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My Tomorrow, Your Yesterday
Movie

My Tomorrow, Your Yesterday

2016 • Unknown

Woke Score
1.2
out of 10

Plot

Takatoshi Minamiyama majors in art at an university in Kyoto. On the train to the school, he sees Emi Fukuju and falls in love with her at first sight. Gathering up all his courage, he speaks to her. They begin to date and enjoy happy days together, but Emi reveals her secret to him.

Overall Series Review

My Tomorrow, Your Yesterday is a Japanese romantic drama with a science-fiction twist. The narrative focuses intently on the emotional relationship between Takatoshi and Emi, a young heterosexual couple whose timelines run in opposite directions. Takatoshi's first day with Emi is her last, and his final day is her first. The central conflict is the impossible nature of their love and the intense emotional labor required to maintain a relationship where one person is constantly experiencing the other's past. The film explores themes of selflessness, empathy, fate, and cherishing the present moment, driven purely by the character dynamic and the time-reversal plot device. The movie is a self-contained story about a bittersweet romance and does not engage with political or ideological themes of race, Western guilt, gender theory, or anti-theism. The characters are defined by their personal courage, their depth of feeling, and the sacrifices they make for one another. The setting is culturally authentic, and the casting is color-blind in the traditional sense, focusing entirely on Japanese actors for the Japanese story.

Categorical Breakdown

Identity Politics1/10

The film is a Japanese production set in Japan, focusing on a romance between two ethnically Japanese characters. The plot is a fantasy centered on time and emotional connection, not on race, immutable characteristics, or intersectional hierarchy. There is no vilification of 'whiteness,' forced diversity, or political lecturing.

Oikophobia1/10

The setting is the city of Kyoto, and the narrative is a culturally authentic Japanese story that ties themes of fate and love together. The film treats the home culture as a natural backdrop for a universal tale of romance and loss. There is no expression of hostility toward the culture or ancestors.

Feminism2/10

The female lead, Emi, is shown to possess a profound capacity for 'self-sacrifice' and 'tremendous pain' as she focuses on creating happy memories for the male lead, Minamiyama. Her strength is defined by emotional endurance and selflessness, not careerism or 'Girl Boss' dominance. The male lead is not emasculated but shown as a vulnerable partner who must learn empathy and sacrifice. The focus is on a complementary, albeit tragic, partnership.

LGBTQ+1/10

The core and only romantic relationship presented is a heterosexual, male-female pairing. The narrative does not focus on, center, or lecture about alternative sexualities or gender ideology. The structure remains strictly normative to the nuclear family as a societal standard, though the central couple's situation is metaphysically impossible.

Anti-Theism1/10

The core themes are love, fate, and time, which are treated with a sense of gravity and transcendent importance. The narrative is not hostile toward religion, and there is no explicit anti-theism or promotion of moral relativism. The emphasis on selflessness and emotional sacrifice points toward objective virtues.