YMMV / Who's Left Behind? Kayoko's Diary

• Adorkable:
  • Kayoko, her family know she's a crybaby and she's prone to clumsiness and having accidents that usually involve her getting hit on the head but she's also a cute, kind, playful Cheerful Child who's keen to help out (especially after her younger brother Konosuke is born) and generally brightens up the lives of most people she meets.
  • To a certain degree, her immediate older brother Kisaburo. He often gets into fights, be it with other kids or Tadayoshi and Takejiro and getting his clothes all dirty. Whenever there's trouble, it's usually him or his sister on the receiving end. His heart is in the right place though and he cares very much for his younger sister and is by far the most protective of her, to the point of significantly injuring a young boy just for upsetting her. He's also resourceful enough to find an alternative way of taking cover during the firebombing and this ultimately saves his life.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: Kayoko's nightmare about ghosts in the bathroom and the house flooding, all because of her fear of having to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. It's by far the most surreal thing we see in the movie and nothing quite like it happens again for the rest of the movie and apart from maybe signalling the earliest sign of Kayoko's Character Development, it's completely forgotten about once she's woken up from it.
• Crosses the Line Twice: Kayoko tripping over her new kimono, causing her to crash into a screen door and knock it over? Not funny. Seeing her trying to avoid bursting into tears to the point that her face is bright red and contorted just for the sake of trying to be brave? Hilarious, not to mention impressive if her family's reaction is anything to go by, especially when we see her proudly posing with her peers from school with a sticking plaster on her forehead.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • The film kicks off with a series of panning shots and freeze-frames across different parts of Tokyo in 1940, most of which are destined to be destroyed by firebombing five years later.
  • Early in the film, Kayoko has a nightmare in which she encounters ghosts in the bathroom and her house floods to the brink of destruction. The house is later destroyed for real in the firebombing of Tokyo and Kayoko encounters the spirits of her deceased family members while mourning among the ruins.
  • At one point in the film, Kayoko's oldest brother Tadayoshi becomes ill with the Typhus virus due to becoming infected as a result of his own laziness and disregard for cleanliness and hygiene (according to their father). This would become a much more serious issue in 2020 with the outbreak of COVID-19.
  • Tadayoshi himself is later among the family members killed in the firebombing of Tokyo.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: The opening scene depicts three boys playing with spinning tops that are clearly forerunners to products from the Beyblade franchise.
• Realism-Induced Horror:
  • Early in the film, it is implied that Kayoko's neighbour Yoshisuke (who is about the same age as her) and his mother have to deal with his father being abusive and drunk. This leads to Kayoko asking an awkward question about alcohol that prompts her father to immediately abandon his sake. In a later scene, Kayoko catches Yoshisuke in the act of trying to run away with his infant sibling, just to get away from his father, while expressing a desire to earn enough money to buy his father all the sake he can drink. This could be interpreted as Yoshisuke wishing for his father to drink himself to death. We're talking a child around Kayoko's age who no longer feels safe in his own home and the increasing threat of War isn't the reason.
  • Moving in with her Aunt Masae in Numazu does not guarantee Kayoko's safety from the increasing threat of World War 2 as at one point, she is targeted by a P51 Mustang, having failed to take cover. She dives down an embankment as a last resort. This saves her life but also results in her cracking her head open and she discovers the bleeding corpse of a soldier who was shot by the Mustang when she climbs back up the embankment. The shock is enough to cause Kayoko to faint. She later witnesses Tokyo being firebombed and burning from the mountaintops above Numazu.
  • According to Kisaburo, when Tokyo was firebombed, the family were forced to leave the air raid shelter and take cover somewhere else. The only building they could find that was still standing and not burning was the local middle school but the place was seemingly filled to capacity and the gates were locked. Kisaburo managed to find an open window to climb in through and did just that. He pointed this out to the rest of the family and expected them to follow him but they didn't and consequently they all died, either by burning or from smoke inhalation or being crushed by other people trying to take cover.