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 — in ways typically Yamashita — 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.