Manon 1981

Mitsuko, a trainee at a theater troupe, is portrayed by Setsuko Karasuma. She shares a small, precarious life with a teacher named Yoshino, Ichiro Araki, and supports herself with part-time work while navigating her own sexual independence. At her job, she meets Masahiko Tsugawa as Takizawa, a wealthy loan shark, and spends the night with him. They strike up a relationship, and Mitsuko moves in with him after a fight with Yoshino. Mitsuko’s brother Shinobu, a gangster, Takeshi Kitano learns of the romance and begins extorting Takizawa.

Takizawa heads to Matsumoto, Nagano, for the funeral of a friend who died suddenly; Mitsuko accompanies him. Left alone during the funeral, Mitsuko heads out into the city late at night and encounters Itaru, a college student working part-time at a construction site, Koichi Sato. They spend the night together on the rooftop of a department store, and a tense, conflicted attraction begins to form between them.

The next day, Takizawa and Mitsuko return to Tokyo by train. Unable to ignore his attraction to Mitsuko, Itaru follows them on the same train. However, he becomes homeless in Tokyo and wanders the city, until he steals money from a supermarket to survive. He is caught and runs to Takizawa’s place of business. Takizawa takes him in, feeling a strange affinity for the reckless young Itaru. What starts as a dangerous, intimate triangle gradually destabilizes, placing Mitsuko, Takizawa, and Itaru on a path where loyalty, desire, and survival collide and threaten to ruin all their lives.