Your high school crush returns with a past so toxic you'll need a hazmat suit for the feelings.
Yoshihara Akihito had no particular goal and just managed to manage his daily life. One day, he happened to meet Ishikawa Eriko, who had a secret feeling in high school. Akihito decides to make a plan when he sees Eriko, who rejects all the past, "memories that he wants to change" and "memories that he wants to erase" that are revived by the reunion. To settle the abominable past for the two in high school. A straight and slightly bitter youth group story that depicts characters with a dark past facing each other desperately while being clumsy in order to repaint the memories of memories that turned away from their eyes as adults.
Acting
Riku Hagiwara and Ayane Kinoshita weaponize restraint.
Direction
Sugioka frames awkward silences like horror.
Writing
Dialogue so natural it feels like eavesdropping.
Director
Tomoya Sugioka
Yuki Inoue
Akihito Yoshihara
Riku Hagiwara
Yusuke Iba
Ayane Kinoshita
Eriko Ishikawa
Misato Morita
Sumiko Harada
Reiya Masaki
Takuma Endo
Karin Ono
Asami Uehara
Nana Mizoguchi
Ayaka Noda
Endo Fumiya
Ryohei Sawamura
Yamada Himina
Chie Miyamoto
Mizuki Maehara
Shinji Fujita
Eito Konishi
Naomichi Ogawa
Aino Kuribayashi
Nana Takagi
Hanano Akazawa
Shiho Tanimura
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Director Tomoya Sugioka cast several actors who had worked together in stage productions, creating genuine off-screen history that bleeds into the reunion tension.
The title 'Bittersand' references both the sandy beaches of youth and the way memories erode like sediment — layer by painful layer until nothing recognizable remains.
JP
