"I'm your son, don't you believe me?!" "It's because you're my son that I can't believe you!"

Movies! I had decided when I came to Japan that I would watch at least one Japanese movie a week sans English subtitles. I outdid myself this week by watching two! I finally got to see the new Evangelion movie (You are (not) alone) and a movie I picked up cause the description looked interesting (それでもぼくはやってない　or, I Just Didn't Do It). The Eva movie is the first of a tetralogy where the series is retold with new 3d effects, slightly different plot points at certain times and a new ending. Having seen the show already (albeit about 6 years ago), I expected the movie to be fairly easy to understand with Japanese subs... of which there weren't. While I still understood most of the movie (It usually revolved around Shinji saying "I can't do it!" over and over), the discussions with very few visual references were tricky. The movie was good, but nothing terribly new.

As for the other movie, I was surprised by how frank a commentary it was on Japan's flawed judicial system. Even more surprising was that it was Japan's representative at many a foreign film exposition last year. That aside, the movie covers the wrongful arrest and imprisonment of a young man accused of 痴漢 on a crowded Tokyo subway. The movie follows him through the arrest, imprisonment, trail and sentencing. Fairly moving, well acting, rife with interesting facts, and surprising understandable for even someone at my level, I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to learn about Japan's justice system, or if he/she justs wants a good movie.