Fighting Elegy 1966

Kiroku Nanbu, Hideki Takahashi, is a Catholic teenager attending a militarized middle school in 1935 Bizen, Okayama. He lives in a boardinghouse and is infatuated with his landlady’s chaste daughter, Michiko, Junko Asano. Unable to express his feelings or his blossoming sexual frustration, Nanbu slips into violent outbursts and increasingly tense behavior.

Taken under the wing of his schoolmate Turtle, Nanbu is taught how to fight through an elaborate training regimen, gradually growing confident in his new skills. He then joins a school gang, the OSMS. A clash between the gang leader Takuan and Turtle erupts, and Nanbu ultimately seizes the OSMS by force, setting out a harsher, more rule-breaking manifesto that calls for actively flouting every school rule and steering clear of girls altogether. A confrontation with the drill sergeant leads to Nanbu’s suspension, an episode that deepens the rift between him and the authority figures who once guided him.

Turtle speaks to the school administration on Nanbu’s behalf, and the pair ultimately flee Okayama, leaving Michiko behind. They end up in Aizuwakamatsu, Fukushima, where Nanbu re-enters school but is shocked by what he perceives as his classmates’ weakness. He forms a new group and faces renewed clashes with a local gang, as his appetite for conflict grows and the old loyalties begin to blur. Michiko visits to bid him farewell and reveals she has decided to join a convent, unable to bear children. Her decision is underscored by her later capture amid marching soldiers, an event that heightens Nanbu’s distress.

Propelled by sorrow and a newly sharpened sense of purpose, Nanbu spots a poster for radical political activist Ikki Kita, whom he had briefly encountered in a tea house earlier, and the spark of renewed fervor lights a dangerous path. Hiroshi Midorikawa portrays Kita in the backdrop of Nanbu’s evolving mindset, and with this encounter, Nanbu marches forward into the February 26 Incident, driven by a mix of personal longing, disillusionment, and a willingness to challenge the world around him.