Kotoko Kayano (Ami Koyae) is central in Children Untold, about children that comes from the mind of filmmaker Miwa Nishikawa. The film’s source material is Nishikawa’s novel, which she turned into a screenplay that she also directed. The film, from what I can hear and see, keeps some of its novelistic aspects like narration intact. That narration, explaining like in WWII era Japan, complements the film’s arcs that have a good mix of happiness and pathos.

Another great aspect of Children Untold is how it incorporates its characters’ political, but mostly, personal histories. Kotoko’s teacher Fumiko Sone (Fumi Nikaido) dives into temporary sex work, a way to survive after losing everything. But she ‘snaps out’ of that work after Kotoko’s father’s ex-coworker sends her Kotoko’s old family picture. Photographs like that keep characters going, reminding them of who they are, making them yearn for stable lives. Kotoko also remembers her past even in her present life when she’s pretending to be a boy

When I’m watching Children Untold, I remember an old adage about how fiction and its characters fix things. According to this adage, most character arcs involve them striving to return to how things usually are. It’s an old adage that I don’t agree with because no one is ever the same again. Even if the film mostly reinforces that idea, its executes said ideas with, again, nuance and subtlety. Kotoko is perpetually a firecracker throughout Children Untold, the film, though, incorporates that with what she learns.