Sawako's on her fifth job and her fifth year in Tokyo, cleaning up snot-nosed toddlers' little accidents at a down-and-out toy company. She's on her fifth boyfriend too, "below-average" Kenichi, who's desperate to marry her and give his daughter, little Kayako, a new mommy. “It can't be helped," Sawako reasons. She's nothing special. In post-recession Japan, lethargy reigns supreme, and even the gorilla at the local zoo is unhappy. Sounds simple and depressing enough, right? Wrong, because this is the latest star vehicle for Love Exposure's human hand grenade Hikari Mitsushima, and that means that when Sawako Decides, everybody better recognize.

When her father falls deathly ill, Sawako returns to her hometown, where she finds the family freshwater clam-packing business in disarray. Squaring off with a legion of hardbitten fishwives who work the assembly line, it's up to her to get things back on track. Pelted with old grudges and surrounded by jeering naysayers, Sawako is forced to face down her stunted sense of self and fight for tomorrow, whether she believes in it or not.

Straight outta Japan and right into your frozen seafood section, Sawako Decides is the most cracked coming-of-age tale you'll ever see, complete with a rollicking company anthem celebrating the "lower-middle" of society and advocating the overthrow of the government, while Hikari Mitsushima's rigorously disciplined half-shrug slacker performance effortlessly camouflages the killer instinct lying in wait behind her eyes. Sawako and friends' ultimate philosophy is humble, but honest, heartfelt, and realistic; they're "nothing special," but they'll try their best anyway, and life is full of shame, but that's no excuse for not giving it all you got while you got it. Remember these lessons, and apply them in everyday life - teach your children how to fertilize the land with their poop, and save a seat on the bus for the watermelon of hope.