The bumpkin who tries to make it in Tokyo but ends up back in the countryside is one of those dramatic arcs that never loses its appeal in Japan, one reason being that it reflects reality for many dreamers here. Not to say that the multitudes of Tokyoites who came from somewhere else are destined — or doomed — to return to their provincial roots, but more than a few can relate to those who do.
Hiroshi Shinagawa’s “Restart” formulaically follows that arc in its story about a would-be singer-songwriter from Hokkaido who finds herself, after 10 years in Tokyo, singing her heart out for strange and lonely guys as a member of an underground idol group.
Shinagawa, who also wrote the script and endured his own struggles as a young comic in the 1980s, has an implicit understanding of his protagonist and her milieu, including its darker, more dangerous side.