Japanese director Nobuhiko Ôbayashi is best known to American horror film fans for his outrageous 1977 feature House (Hausu), but he was a prolific, genre-spanning filmmaker with 78 directing credits. Among his dozens of films that he helmed are two science fiction/fantasy-themed films, School in the Crosshairs (1981) and The Little Girl Who Conquered Time (1983), that are part of New York City-based Japan Society’s “Obayashi ’80s: The Onomichi Trilogy & Kadokawa Years” retrospective, running February 7––14, 2025.
School in the Crosshairs and The Little Girl Who Conquered Time are two of Ôbayashi’s beloved seishun eiga (youth films) from the 1980s that are, as described by the Japan Society press release, “Woven through visually expressive fantasias with striking formal experimentation and pop-art boldness,” using the director’s “idiosyncratic cinematic language.” The mind-boggling, experimental visual flair that he brought to Hausu are on wonderful display with these two fantastic-themed efforts, also.
School in the Crosshairs (Nerawareta Gakuen) is the wildest of the two films. Yuka (Hiroko Yakushimaru) is a high school student who learns suddenly one day that she has gained psychic powers when she saves a child from being hit by a car by merely wishing to prevent the accident. Meanwhile, the arrival of a new student begins a troubling array of events, as she wins the election for school president using mind control and growing a large group of fascist school patrollers. Extraterrestrial forces are at play, and it is up to Yuka to try to defend not just her school but the entire world from the alien invasion. Yakushimaru is an absolute delight in the lead role, and the fun lo-fi absurdity includes a main antagonist who looks like no extraterrestrial you have ever seen in a movie before. The film’s message about individualism and free-thinking shines brightly and the optimistic verve is infectious.
The Little Girl Who Conquered Time (Toki o Kakeru Shoujo), based on Yasutaka Tsutsui’s 1967 novel, concerns time travel as high schooler Kazuko Yoshiyama (Tomoyo Harada) shuffles between living one day in the future and then back to the present after fainting while cleaning her school’s science lab. She desperately wants to return to her normal life, and her quest to do so strengthens bonds of friendship and love along the way. Harada shines as she toplines a fine cast in this charming, whimsical feature.
Ôbayashi’s vivid imagination is prominent in both the imaginative storytelling and direction, and in the smile-inducing special effects he employs. School in the Crosshairs and The Little Girl Who Conquered Time are unique time capsules of Japan high school life in the 1980s and a tribute to the director’s unbounded creative power and cinematic passion.
Image: © 1983 Kadokawa Corp.
Japan Society presents School in the Crosshairs and The Little Girl Who Conquered Time — both are Cult Epics Releases — as part of its Obayashi ’80s: The Onomichi Trilogy & Kadokawa Years retrospective, running February 7-14, 2025 in New York City. For more information including ticket sales, visit here for School in the Crosshairs and here for The Little Girl Who Conquered Time.
