Synopsis

34-year-old Sato Tamio works as an art teacher at a private high school. He has a heavy complex about his appearance and has also been struggling to be successful in finding a potential suitor on a marriage matchmaking app. To add insult to injury, he is terminated from his teaching contract, but is determined to find a full time job. In his discouraged state, he enters a brothel and falls in love with a sex worker named Serika. From this point forward, he begins to frequent the brothel. His relationship with Serika gradually grows closer, and they become “like” lovers, but his love for Serika brings him relentlessly face to face with reality, as well as his inner conflicts surrounding his image, age and the world’s expectations of him. This is a bitter love story between two people that realistically depicts the feelings that everyone experiences at least once as well as the painful inadequacies of love and life.  Adapted from the manga “Romance Boufu Iki” (ロマンス暴風域) by Torikai Akane (鳥飼茜).