Some movie trailers are essentially 30-second spoiler compilations, though you may not realize it until after you've seen the film. But "He Won't Kill, She Won't Die," Keiichi Kobayashi's quirky romantic drama, seems to contain its spoilers in the very title. It's somewhat like retitling "Psycho" as "She Will Die in the Shower, He Will Go Stark Raving Mad."
But, based on a four-frame manga by the single-named Seikimatsu, the film is about more than the eventual fates of its two young protagonists, the icy cool Rei Kosaka (Shotaro Mamiya) and the death-obsessed Nana Shikano (Hinako Sakurai). Instead, it's more of an extended meditation on the vagaries of adolescent love, with Kobayashi, who also wrote the script, striving mightily to flesh out the characters from the manga's narrow confines.
Even so, everyone speaks in pithy phrases that range from insults ("Why don't you die?") to poetic apercus, while behaving like teen stereotypes (cutie with self-esteem issues, smarty with a steel-trap brain) from many a local comic and film. The effect is somewhat like consuming the manga in one long sitting.