We Made a Beautiful Bouquet
花束みたいな恋をした
The Moonlight essay
CinemaWe Made a Beautiful Bouquet and the Sadness of Loving the Same Things at Different SpeedsRead the essayStoryline
The whole story, ending included.
Five years of a couple with identical tastes, and the slow way work kills what they shared.
Tokyo, 2020. In a restaurant, a man and a woman at separate tables, each with a new partner, get up at the same moment to lecture a young couple who are sharing earphones, and find themselves face to face. They are Mugi Yamane and Kinu Hachiya, and they were once together.
In 2015, as students, they both miss the last train at Meidaimae station and end up talking all night with strangers in a late café. Their tastes in books, films, music and comedy match almost exactly; they are the only two who notice the film director Mamoru Oshii sitting nearby. They fall in love, drift after graduation into part-time work, and rent a flat by the Tama River in Chofu with a stray cat they name Baron. Mugi wants to be an illustrator, but his work is bought for next to nothing; Kinu qualifies in bookkeeping and takes an office job at a clinic. Their parents visit and demand they act like adults, and Mugi's father stops his allowance. Mugi takes a sales job to keep them afloat, and work swallows him. He stops drawing, stops reading, loses interest in the manga and games they shared; they stop talking, and stop sleeping together. When Kinu leaves her job for a lower-paid one she loves, at an events company run by Kaji, Mugi calls it playing, and in the same argument proposes: she can quit and do whatever she likes. She says no.
In 2019, after a friend's wedding, they sit in a family restaurant to end it. At the last moment Mugi says they should marry anyway and stay together as family, the way couples do once love has gone. Then a young pair at the next table begin talking about the things they love, as Mugi and Kinu once did. Kinu runs out; Mugi follows; they hold each other and agree to part. In their last three months together they divide the furniture, decide who keeps Baron, and go on enjoying the things they love.
Back in 2020, they leave the restaurant without a word, each waving behind their back so their partners will not see. At home, Mugi looks up the old streets on Street View and finds, blurred, the two of them walking there.
Starring
Masaki Sudaas Mugi Yamane
A student who wants to be an illustrator, and who gives up drawing for a sales job to keep the life he shares with Kinu.
Mugi Yamane’s story
Mugi misses the last train at Meidaimae in 2015 and spends the night talking with Kinu, whose tastes mirror his own. After graduation they rent a flat together by the Tama River. His illustrations sell for almost nothing, his father stops his allowance, and he takes a sales job, saying he will still have time to draw. He does not. He stops reading and loses interest in what they shared, and when Kinu leaves her job for Kaji's events company, he calls it play and, in the same argument, proposes. She refuses. In 2019, meeting to end it, he suggests they marry anyway and stay together as family, until Kinu runs out, he follows, and they agree to part. A year later he waves to her behind his back, and finds the two of them, blurred, on Street View.
Kasumi Arimuraas Kinu Hachiya
A student whose tastes match Mugi's almost exactly, and who will not give up doing work she enjoys.
Kinu Hachiya’s story
Kinu misses the last train at Meidaimae and finds in Mugi someone who loves the same books, films and comedians. She moves in with him by the Tama River, qualifies in bookkeeping and takes an office job at a clinic. When their parents demand that they act like adults, Mugi takes a sales job, and she watches him lose interest in what they shared, stop talking and stop touching her. Choosing lower pay for work she loves, she joins Kaji's events company, and when Mugi calls it play and proposes mid-argument, she says no. In 2019, meeting to end it, she hears a young couple nearby talk the way she and Mugi once did, and runs out; he follows, and they hold each other and part. A year on, she waves to him without turning round.
Joe Odagirias Kohei Kaji
The head of the events company Kinu joins, whose world Mugi dismisses as play.
Kaoru Kobayashias Hirotaro Yamane
Mugi's father, a fireworks maker, who cuts off his son's allowance and tells him to take responsibility.
Why it matters
We Made a Beautiful Bouquet is a love story about what work does to love. Mugi and Kinu fall for each other because they love the same things, and the film shows, with no villain, illness or third person, how a sales job, long hours and the demand to be a proper adult drain the time and attention that loving things requires. Critics in Japan read it as a portrait of a generation. The writer Kaho Miyake singled out the way Mugi can no longer read once he starts full-time work, and noted that how freely each of them can keep their tastes depends on class. It took 3.81 billion yen at the Japanese box office, and in China its release spread to more than 10,000 screens. What it leaves is gentle and unsparing: two people who were right for each other for a time, and a marriage proposed as a way of not having to choose.