Always zoku san-chôme no yûhi

As my wife said the first part of the sequel was very good, we saw this second part together. Unfortunately without knowing the background of the characters, I could not empathize at all. I told her "the story seemed too much manipulated and I did not empathize it". She said she felt natural. Therefore, I strongly recommend seeing the first part before this one.

VFX effects are amazing. Tokyo scenes in the late 1950's are recreated in detail. I first saw the river at Nihonbashi bridge without highway above it. Now the river is cleaner than the movie. Yes, the rivers of Tokyo in high economic growth period was that dirty.

By the way, the locale is set to Tokyo in 1959. In 1959, I was almost the same age with the children in this movie. That time, there was a radio drama series "1, 1st street" and a TV drama series "Backstreet". Both dramas portrayed daily life at a backstreet in Tokyo. I was a kid in a local city, but was fascinated in the dramas with cordial atmospheres. The word "ALWAYS" in this movie title may imply to portray daily life too. But I feel every episode is too dramatically manipulated to be ALWAYS but ONE TIME. By the way the subject of the novel Chagawa chose for his masterpiece is good.