's death, yet was still driven by a primal, instinctive urge to reach the moon!
The atmosphere had fundamentally changed. The men were doing their best to maintain their composure, though many were visibly fighting to keep their breathing steady. But for the more emotionally expressive women in the audience, the dam had burst. The sound of tissues being pulled from packets echoed through the dark hall.
Even someone like Masuyo, who had done some light research on the film before coming, found her emotional defenses completely bypassed. She knew the movie was a "tear-jerker," but she never expected a "hit" this visceral. The emotional payload exploded without warning.
'How... how can a movie steal this many tears?' she wondered through her sobs.