Nobuhiro Yamashita has never been one to do the obvious, which in his case would have meant churning out more charmingly offbeat teen comedies like his 2005 breakout ¡°Linda Linda Linda.¡± Instead Yamashita stretched himself with films like ¡°Matsugane Ransha Jiken (The Matsugane Potshot Affair)¡± from 2006, which mixed brutal violence with wacky gags, and ¡°My Back Pages¡± (2011), a nearly humor-free drama about reporters covering student radicals in the 1960s and ¡®70s.
Recently, however, Yamashita has returned to the dry deadpan comedy of his early films. But as funny as ¡°Moratorium Tamako (Tamako in Moratorium)¡± was ¡ª in ways typically Yamashita ¡ª it was also an experiment in form, with the director developing the story from 30-second commercials he made for the Music On! TV channel starring former AKB48 pop star Atsuko Maeda.
A similar hash-it-out-as-you-go concept is at work in Yamashita¡¯s latest film, ¡°Chonoryoku Kenkyubu no 3-nin (Girls in the Psychic Club).¡± It¡¯s a mockumentary about the making of a sci-fi/fantasy teen drama starring three members of Nogizaka46 (AKB48¡¯s official ¡°rival group¡°)?and is based on the ¡°City Lights¡± manga series by Hiroyuki Ohashi.
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