Locker: Kimi ga Inai Mirai kara (2026)

The Most Convoluted Age Gap Romance Ever Conceived

This is available on the FOD Shorts app with English subtitles - give it a shot if you're interested!

To give credit where it's due, I was actually enjoying this at first. With it being about time tunnels, changing the future, etc. , it could be a little silly and came with the standard cliches, but I thought the overall idea was fun and I liked seeing all the ways Kanato and Misa figured out to communicate. Most of the actors are quite young, so I could forgive the performances being a little rough around the edges.

However, if I had my way, I would've liked it more if their big mission was to save the life of a friend or something, not each other, and if it really had to have romance, it could've come out of the shared experience of helping someone else rather than entwined in their motivation to manipulate time and space to be together. Because as it actually plays out, you have to reeeallly not think too hard about how Misa essentially stalks (and lowkey kinda grooms???) Kanato by approaching him 10 years in the past when he's a little baby elementary schooler to carry out their plan and then stays beside him after they both survive the accident. It ultimately felt like a very roundabout way to write the "we knew each other when we were younger" trope/excuse for this age gap romance. Also, I did laugh when Kanato fades out of existence after one of their attempts fails and could not take his death seriously, I'm so sorry lol.

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