Hirofumi Mutsukawa

1960s Japan—economic boom, Olympic pride, and a crackdown on “public morals.” An anti-prostitution law targets women but spares male sex workers, the so-called “blue boys.” When police arrest the doctor performing their sex reassignment surgeries, the sensational “Blue Boy Trial” begins. Three transgender women take the stand, igniting a national debate on identity, medicine, and happiness—long before the language of LGBT existed. Though the court ruled surgery legal, the verdict cast a shadow: no such operations would occur in Japan for 29 years. Half a century later, this buried history still reverberates in the lives of sexual minorities.

Bad at sports, Takeshi and Ryo, a gay couple, get together with Akira and Mitsuo, another gay couple, to participate in a beach volleyball tournament all the while Ryo is set to meet a man he met on a dating site. As the tension grows, Takeshi's older sister, Rika, shows up with her lover, Yuichi, who was the captain of the volleyball club in high school.