Yu is a “campaign girl.” Her face adorns all the advertising for a new product. Her biggest problem
is the managing director of the advertising agent, Shirayuki, whose sexual advances offend her. Mid-
campaign, while riding in the car, he starts harassing her and tries to feel her up. Attempting to
escape his advances, she jumps out of the car. Unfortunately, there’s a car in back of them and she’s
immediately run over. Yu’s spirit haunts in all the posters, billboards, photographs and Jingles,
remaining all across the city; she files over the skies of Tokyo.
Fumio is in charge of the advertising business under Shirayuki. Shirayuki earnestly attempts to
continue the campaign by keeping the accident quiet. Meanwhile, Yu ascends to heaven and meets
Korogi (cricket), who looks just like the evil managing director. She tricks him, and dances back to
Earth. Fumio has been doing what he can to continue the campaign, but he’s hearing about the
accident right and left. Naturally, he’s shocked when Yu suddenly appears before him. Yu’s in a
quandary. She’s supposed to be dead, so she can’t go back to either her school or home.
Korogi shadows Yu everywhere, fighting and frightening her to force her back to heaven, where she
belongs. However, Yu bravely tries to go on living. Staying in Fumio’s apartment she tries to do a
part-time Job at a first food shop. For his part, Fumio thinks Yu has become quite lovely in her latest
incarnation. Shirayuki plans to stop to continue the campaign and to begin the mourning project for her.
He can’t bear the fact that Yu has been wiped out from this world. He takes her to Shirayuki, who
is stupefied. Fumio shows him a photo of the accident, offering it in exchange for the continuation of
Yu’s campaign. That night, Yu can feel that herself must return to heaven, and she dances over the
skies of Tokyo with Korogi.
Notes:
This story centers around a “kyanpein gaaru,” or “campaign girl.” This is a particularly Japanese
concept in advertising. Companies promoting a product will sign on a pretty, young woman to appear
on every kind of ad they produce. This includes everything from television commercials to train
posters to packs of kleenex. Often, the company seems to be selling the woman’s image, rather than a
particular product. While this film seems to criticize sexual harassment, it implicates itself in the
problem by glamorizing the role of “campaign girls,” a system that truly objectifies women. Somai
Shinji made several Alms focusing young boys and girls, including Dreamy Fifteen {Tonda kappuru,
1980) and The Typhoon Club [Taifuu kurabu, 1985). Under the pattern of the story about incarnation,
he depicts vividly the feelings of a young girl In adolescence.

Color / Vista / 1990 / 109 min. / Directors’ Company, Shochtlm Dallchi Kogyo, Bandal