Little about this film is easy, director Daishi Matsunaga drawing on various sources of inspiration and references. The story is inspired by the diaries of Osamu Tezuka towards the end of his life and sees Sonoda want to leave something behind after he dies, as well as pay tribute to the mother of Takuto and Mai simultaneously, recreating the image of Pieta, naturally in the toilet. The meeting with Yokota leads him to the children's cancer ward, where he humours the young children, particularly Takuto for whom he draws his favourite comic books heroes. While someone he would rather escape, his ward-mate, the perverted Yokota, played by the increasingly popular Lily Franky, provides some humour in the bleakness, and someone that Sonoda eventually comes to empathise with and seek support. Her push-pull attitude towards him becomes annoying, with Sonoda struggling to understand what she wants from him, but this perhaps suggests a well-developed character, perhaps from a male perspective anyway, of a difficult to read teenager.
Their relationship is an awkward one: He a young man about to die she an underage school girl, unloved at home with a chip on her shoulder. He intervenes to help young Mai, a schoolgirl he befriends after a you-scratch-my-back exchange. But it is in two chance encounters at the hospital that he is brought back to life a little. A failed artist, he chooses to sulk himself to an early grave. He tries to keep on working as if nothing has happened, initially rejecting his parents' concerns and treatment in hospital. Sonoda's reaction is one of apathy to his news.
Whichever way you look at it, 'Pieta in the Toilet' is not an easy film to watch: A film about a failed artist-cum-window cleaner diagnosed with cancer is never going to be a laugh riot, and so the life and times of a 28 year old destined to die young has its ups and downs.
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