"Kotaro Lives Alone": A 4-Year Old Boy who Talks Like a Samurai and Lives...Alone

 

In Kotaro Lives Alone (2022), a 4-year old boy moves into the apartment next to struggling manga artist Karino (Yokoyama Yu in the live-action version).  By himself.  When questioned, he states that he is an adult, perfectly capable of managing on his own.  He speaks in the flowery language of a medieval Japanese warlord.  His t-shirt says "God" in English.  

I'm intrigued.  Is he the reincarnation of a samurai?  Is he God?

Karino has no time for this weird boy who acts like an adult, but it's sort of his duty to make sure that he doesn't get into trouble, so he starts tagging along, to the bath house and the grocery store, letting Kotaro watch tv on his set, helping him bandage his scrapes.  

At the end of the first episode, Tamaro, who looks like a gangster or a pimp, bursts in, and we think that we will get some answers -- maybe Kotaro is on the run from the Yakuza? But it turns out that Kotaro doesn't know him.  He's desperate to befriend the boy because he has lost custody of his own son.

This turns out to be a problem.  When Karino hangs out with the boy, everyone assumes that they are father and son, but when Tamano does, everyone assumes that he is a pedophile attempting to molest him.  He's constantly being questioned by security guards and police officers.

Another neighbor, Ms. Mizuki, works as a pleasure girl: men at a night club pay to hang out with her.  She wants to mother Kotaro.

That's three people helping Kotaro, and through helping him learning to grow, overcome their problems, and live their best lives.  

The explanations comes slowly, and they turn out to be mundane: Kotaro is not God or a reincarnated samurai.  He's just a regular kid, running away from an abusive father, living on his dead mother's life insurance money.  

But by that time, you're hooked on the stories.

Beefcake: Karino goes to the bath house a lot.

Heterosexism:  In the first scene, Karino is dumped by his girlfriend. After that, not much hetero-romance.  One expects Karino and Mizuki to get together and adopt Kotaro, but it doesn't seem to be happening.

Kotaro "selects" Mizuki at the pleasure club, so he may have a crush on her.  Or maybe he's not aware of what her job entails, and he wants to hang out with a mother figure.

Gay Characters: No one explicit, but Tamano gives Kotaro the standard "Closed-minded people always hate someone who's different" speech.  

My Grade: B