Love & Pop

New 2K Restoration

Made in 1998, not long after the success of NEON GENESIS EVANGELION, LOVE & POP was director Hideaki Anno’s first live-action feature film. Despite already being established as a filmmaker, Anno embraced new technologies and unconventional stylistic choices to tell the story of Hiromi (Asumi Miwa) and her schoolgirl friends as they engage in enjo kosai, or “compensated dating,” where older men pay young girls for dates. Using new digital cameras, Anno seemed limited by only his imagination as he shot the film; rigging the camera to unconventional devices, adopting a rapid-fire editing style and using a full-range of distorting effects. The resulting experience is a transgressive examination of transactional desire with a style that embodies the full creative range of the underground spirit. (Fantasia)

Warning: this film contains representations of sexual violence