ANNECY 2025: The Last Blossom Review
©Kazuya Konomoto /The Last Blossom Production Committee
It’s difficult to pull off the intense sincerity The Last Blossom shoots for. In an irony-poisoned culture where we’ve seen more than a decade of blockbusters that run from any real emotion by undercutting them with jokes, our brains are simultaneously ready to embrace sincerity but also quick to scoff at it if it comes off just a little cheesy. The Last Blossom forces you into the former, laying bare an emotional thesis that feels true to real human interactions while digging into bigger questions about human nature.
The Last Blossom peels away its main character layer by layer, showing us a new facet of his brain in each passing scene. Minoru is first shown in the modern day, on his deathbed inside a prison before we flashback to 1986 where he appears to be living a regular life with a wife, Nana, and infant, Kensuke. We see him tend to his garden as Nana discovers a beautiful drawing of the weeds and blossoms that are rooted there. Soon it’s revealed that the gentle, understated man we’ve spent a few minutes with is a member of the Yakuza who has taken in Nana and Kensuke as a gesture of good will. We’re very used to characters in animation telling us their thoughts immediately and exhibiting which personality type they fit into through heavy handed dialogue. The Last Blossom, free from having to appeal to children, is able to have more of a complex relationship with its main character, essential to what is basically a character study.
Minoru’s relationship with Nana and Kensuke is fascinating. He refuses to admit to either of them that he truly cares about them and sees them as family but has such intimate moments of connection with them both. One scene depicts Minoru and Nana recreate Ben E. King’s “Stand By Me” with sellotape and a microwave. It could come off as corny in other hands, but director Baku Kinoshita sells us on how human and vulnerable this moment is for Minoru, a typically stoic man. Seeing him later lose his way as money flows freely is as jarring and painful as it needs to be, and when tragedy strikes, all of his walls crumble and the things he truly cares about come into focus. Minoru is constantly surprising in the paths he takes but not in a way that feels inconsistent, he’s just a person reacting to the world around him.
This allows the movie to comment on some bigger questions, doing so through a talking balsam flower. It appears in the 1980s and continues to berate and commentate on Minoru’s life, mostly appearing next to Minoru on his deathbed as they debate the moral implications of his actions. They highlight the difference between what Minoru has learned as a gangster and the way that a plant survives. Minoru has been taught that survival means to conquer others, that one person eating means less food for you. The balsam flower posits that plants aim for coexistence, sharing nutrients in acknowledgement that everyone needs them. The film acknowledges the flaws in Minoru’s way of thinking, dismantling it as the film progresses and ultimately showing the process of working against your nature.
© Kazuya Konomoto / The Last Blossom Production Committee
There’s also a thread about the inevitability of change, something unavoidable for a film with a Yakuza main character. Over the course of the film, you chart their waning influence as an organisation and attempts to pivot to other markets and ways of making money. When things are going well, we can make the mistake of thinking it’ll last forever, but adaptation is a core trait needed to survive, again exemplified by paralleling the philosophy of the balsam flower.
In addition to being the film’s philosophical centre, the flower is also where the animation shines the most. Without a face, it’s able to express so much attitude and personality through just waving its leaves about as arms, crossing them and using them to scratch its ‘chin.’ As a whole, The Last Blossom is animated beautifully. It has a very simple, almost rustic 2D art style where characters are drawn with slightly bumpy outlines and have very little detail on their faces which allows Minoru’s scar to stand out through the different time periods. Everything is framed beautifully and colours pop constantly. It’s such a joy to look at, even in its darker, more violent moments.
It’s great to see a Scorsese-esque character study of a gangster in animation, especially one that’s pulled off as well as The Last Blossom. In totality, it acts as a dissolution of a man’s interpretation of what masculinity is as he goes on a journey to completely redefine his relationships to everyone in his life. It’s heartfelt and beautiful-looking with a lot on its mind, an immediate highlight of this year’s festival.