When I was 13, I belonged to a neighborhood gang called, ironically, "The Hoods." We committed minor acts of vandalism as a sort of game and talked about invading the turf of a rival gang a few blocks over (but never got around to it). We were, to put it plainly, idiots.
Based on Usamaru Furuya's horror manga of the same name, "Litchi Hikari Club" ("Raichi☆Hikari Kurabu"), directed by Eisuke Naito, imagines a gang of junior high school boys on a completely different, psychopathic level of bad. It's as if the Marquis de Sade had penned "Peter Pan" instead of J. M. Barrie. But the film's portrayal of evil is elaborately stylized and staged, with its teen protagonists behaving more like manga archetypes than flesh-and-blood boys who play chess, mess with computers and obsess over girls.
The title organization was once known as the "Light Club." Its founders were three boys — Tamiya, Kaneda and Tabuse (aka "Duff") — who made an abandoned factory their secret clubhouse. But, as the film begins, the club's leader is now Tsunekawa aka "Zera" (Yuki Furukawa), a bespectacled chess prodigy who is the leader of eight classmates that act like disciples of an unholy faith.
With your current subscription plan you can comment on stories. However, before writing your first comment, please create a display name in the Profile section of your subscriber account page.