The Last Blossom Anime Film Casts Natsuki Hanae
The official website for The Last Blossom, an original anime film from the ODDTAXI team of director Baku Kinoshita and writer Kadzuya Konomoto, revealed on Friday that Natsuki Hanae is joining the cast as Kensuke, the son of a character named Nana. It is a reunion for Hanae, who led ODDTAXI as its protagonist.
The film opened in Japan on the same day and has already earned festival attention, screening in the Feature Film Competition at this year’s Annecy International Animation Film Festival after appearing as a work in progress the year before.
The story is a poignant one. In autumn 2023, an elderly man named Akutsu is serving a life sentence and nearing a lonely death in his cell, when a talking Housenka flower remarks on what a rotten life he has led. From there he looks back on his past.
That past unfolds as the tale of a dying yakuza chasing one last victorious comeback, and the family he built with Nana and her son in a shabby apartment surrounded by Housenka flowers, all narrated by a flower that blooms in the prison.
The film comes from studio CLAP, with music by the band cero, and reunites the creative pair behind the much loved ODDTAXI.
My take: ODDTAXI is one of my favorite recent anime, so anything from this duo immediately grabs me. A bittersweet story narrated by a flower sounds exactly like their kind of quietly profound storytelling.
