Sightlines · reception

How The Last 10 Years was received

2022 · Michihito Fujii · The Last 10 Years on Sightlines

The arc

A blockbuster weepie in Japan in 2022 — one of the year's biggest live-action hits — it then traveled abroad via streaming, where it graduated from 'local tearjerker' to an international guaranteed-cry favorite.

What’s debated

The perennial fight over the terminal-illness romance: is this just another formula weepie, or the rare one that earns every tear — with Letterboxd reviews split between 'manipulative' and 'destroyed me'.

Its footprint

It circulates online as a dare more than a film — the 'do not watch without tissues' recommendation — and its four-seasons imagery of Nana Komatsu became shorthand for the modern Japanese romance weepie.

Where it stands

A comfort-cry staple of the Letterboxd Japanese-romance crowd, and a standard gateway pick for anyone getting into Nana Komatsu or Kentaro Sakaguchi.

Did you know? The source novel was semi-autobiographical: author Ruka Kosaka lived with the same illness as her heroine and died in 2017, before her book became a bestseller and reached the screen.