Little Forest: Winter/Spring

Ichiko has returned to Komori, a small mountain town in Japan's Tohoku region, after a failed attempt at life in the big city. She lives largely off the land, growing her own rice and gathering ingredients from nearby fields and woods, since shops are scarce. The film follows her through winter and spring as she cooks for herself and for friends and neighbors: a cake for a year-end gathering, mochi and curry to warm the cold months, then spring dishes alongside rice planting and the cherry blossoms. Thoughts of her absent mother return with the season, and with them the question of whether to leave Komori again.

This is the second half of a two-part adaptation of a manga. Junichi Mori wrote and directed both installments, following Little Forest: Summer/Autumn in 2014. Ai Hashimoto plays Ichiko, with Takahiro Miura as Yuta, Mayu Matsuoka as Kikko, Yoichi Nukumizu as Shigeyuki, Karen Kirishima as Fukuko, and Momone Shinokawa as the younger Ichiko. The film runs two hours, and the ratings suggest a well-liked but modestly seen title: on IMDb it holds 7.6 from around 3,300 votes, while on TMDB it sits at 7.8 from a much smaller base of about 107 votes, indicating a devoted audience rather than a broad one.