Tomoko Kawaguchi

Set in the postwar turmoil, Akasaka no shimai paints a vivit portrait of the life of three sisters who struggle to live in Tokyo.

A woman gazes at the television while she irons as she falls in love with a murderer in the news. A young woman living in a dilapidated flat falls in love with a man who is wanted for the murder of a college girl and is reported on the news every day. She scraps his press photos and talks to his wanted posters on the street. But her secret happiness is short-lived, and the day comes when the man is arrested, despite her pleas for him to run away. She cries as she listens to the news, and when the wind blows in her room, all that is left is... A sad and fantastic love story, with a surprising twist at the end. The iron that the woman keeps in her room, the laundry, is a symbol of her feelings for the man, but because it is white in colour, the more it increases, the purer the effect of her feelings becomes.