My face the majority of the movie was the disgusted/appalled emoji. All the main characters were the definition of sh*t heads and I don't know how Kazuo didn't lose his cool and cuss out every person he met REGULARLY. They were so brazen it'd be impossible for the average person not to snap. I really enjoyed Sato Takeru's performance and it isn't bias but just admiration for how he carries every role he's in so professionally. Kazuo was a very rational and level-headed and cool person. A normal person who was a pushover and struggling with financial pressures like everyone but he was a reasonable person. He was the only stable thing about any of the characters' contributions to the story.
The whole theme about money's worth/value and human dependence/absorption with it was very repetitive and seemed to a rather privileged point of view? It irritated me because even though I understand the underlying and moral aspect of what the characters and writer was trying to say, the stress Kazuo was going through is an incredibly real burden that people go through and it's not his fault or MONEY'S, it's the society we live in. The aspect on how much society creates this false financial pressure on a person was completely sidelined and even though the message of escaping from the obsession over worthless paper is a good and real one it's also theoretical or rather disconnected from reality. It was almost condescending and I lack the proper word here but something similar to the savior complex permeated the whole story and that is why I couldn't believe how chill Kazuo was with everyone basically disrespecting him. I understood his gratitude and resolve after his friend's actions were concluded, but the audacity of those actions??? Perhaps that's why Kazuo is a better person than me but.
The drawing up to the climax and Kazuo's final resolution was satisfying and well-played so it's fine but the overall message was just a turn off. Kazuo's realizations too were very emotional and delivered well by Sato's performance and the directing.