Village of Dreams
(E NO NAKA NO BOKU NO MURA)

Seizo and Yukihiko Tashima are two popular comic book writers who work independently. Seizo, the younger of these twin brothers, has written a book about their common childhood in the country on which this filmic adaptation is loosely based. The brothers were born and raised in a tiny village in the Kochi district, in an idyllic rural setting which has influenced their very different stylistic output right up to the present day. In 1948 they were attending the third grade of the village school. The twins were famous throughout the village for being tearaways. Their youthful exuberance occasionally led them to destroy the candlelight under the scarecrows in the crops or tear off the leaves from the potato plants. After such pranks their mother was obliged again and again to do the round through the village apologising for her boys’ bad behaviour. But one day, the twins went too far with one of their thoughtless pranks and deeply hurt friends poorer than themselves. From then on, they began to create worlds of their own.