Pornographer: Playback – Movie Review

Pornographer: Playback is a Japanese BL film and the final instalment in an ongoing trilogy. It is the movie sequel of The Novelist, continuing the story two years later with the main characters in a rocky long-distance relationship. Faced with personal insecurities and cheating allegations, the couple has hit a rough patch that threatens to end their romance.

The first hour of Pornographer: Playback is overburdened with heavy melodrama. I feel fatigued from the constant heated arguments and emotional angst. This movie sequel does lighten up significantly in the second half, ending the trilogy on a strong, satisfying note.

Before watching this movie, you should watch the short special called Pornographer: Spring Life, which transitions between the previous series and this movie sequel. After watching this movie, there's another special called Pornographer: Continued Spring Life, an epilogue that wraps up the events.

Kijima is a novelist who writes adult erotica for a living. He lives in the countryside with his mother, along with his younger sister's family. His strong-willed sister Natsuki tends to butt heads with the equally stubborn Kijima. The two siblings often have personality clashes despite living together in the same house.

Kijima has a long-distance relationship with Kuzumi, his younger boyfriend, who lives in the city. Kuzumi has a job at an advertising agency, where he's doing quite well for himself in his career. Kijima and Kuzumi keep in contact by writing letter correspondence to each other. Occasionally, the two of them would meet up at a love hotel, where they have passionate sex.

During one of their meetups, Kijima discovers that Kuzumi has visited a seedy nightclub for work. Kuzumi insists that he went there with his coworkers and nothing scandalous happened. Nonetheless, Kijima is upset and exchanges some unpleasant words in the heat of the moment. He insulates that Kuzumi is young, sexually active, and has the freedom to fool around with other people. Their alteration even got a little physical, and the two of them stopped talking for a while.

At home, Kijima has an explosive argument with his sister, prompting him to move out. During his stay in a love hotel, Kijima protects a woman from a violent scuffle with her lover, but ends up injuring his arm in the process. Feeling guilty about what happened to him, Haruko offers Kijima a place to stay at her house while he recovers. Haruko runs a rowdy karaoke bar with her handsome son Shizuo, who forms an intriguing connection with Kijima.

Weeks after their argument, Kuzumi tracks down Kijima's whereabouts, finally locating him at the karaoke bar. However, he walks in on Kijima and Shizuo in a strangely compromising situation, which makes him feel betrayed. This sets off a strained confrontation between Kijima and Kuzumi, as the two of them try to figure out where they stand in their relationship.

I decided to write this review of Pornographer: Playback without taking the two specials into consideration. My review is just going to be about the movie itself. However, I do recommend that you watch both the Spring Life and Continued Spring Life specials, which are essential to the narrative, in my opinion. I wished these side stories were better integrated into the movie because they're the missing pieces that Pornographer: Playback needed.

As a movie sequel, I found Pornographer: Playback to be slightly disappointing. The first hour of the film is packed with excessive arguments and intense turmoil, but these melodramatic scenes are just thrust upon you without any build-up. In a story, you want to go through an immersive journey, where the conflict and the angst develop organically as part of the narrative. I don't get that feeling from Pornographer: Playback. This movie lacks intricacies, suffering from diminished emotional impact because the story doesn't feel fully fleshed out.

Although powerfully acted, the relationship drama between Kijima and Kuzumi feels too overwrought. Their tension keeps escalating, and by the umpteenth argument, you gotta wonder why this miserable couple still stays together. Neither of the characters comes out looking well. Kijima goes overboard in his petulant moodiness, while Kuzumi is a weepy doormat with a vapid personality. It's hard to root for them to work through their toxic relationship when they seem much better off being apart from each other.

Pornographer: Playback introduces two new characters, Haruka and Shizuo, who add an exciting spark to the monotony of the plot. Haruka is one of the movie highlights, bringing an easygoing, effervescent charm to every scene with her vibrant personality. Shizuo is also intriguing as an ambiguous love interest, bound to draw some symbolic parallels with Kuzumi. While both new characters weren't explored to their full potential, they still made positive contributions to the overall movie.

Despite its turbulent start, the tone brightens up after a certain turning point in Pornographer: Playback. The scenes during the second half feel significantly lighter, sweeter, and perkier, almost as if a storm has passed with better days ahead of us. You'll be glad to know this movie has a happy ending, concluding the trilogy on a strong yet sentimental note. Those last thirty minutes rehabilitated my perception of the film, earning back so much goodwill. As this movie wraps up, I am reminded of my enthusiasm for the characters, my optimism towards their romance, and my fond memories of this trilogy as a whole.