We're going to Japan to follow Amiko Tanaka, a character from Natsuko Imamura's book This is Amiko, Do You Copy? (orig. Kochira Amiko / こちらあみ子, Amiko Here). First published in 2011 and translated to English by Hitomi Yoshio in 2023. Imamura is a Japanese writer and has won the Dazai Osamu Prize, the Mishima Yukio Prize and was nominated three times for Akutagawa Prize. Her other recent best-selling book is The Woman in the Purple Skirt (orig. Murasaki no sukaato no onna / むらさきのスカートの女 ).

This is Amiko, Do You Copy has also been adapted to movie in 2022, directed by Yusuke Morii and Kana Ôsawa played as Amiko. The film has won the Gold Prize at the 2022 Kaneto Shindo Awards. The beautiful and witty film score was composed by a Japanese folk singer and songwriter, Ichiko Aoba.  

Amiko is a young neurodivergent girl and a second child in the Tanaka Family. She lived with her father, a stepmother who taught calligraphy class and an older brother who later became a juvenile delinquent. She doesn’t view life or society from a ‘regular’ person’s perspective and she must cope with everything around her on her own, navigating various situations she doesn’t understand, including building social interactions with others and dealing with loneliness and being hardly understood by others. 

Read the book excerpt here.

Watch This is Amiko trailer here and behind the scenes with director's commentary here.

Tracklist:

• Ichiko Aoba - Theme of Amiko

• Yas-Kaz - Windscape

• Androo - Moment’s notice (part 1)

• Noah Klein - New Friends in the Everythingness

• Meitei / 冥丁 - Curio / 骨董

• Tetsu Umehara - Oarlla U

• Vic Bang - Ni Oro

• Koeosaeme - 1520219:44

• Mondo Riviera - Cool World

• Ian Chang - Swarm

• Ichiko Aoba - To the Red Room

• Wilson Tanner - Tray Tail

• Loris S. Sarid - Dive In : Dive Out

• Antonio Zepeda Y Eugenio Toussaint - Viento De Lluvia

• Saphileaum - A Glimpse Of Enlightenment

• The Zenmenn - Bella Fantasia

• Angophora - In Lines

• Jasmine Myra - Still Waters

• Honestly Same - Hat Dog

• Guzz - 僧侣与醉汉

• Ichiko Aoba - There's No Such Things As A Ghost

• Akusmi - Concrescence

• (including audio samples from scenes in "This is Amiko" movie)