Oyayubihime is a Japanese TV horror movie, released in 1999 and starring Chiaki Kuriyama. It was part of the series Kowai Douma, which featured horror reinterpretations of fairy tales, in this particular case, Thumbelina.
Shy and studious Saeko has a crush on a boy in her class named Yuiichi. One night, she meets a strange man at a flea market, who encourages her to be open about her feelings, and gives her a red potion to use on him. The next day, she gathers her courage and confesses her love to Yuichi, however, to her dismay, he is not interested in her. As a last desperate attempt to get him to return her feelings, she throws the red potion at him. The potion does not have the expected effect however, and Yuiichi shrinks down to the size of a figurine.
The film was never released on DVD, so it is difficult to obtain a hard copy. However the full film has been uploaded on YouTube
.
Contains the following tropes:
- Abduction Is Love: Saeko certainly believes so, at first doing her best to earn Yuichi's love by showering him with love and attention, and later resorting to torture and blackmail.
- Ax-Crazy: The things Saeko does to those she shrinks are madness and cruelty.
- Birdcaged: Saeko keeps Yuiichi confined in her drawer. At the end of the movie, Saeko is the one in a cage as reporters crowd around and gawk at her.
- The Cassandra: Misa is brave enough to speak up in spite of Saeko's blackmail. Unfortunately, no one believes her.
- Cold-Blooded Torture: Once Aya is shrunk down, Saeko has her dance on a heated pan and even forces Yuiichi to hit her.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: Saeko crushes Aya under her shoe, leaving her body visibly mangled and throwing her into a trashcan.
- Daydream Surprise: After using her last wish to switch sizes with Yuichi, Saeko imagines him finding affection for her and deciding to take care of her, only for him to hand her over to the authorities and move on with his life.
- Grimmification: A modern, darker In Name Only adaptation of "Thumbelina."
- Lovable Alpha Bitch: Misa is nosy, rude, and a mooching gossip, but she also stands up to Saeko in spite of her fear and provides a lot of comic relief fighting with the teacher.
- Love Makes You Evil: Saeko's crush on Yuichi leads her to shrinking him and murdering someone else.
- Magical Queer: The strange man is such on two levels: not only does he serve as a friend and guide to Saeko with no true life or problems of his own, but he is also actually magical.
- Pre-Mortem One-Liner: " Oh, Aya... you've been a bad girl." *STOMP*
- Sanity Slippage: Saeko already starts out a little obsessive, but having power over Yuiichi and Aya drives her over the edge.
- Stalker with a Crush: Saeko follows Yuichi around and it is creepy.
- Stalking Is Funny if It Is Female After Male: Averted. Yuichi is absolutely blunt as to how creepy and disturbing Saeko's behaviour is.
- Stalking is Love: Averted again, as above. Saeko's stalking is portrayed as creepy rather than endearing or cute.
- Straight Gay: It is difficult for someone going off subs to denote the lavender linguistics in the strange man's speech, so it can be a surprise to hear Saeko describe him as gay.
- Yandere: While Saeko at first seems too shy to fit into the archetype, she becomes more and more extroverted as she loses her sanity.
