“Ai to Makoto” (1974)

The delinquent high school boy genre should be familiar to anybody who knows Japanese idols but well before films like the Crows series and dramas like Gokusen became standard issue fare for the nation’s marble-eyed princes, there was only one bad boy with a heart of gold--the first, the original--Saijo Hideki, Mr. Wild 17 (ワイルドな17才) himself.

Ai to Makoto (lit. Love and Truth, 1974) was based on a popular boys manga of the same title written by the late Kajiwara Ikki. At the time, Kajiwara was known for his work like boxing manga Ashita no Joe and wrestling manga Tiger Mask written in the Spo-kon (スポ根) genre, a mix of thrilling sports competition with personal drama. Ai to Makoto, originally serialized in the boys manga magazine Weekly Shonen Magazine, builds on these stories of man vs his demons by adding in a new element, the most thrilling thing of all: the unconditional love of a good woman. In this case, the love of a woman literally named “love” or “Ai”.

The manga was written at something of a time of personal crisis for Kajiwara. Not only was he debating leaving the world of manga for real literature but his long suffering wife had also asked for a divorce. Erupting from this mid-life upheaval, Ai to Makoto says: love isn’t peace; it’s pain and violence.

(Saotome Ai (right) spinning a yarn about her White Knight of the Ski Slopes)

Saotome Ai is the beloved daughter of a wealthy industrialist. And one day, when she is a little girl, while skiing at her family’s vacation home in the mountains, she almost dies. Almost. She is rescued by a brash little boy, who ends up with a massive scar on his head for his troubles. Many years later, when Ai is all grown up, she encounters the boy with the scar again. His name is Taiga Makoto and he is now a furious young man, full of anger and pain… but deep within is a gentle soul longing for love. Ai can’t help but feel some responsibility for the troubled young man and wants to return the favor and rescue Makoto from himself. She gets her daddy to agree to bring Makoto to her fancy prep school and attempts to rehabilitate him, with mixed results. Makoto attempts to rule the school through violence and intimidation (which doesn’t go over well with the alpha male jock sports team captains) and then ends up sparking a massive brawl during which Ai is hit on the head with a rock and passes out. The film ends with Makoto carrying her limp body...somewhere. Hopefully the hospital.

(Makoto (Saijo Hideki) arriving in Tokyo. “Do you need rescuing on the ski slopes here too? Is that why you called for me?”)

Ai had romanticized her rescuer as a White Knight, a hakaba no kishi (白馬の騎士) but in reality he’s more like an emotionally damaged rottweiler and Ai, full of grace and duty, goes about taming him like you would a dog with severe trust issues. And complicating things was Ai’s other admirer, her classmate Iwashimizu Hiroshi, who declares his love by saying he would die for her, literally! 

The story had everything: romantic longing, violence, boxing, sacrifice, unrequited love, more violence. 

Not even recently debuted and super popular idols were immune to the troubled love affair of Ai and Makoto. Saijo Hideki was such a fan that when he heard that there was going to be a movie version of the manga, he knew that he had to play the role of Makoto. He went directly to Kajiwara and the filmmakers to plead his case and, very smartly, they agreed with him. Hideki was then currently playing the troubled son on the extremely popular television drama Terauchi Kantaro Ikka (寺内貫太郎一家) and despite his lack of experience with romantic scenes, he would also be playing the wild “Tiger” Makoto.

(“Action Hideki” nailed all of the sports scenes.)

Of course, this being a popular boys manga and Hideki being a recently debuted teen idol, the fans of Kajiwara’s work were… let’s say skeptical and wrote plenty of letters to the effect of “How dare they cast this glossy teen idol as Makoto???”  Along with the manga fans, the other big problem the filmmakers encountered when casting Hideki was that he was so popular with teen girls that no actress was willing to take on the role of Saotome Ai opposite him for fear of upsetting them. (A very real concern, considering what had happened to Kumi Kaori after starring with the Tigers.) 

(Legendary on screen pairing!)

So, the filmmakers announced a nationwide search for Hideki’s “Ai” and 40,000 girls entered the competition. The winner was a young middle school graduate from Kagoshima with a pretty round cheeked face and gentle eyes. She’d entered the competition to meet Hideki and ended up with a new name, “Saotome Ai”, and an acting career (on top of getting to meet Hideki, the real prize.)

The film summarizes the first three volumes of the manga and suffers from the perennial problem of manga adaptations when the original work has not yet been completed--it’s hard to nail the ending to a story when the ending to the story has not yet been written. 

But abrupt ending or not, the film was a massive hit. The combination of the biggest idol in Japan and the most popular manga in Japan meant that apparently girls skipped school to go watch it and the fire department had to be called in because of overcrowding at at least one theater. The Anti-Hideki faction had to admit defeat. 

Almost 50 years later, with the fog of teen mania long behind us, the film remains quite enjoyable to watch for two very important reasons.

(Ai getting hassled by the sports team captains. Give it up, my dudes. She’s NEVER betraying Makoto!)

First of all, the direction, editing, and sound are all excellent. Throughout the film, they would take us from a “normal” high school film and veer into these manga-esque scenes for dramatic effect. A confrontation between Ai and Makoto in a back alley gets a dramatic red background; reactions to pivotal events are turned into still photographs that mimic manga panels. Plus the blocking is done with the best kind of staginess, something I always associate with filmmakers like David Lynch. 

(When you’re a bad boy with a heart of gold but the teacher is still giving you shit because the system, man…)

Secondly, the casting is superb. Because here’s the thing: Makoto is a stone cold jerk. He’s violent, rude, collects lackeys like flies to a turd, and deliberately tries to stir up trouble all the time. If Makoto wasn’t played by the most charming guy ever Saijo Hideki, then we’d all hate him and be on the side of Ai’s dad when he tries to get her to move on, obligation or no obligation. As it is, Makoto is played by Saijo Hideki so like… we get it. As an audience. Obviously, she’s in love with him despite his extreme case of Being An Asshole because what Hideki brings to the role is pure heart. Sure, he deliberately starts fights and wins using dirty tactics but Hideki’s eyes convey how much emotional pain he’s in and that’s important for anybody attempting to play a bad boy.

(Makoto is utterly baffled at Ai’s reactions. He cannot figure her out.)

I’ve seen many idols attempt to act over the years and let me tell you that it’s not easy to silently gaze at a mitten and convey emotion that’s important for the story.

Saotome Ai as Saotome Ai is also delightful. She is a calming and somewhat aloof presence on screen. Even before Makoto enters the picture, Ai is distant. She may be the sweetheart of the school but she doesn’t seem to have any real love in her life. Her parents are distant and the one guy who likes her is an uptight weirdo. Makoto is the one person in her life who needs her, even if he doesn’t know or appreciate it (yet). Plus, you know, the lingering guilt over the whole head-wound-parents divorcing-life destroyed thing.

The third point of our triangle is the uptight weirdo Iwashimizu Hiroshi, played by Naka Masami, who was also a singer and idol. Iwashimizu is famous for his line: “君のためなら死ねる” (I would die for you.) and Naka Masami does not disappoint with the intense weirdness that goes hand-in-hand with a character who would speak like that in a 1970s teen movie.

Ai to Makoto performed well enough at the box office that two sequels would follow, although neither would star Saijo Hideki. The best explanation I found for why he didn’t play Makoto again was simply that he was busy singing and performing. And it’s true that as 1974 turned to 1975, Hideki had a full to packed schedule that included a massive nationwide tour and, also, a hospital stay due to vocal strain. While we missed out on a Hideki trilogy of films, we did get Blow Up Hideki and some really, really good songs so I think it’s okay.

(My favorite character: Makoto’s lackey)

I don’t believe the film is available anywhere with subtitles but even if you don’t understand the dialogue, I think it would still be a fun watch.