The Last Blossom review – a yakuza faces his final reckoning in affecting anime

2026-03-23 - 08:09

A talking balsam flower asks an elderley yakuza to weigh up a life of violence and kindness in Baku Kinoshita’s quietly contemplative tale An original story from director Baku Kinoshita and writer Kazuya Konomoto, this is the kind of quiet, contemplative anime feature that rarely gets a theatrical release. Enveloped in the dusk, the film opens in a lonely prison cell, home to the elderly former yakuza Akutsu. Now on his deathbed, he finds an unexpected confidant in ... a talking balsam flower. (The legend goes that only newborns and the dying can converse with the plant.) Over the course of one sleepless night, his life story unfolds in bursts. Thirty years prior, another balsam flower also grows in the back yard of Akutsu’s humble house, which he shares with Nana and her baby son, Kensuke. The relationship between the taciturn man and the bubbly young woman is seemingly platonic; Kensuke is not his son. Yet there are hints of romantic attraction; they share bowls of piping hot ramen noodles, play endless rounds of Reversi, and join in harmonising the Ben E King classic Stand By Me. Continue reading...