Saikano: The Last Love Song on This Little Planet (Saishuu Heiki Kanojo) review

Now that machine gun arms are all the rage I’m reminded that I’ve never reviewed “The Last Love Song on This Little Planet”. No, there aren’t any extended scenes of gore and senseless violence in this one. It’s not exploitational or even mildly funny in any way. In fact it’s a full-fledged romantic drama where a teenage crush is just as, if not more important than the main character having cluster bombs stored where her spleen should be.

Yep, this one is much more love story than action film. In fact it has a lot in common with most of your standard depressing romantic dramas. The only difference is instead of making one of the characters terminally ill, they made her terminally ass-kicking. Every time she’s forced to fight her cybernetic implants evolve on their own, gradually replacing her internal organs with weapons of mass destruction. From very early on you get the sense that her humanity will eventually be completely taken over by machinery. And in a really weird and unique way that’s the perfect setup for a tragic love story.

The film starts off with Shuji (Shunsuke Kubozuka) trying to think of something to write in the diary his girlfriend Chise (Aki Maeda) exchanged with him. When his friend Atsushi (Ryo Kimura) makes fun of him for it he chases him down the hall and inadvertently hurts Chise’s feelings by downplaying the whole thing. To make it up to her he decides to get her a gift in Sapporo.

While at a shopping mall with Atsushi and his girlfriend Akemi (Shihori Kanjiya) the sky suddenly fills with fighter jets that start bombing the city. Apparently a full-scale war has broken out with an unknown enemy. As the three of them try to get away they see a small figure in the sky fluttering around between planes and destroying them with ease. When debris from one of the planes hits the ground and skitters toward Shuji the figure flies down and destroys it. Out of the smoke and debris we see Chise with a giant machine gun turret on her arm and strange tentacle-like implants protruding from her back.

She later tells Shuji as much as she can about what she is, but she has to keep most of it a secret, even from him. She was turned into a weapon of war by military scientists without her knowledge or consent and now has to use her powers to destroy the attackers. It’s a tough little conundrum for her to be in. If she refuses to fight people will die and everything they know could be destroyed. On the other hand, if she does fight her heuristic implants will learn and grow more powerful, robbing her of her humanity. This becomes the main focus of much of the rest of the film. Chise is forced to balance her duty with her love of Shuji and he has to decide if he can handle being in love with the ultimate killing machine.

I mostly liked the cast of the film with the possible exception of Shunsuke Kubozuke, who seems to be incapable of conveying emotion. He stayed monotone throughout most of the film and the few times he had to emote it seemed forced and insincere. Lack of emotion works out okay for his character in the first third of the film, but when things start turning more dramatic and honest he’s a bit of a liability. On the other hand, Aki Maeda was able to get her feelings across without ever exaggerating anything. She seems to be a natural at invoking the audience’s sympathy so she was a perfect choice for such an inherently tragic role. I consider it the Rose Byrne effect – You know bad things are going to happen to her eventually but you keep pulling for her anyway until you’re paid back for all your emotional investment with a kick in the gut. As for the other actors, well they all did workmanlike jobs but were never really given a chance to shine considering their roles were trimmed down to nearly nothing.

As with many manga adaptations there are a few script decisions where it seems like they were trying to squeeze everything into a 2-hour film whether it makes sense there or not. The relationship between Chise and regiment leader Tetsu as well as the history between Shuji and his former lover Fuyumi are completely glossed over, seemingly to save time for more awkward pauses and misunderstandings between the two main characters. It’s strange because many of the original characters were cut out completely, and yet aside from Chise’s friend Akemi hardly any effort was made to justify leaving the rest in. Their intended progressions are handled sloppily and their attitudes shift so drastically that they often seem schizophrenic. I suppose it’s just a pitfall of squeezing a long story into one movie, but there should have been a cleaner way to make the puzzle fit together.

The Last Love Song on This Little Planet is a flawed movie that skates by on a really cool premise and one standout performance. I can’t help but think it could have been handled a little bit better in many ways, but I’m sure it could have been handled much worse. It’s the kind of movie I’d give 3.5 whatevers out of 5 if I bothered with tangible reviews. It certainly has merit as a tragic love story and the special effects are surprisingly good at times. If you can put up with a few mishandled storyline elements and one really wooden performance it’s definitely worth watching.

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