Ms. Tokyo takes a trip to reality

The TV trendy drama was a bubble-era phenomenon, with its stories about the love troubles of beautiful young singles working at glamorous "katakana jobs" (such as "event planner" and "coordinator," written in the katakana syllabary) and living in central city apartments that the average straphanger would have to mortgage his soul to afford.

Though a fantasy, the trendy drama reflected the times, in which even OLs could dream of fat bonuses and Louis Vuitton bags without end. Today, after a decade of recession, that fantasy has come back to earth, with the results evident in Masahiko Nagasawa's debut feature "Koko ni Iru Koto (Being Here)."

As in the trendy dramas of yore, the heroine, Shino Aiba (Hitomi Manaka), is young, attractive, unattached and living alone in Tokyo, safe from the prying eyes of neighbors and relatives. She even has a job as a copywriter (or, in katakana, kopiraita) with a big ad agency. But instead of glamorizing her life, with shots of chic designer clothes, swank restaurants and dream dates against the backdrop of the Rainbow Bridge, Nagasawa has opted for the kind of antiromanticism that would make a trendy-drama producer roll his eyes in horror at the thought of ratings points lost.