The Tunnel to Summer, the Exit to Goodbyes

The Tunnel to summer, the exit to goodbyes (Tomohisa Taguchi)

At 47, my relationship with Anime and Manga is ambivalent at Best. Having grown up with the misleading manga studios driving the anime sales in our 6th form primarily to sexy katana school girls high kicking their pants while defending the world by gutting a badger demon from the inside and then emerging breasts first through the scrotal sack of said demon before there was lightening and arse fire from a stoat god. It was hard for me to grip what could move in it. Even the high standards of fantasy that Ghibli has been recognised for is a relatively recent phenomenon in the UK.

Tunnel to Summer itself is an adaptation of an actual manga. Eshews all that and the dragon balls of catching them all for a more melancholy teen melodrama, with its fantasy aspects built more in the style of Raymond carvers magical realism than the potter anglophilic stylings of Ghiblis way.

They are centred around two teenagers, Boy Karou..quiet and introverted from a family loss and an overbearing borderline abusive father (it’s 2005, and he’s an alcoholic). He soon bonds with Anzu, the girl, the more forthright yet private of them, ready to maintain her boundaries and protect her sense of dignity and importance at school. Through his own need to escape, he discovers the tunnel and, like any boy looking to impress, shares it with Anzu as they intertwine with plans to gain their wishes. At the same time, they twist in the way that only teen love does, with him practically yearning to be a couple while she ignores him.

The film builds well initially on this relationship. Their first instinct is to maintain time to their wishes. A convenient device for chasing dreams. They instead try to ‘game the system’. Taking many tests and ad-hoc experiments on the way, teenagers would play a video game or crystal maze.

However, the film realises that romance and the reality of teen life will draw our commitment. We see their vulnerabilities through depictions and little description, understanding how their feelings are still being processed while building on new ones.

The style is evocative, and the tunnel sets a sense of colour in their drab village life. However, as they come to terms with what their wishes are and what they need. It changes tone and becomes harder to swallow. The longevity of manga is mentioned as the importance of cave paintings, but its length as a medium often is linked to its desirability and availability in my time in the shops. I think that’s changed, but its transience is its appeal. 

The last act becomes too reliant on cliche. At the same time, it’s not done in too twee a fashion. A certain sense of rails to the finale undermines a lot of what we have seen before. That could be my jaded pushing 50 sensibilities but compounded with the stillness, suspense, and tension of the earlier scenes; it’s hard to say who this is aimed at.

It’s an exciting film, and the style of impressionism via stillness does show a lived, drawn quality. But I would be hard-pressed to say if I would take the teenagers in my life to see it. A calming balm after a week of high frenetic pink-hued cinema, I understand. But ultimately, a Netflix nightcap would be the eBay way to place this for the under-12s.