Two of the most striking films I watched this 2025 awards season came from Japan. Curiously, both brought me closer to my son, Francisco, a true representative of Generation Z.
Chico, as I call him, was born in 2001 and, like many of his peers, grew
up fully immersed in the digital world. Since childhood, he has been drawing, perhaps
inspired by his deep love for Japanese anime and manga. He has seen and read
practically everything this extraordinary cultural industry produces. The
result of this passion is that today he speaks Japanese fluently.
Early this year, he traveled to Japan with a friend, a trip financed
entirely by his own savings. He returned enchanted, determined to go back soon,
this time bringing his parents along to show us the country he has come to love
so deeply.
I, on the other hand, was born in the 1950s, in a completely different
world. Understanding how he thinks and acts isn’t simple; we belong to
different universes. Yet the love I feel for him has helped me break down
barriers and see the world through his eyes. Once again, art has served as a
bridge.
The first adult film I ever watched - at the age of 14 - was the Japanese
classic Harakiri (Seppuku) by Masaki Kobayashi (1962). The story of a
masterless samurai who seeks permission to commit ritual suicide in the mansion
of a feudal lord, explaining the reasons that led him there, left a profound
mark on my adolescence.
The film is considered one of the greatest ever made and awakened in me a
lasting love for Japanese cinema, especially samurai films. I’ve always
associated them with old American Westerns: tales where good and evil are
clearly drawn, and the hero, reluctantly but inevitably, does what must be
done, whatever the cost.
With that background, I return to the theme of this essay: two recent
Japanese films that, in very different ways, brought me closer to my Francisco.
The first is the anime Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – Infinity
Castle, part of the wildly popular franchise about young Tanjiro, who
becomes a demon slayer after his family is killed and his sister transformed
into one of the creatures he now hunts. His mission, to cure her, drives him
through ever more perilous battles.
Released in September 2025, the film became a worldwide phenomenon,
grossing over US$667 million and becoming the highest-grossing Japanese film of
all time. Distributed internationally by Crunchyroll in partnership with Sony
Pictures Releasing, it is now reaching audiences worldwide, including Brazil.
When I received an invitation to a screening, I asked Chico if he’d like
to join me, and of course, he immediately agreed. He had already shown me the
original anime, which I found interesting, if a bit “exaggerated” in its
premises, as so many of his favorites tend to be. I often joke that manga and
anime writers must smoke something special before creating such wildly
imaginative worlds. (That joke alone shows the generational gap between us.)
Still, I went, I watched… and I liked it. The animation is dazzling, the
narrative long and complex yet engrossing. It’s violent, yes, but also
beautiful. The samurai films I loved in my youth were equally bloody. The
difference lies in the Japanese worldview, profoundly distinct from the Western
one, and that’s precisely what makes it so fascinating.
The second film I saw that week touched me in a similar way: Rental
Family, starring Brendan Fraser. It’s a dramatic comedy directed by Hikari
(the pseudonym of Japanese filmmaker Mitsuyo Miyazaki) and co-written with
Stephen Blahut. Alongside Fraser, the cast includes Takehiro Hira, Mari
Yamamoto, Shannon Mahina Gorman, and Akira Emoto.
A U.S.–Japan co-production, Rental Family premiered at the Toronto
International Film Festival on September 6, 2025, and will open in American
theaters in November.
Fraser plays a lonely American actor living in Tokyo who begins working
for a real, and distinctly Japanese service: agencies that “rent” people to
play family roles. One can hire a “father,” a “daughter,” or even mourners for
a fake funeral.
What begins as a purely professional arrangement, in keeping with the
restrained Japanese spirit, grows complicated as the Western protagonist
becomes emotionally entangled with those around him. The film, by turns tragic
and comic, captures the clash and convergence of two cultures, revealing,
ultimately, that while our customs differ, our humanity remains the same.
After the screening at the DGA Theater in Los Angeles, Brendan Fraser
spent a good time speaking with the audience about the production. He mentioned that
his first meeting with Hikari lasted six uninterrupted hours, and his
post-screening conversation nearly as long.
Watching these two Japanese films gave me something rare: a moment of
artistic and emotional communion with my son, whose mind and era are so
different from mine. He wasn’t born in Japan, but he belongs to this new
century, a generation that sees the world through another lens.
May the love that unites us remain our bridge, and may our differences
never keep us from understanding one another. Watching Rental Family and
Demon Slayer, I caught a glimpse of the joy our next reunion will bring,
perhaps in Japan, the land that now binds us both.
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