Midnight Swan
ミッドナイトスワン
Storyline
The whole story, ending included.
A trans woman in Shinjuku takes in a neglected girl — Japan Academy Prize winner, debated for casting.
Nagisa is a transgender woman who left Hiroshima for Shinjuku, where she dances in a show club called Sweet Pea and saves for gender-affirming surgery. Her family does not know. When her mother rings, she answers in a man's voice. For the child-support money, she agrees to take in Ichika, the middle-school daughter of her cousin Saori, a mother who neglects the girl and hits her. Ichika arrives expecting an uncle. Nagisa tells her she does not like children. Ichika, closed and silent, hurts herself when things become too much.
Ichika wanders into a neighbourhood ballet school. The teacher, Mika Katahira, sees her talent, and she finds a friend and rival in Rin Kuwata, a gifted girl from a wealthy family whose mother lives through her dancing. To pay for lessons, Ichika follows Rin into an indecent photo-session job, the sexual exploitation of two girls, which ends with the police, and Nagisa learns everything. She begins spending her surgery savings on the lessons, goes to a job interview, then takes labouring work as a man, her old name written on her helmet. When the teacher calls her Ichika's mother, she cannot hide her joy. Rin injures her leg, and her mother tells her that without ballet nothing is left of her. While Ichika dances at a competition, Rin takes her own life during a wedding party.
At a later competition, Ichika freezes on stage and whispers "Mother". Saori, who has come to watch, climbs up and holds her, and Nagisa walks out. Ichika goes home to Hiroshima. Nagisa has her surgery in Thailand and goes after her, telling Ichika she must not stay there, she must dance; Saori calls her a monster, and she leaves alone. Ichika returns to ballet and wins a place at a school abroad. After her middle-school graduation she goes to Tokyo and finds Nagisa bedridden, gravely ill from complications of the surgery and nearly blind. Nagisa asks to see the sea. On the beach Ichika dances for her, and Nagisa dies watching. Ichika walks towards the sea. Years later, in a beige coat and red heels like Nagisa's, she walks through a foreign city and dances Swan Lake on stage.
Starring
Tsuyoshi Kusanagias Nagisa
A transgender woman from Hiroshima who dances in a Shinjuku show club, saves for surgery and takes in her cousin's daughter for the money.
Nagisa’s story
Nagisa has left Hiroshima to live as a woman in Shinjuku, where she dances at Sweet Pea and saves for surgery. She takes in Ichika for the child-support money and tells her she does not like children. When the girl's secret job ends with the police and she hurts herself, Nagisa comforts her, then sees her dance. From then on she spends her surgery savings on lessons, cooks for her and takes labouring work as a man. Called Ichika's mother by the teacher, she beams. When Ichika freezes on stage and Saori reaches her first, Nagisa walks out. After surgery in Thailand she goes to Hiroshima to tell Ichika she must dance; Saori calls her a monster. When Ichika returns, Nagisa is bedridden and nearly blind. She asks to see the sea, and dies there watching Ichika dance.
Misaki Hattorias Ichika Sakurada
A neglected middle-school girl sent from Hiroshima to live with Nagisa, who finds in ballet the first thing that is her own.
Ichika Sakurada’s story
Ichika, a middle-school girl her mother has neglected and hit, comes from Hiroshima expecting an uncle. She barely speaks, throws a chair at a boy who mocks her, and hurts herself when it gets too much. She pays for ballet lessons through an indecent photo-session job Rin brings her into, the sexual exploitation of a child, until it ends with the police. Nagisa takes over the fees, and they practise together at night. At a competition she freezes and whispers "Mother", and Saori takes her home to Hiroshima. Urged by Nagisa to dance, she returns to ballet and wins a place at a school abroad. After graduating she finds Nagisa dying, takes her to the sea and dances for her. Years later, dressed like Nagisa, she walks through a foreign city, whispers "Watch me" and dances Swan Lake.
Asami Mizukawaas Saori Sakurada
Ichika's mother and Nagisa's cousin, who neglects and hits her daughter, then comes back to claim her.
Rinka Uenoas Rin Kuwata
A girl at Ichika's school and her rival at the ballet school, raised by a mother who has staked her own dream on her.
Sei Matobuas Mika Katahira
The teacher of the neighbourhood ballet school, who sees Ichika's gift and treats Nagisa, simply, as the girl's mother.
Why it matters
Midnight Swan put a transgender woman at the centre of a mainstream Japanese film and gave the role to a star. Nagisa's life is shown without softening: customers who mock her, an interviewer who calls LGBT people a trend, a family who call her a monster, a surgery paid for with money she needed for everything else. Against that, the film builds a motherhood made of home cooking and lesson fees rather than blood. It won Picture of the Year at the 44th Japan Academy Film Prize and ran for 185 weeks at one Tokyo cinema. It was also criticised by the writer Soshi Matsuoka for using a pitiable image of a trans woman to move a majority audience to tears, and for casting a cisgender man. Both readings meet in the ending. A woman hands a girl her future, and the story that honours her does not let her live to see it.