The Case of Hana & Alice 2015

Fourteen-year-old Tetsuko “Alice” Arisugawa [Yu Aoi] moves into the Fujiko neighborhood with her divorced mother, carrying a mix of curiosity and nerves as she starts over in a new place. On the move, she catches a glimpse of a girl her age spying from the neighboring house, and soon after she discovers a stash of tests with poor grades tucked away in her own bedroom closet. At school, the environment feels strange from the start: a teacher, Satomi Ogino [Haru Kuroki], assigns her one of two desks that mysteriously never collect dust and sit atop letters that are scrawled on the floor. The class buzzes with talk of an evil spirit named Judas, said to have “four wives,” a rumor that soon becomes a kind of ritual. A heavily made-up student named Mutsumi “Moo” Mutsumi [Ranran Suzuki] accuses Alice of releasing the spirit and leads the group in an elaborate ceremony to reseal it.

Later, Moo confesses that the whole thing was playacting. She explains that the previous year’s class had spun a story about a boy named Judas who supposedly had four wives until one killed him via anaphylaxis. In an effort to avoid bullying, Moo sat in Judas’s desk, leaned into the role, and altered her appearance to resemble a witch, pretending to be possessed and then freed. Moo also notes that Hana Arai [Anne Suzuki] is the only student with firsthand knowledge of the legend, and she has been held back because she’s been absent too often. At home, Alice digs deeper into the tests and discovers they belong to Kotaro Yuda [Ryo Katsuji], realizing that Yuda is the Judas from the tale and that Hana is the girl next door.

Alice then sneaks into Hana’s house to press her about the story. Hana admits she’s not sure if Kotaro is really dead, but she knows Kotaro’s father and persuades Alice to help uncover Kotaro’s fate. The next day, Alice heads to the corporation where Kotaro’s father works, but ends up spending the day with one of his coworkers instead. She eventually catches up to Hana, who knows where the Yudas live, and the two begin to spy on the home, waiting for Kotaro to return. They lose track of time and miss the last train home, taking shelter beneath a truck as Hana opens up about her history with Kotaro. Hana reveals that Kotaro had long been her crush: she would bring him a Kit Kat on Valentine’s Day, but he never reciprocated. The heartbreak deepens when Hana recounts how, the year before, she gave him a fake marriage certificate to prove her feelings, only for Kotaro to hand out his own marriage certificates to other girls in the class. In a moment of rage, Hana supposedly placed a bee inside Kotaro’s shirt; when Kotaro announced he was moving away, the bee stung him, and rumors swirled that the sting might kill him. The fear that she might have harmed him drives Hana to stop going to school.

The morning after, Hana wakes early to continue spying, and a tense miscue nearly leads to disaster when Alice narrowly avoids getting run over after thinking Hana is still trapped under the truck. In the ensuing scramble, Hana and Alice run into Kotaro, who appears unharmed. Alice confronts Hana with Kotaro present, and Kotaro reveals that he knew Hana had placed the bee on his shirt; he tells her he will never forget the pain. Hana takes his acknowledgment as a sign that he does care for her, even if their relationship has been complicated. With tensions shifting, a sense of clarity begins to dawn for both girls.

A few days later, the confidence from these discoveries helps Hana prepare to return to school. She receives a new school uniform, but instead of letting it define her, she chooses to wear her old uniform again, stepping back into class with a renewed sense of resolve. In the end, the story threads together Alice’s investigations, Hana’s long-standing feelings, and the unsettling legend of Judas, revealing how rumors, secrets, and the pain of unspoken crushes can blur the line between myth and memory, and how young people find their way back to each other through courage and honesty.