Initiation Love first published as a programme note for the Japan Foundation Touring Film Programme 2018 “A rite of passage, a ritual to become an adult – that’s what first relationships are. You think you’ve found the one, and that you’re positive, but realise that nothing is absolute. And that realisation makes you grow up. You…
“Get sick and die!” yells mohican-sporting Eikichi Tamura (Ryuhei Matsuda) into the mic as he sings onstage before a club full of headbangers. Despite the energy and vitality of the performance, there is a strong sense of mortality clinging to this opening scene from Shuichi Okita’s The Mohican Comes Home (Mohican Kokyo ni Kaeru). Eikichi fronts…