Josee, The Tiger And The Fish

Tsuneo (Satoshi Tsumabaki) is a university student working part-time in a mah jong parlor. Lately customers in the parlor have been talking about an old lady who pushes a baby carriage through the streets. They say she is carrying something for a crime syndicate, and they wonder what it is she has in the carriage…money? Drugs?

One day the owner of the mah jong parlor sends Tsuneo out to walk his dog. A baby carriage comes rolling down a hill and crashes into a guardrail. The old lady asks him to look into the carriage, where he finds a girl clutching a knife. This is how Tsuneo first meets the girl who calls herself ‘Josee’ (Chizuru Ikewaki).

The girl’s real name is Kumiko, and she is unable to walk, so her grandmother takes her out early every morning in the old baby carriage. To thank Tsuneo for his help, they offer him breakfast, and he begins to fall under the spell of the girl’s unusual charm. Kumiko has named herself ‘Josee’ after the heroine of a novel by Francoise Sagan, and Tsuneo comes to know this strange girl by her assumed name. He grows more and more attracted to her in this offbeat love story of artless purity in collision with the real world.

Isshin Inudo’s mini masterpiece is an original take on modern day love.