Young Thugs: Innocent Blood 1997

Riichi Riichi Nakaba, Yūji, Kotetsu, and Ryōko Sarina Suzuki have just graduated from high school in Kishiwada, and they head into a summer that will test friendships, pride, and the thin line between mischief and danger. This is a story that unfolds with a quiet, creeping intensity as the four friends drift from carefree pranks into the harsher rhythms of loyalty and survival. The film opens with a reckless prank: Ryōko lures a teacher behind a building with a provocative offer, and Riichi and Yūji seal the moment by tipping a potted plant onto his head while Ryōko snaps photos. It’s a small act that foreshadows a pattern where impulse hardens into consequence.

Ryōko moves forward with her own plans, landing a job at a hair salon, while Kotetsu finds work behind a bar. Riichi and Yūji, meanwhile, are drawn into the grim world of gang enforcers, their days filled with a mixture of bravado and looming threats. The tension thickens when Riichi starts an affair with Nahomi. In a moment of jealousy and retaliation, Ryōko pours tomato juice over Riichi’s head and arranges for Masae to trim Ryōko’s hair to shoulder length. As the memories of their youth collide with the pressures of adulthood, Ryōko gathers all the photos of herself and Riichi into a garbage bag and entrusts it to Yūji to burn. Yūji, in turn, returns the bag to Riichi, who initially reacts with hesitation but eventually burns the images. The drama intensifies as Masae confronts Riichi for making Ryōko cry, and she begins to spend more time with Yūji, soon becoming his girlfriend.

When Riichi moves in with Nahomi, she pleads with him not to fight back against rival gang members. He follows that plea by letting himself be beaten and locked in a batting cage during an arcade assault. He drags himself home, bloodied, while Nahomi apologizes and asks him to wait for her. Riichi’s boss later tells him Nahomi asked him to pull Riichi from work entirely, prompting Riichi to end the relationship and return to his mother’s house. A visit to Yūji reveals him with Masae, and Riichi then spots Kotetsu driving a borrowed Isami. Frustrated by his own stagnation, Riichi confronts a pack of eight youths, delivering a fierce beating that sends them fleeing and makes his longing for change feel even more urgent.

The trio—Riichi, Yūji, and Kotetsu—decide to hit the road for a sea-side road trip, with Riichi trying to project a calmer, less combative image even when Sada, an old rival, challenges him. Meanwhile, Yūji’s mother’s surgery succeeds, and Isami lends Kotetsu a different car for the journey. The trip intensifies when a flashy red car overtakes them, igniting a reckless race that ends in disaster: brakes fail, steering falters, and the trio nearly collides with construction equipment. Yūji soils himself, seeking relief in the freezing water, and, as he climbs out, grabs a metal stepladder moments before it is struck by lightning, killing him in a split-second of sudden, violent fate.

Back in Kishiwada, Ryōko and Nahomi support Masae, whose only memento of Yūji is a protractor that Yūji once found on the ground—something he used to measure a perfect 67-degree angle. The protractor’s original owner, a young schoolboy named Tomoda, reappears and asks for it back. Nahomi offers to buy him a new one, and Masae contemplates buying a hundred more, but Tomoda decides to keep it—believing the protractor is happier with Masae. Riichi then reveals to Ryōko that he did not burn one photo after all—the image of Ryōko’s teacher, dirt and a flower on his head—leaving a trace of memory intact amid the ruins.

After they part ways, Riichi tries to hurry back to Ryōko, only to find her already on the roof of her building, unreachable. A group of children below releases a red balloon into the summer sky, and Ryōko leans over the railing, unable to grasp it. As the season of festivals returns, Riichi faces his old rival Sada with his fist raised, a quiet sign that the conflicts of the past echo into a future that remains uncertain and unsettled. In the end, the film lingers on the ache of what is left behind and the stubborn pull of a horizon that promises both danger and possibility.