Dec. 25
In “Josee, The Tiger and the Fish,” there’s no magical world to which our protagonist escapes, aside from her own vibrant imagination. That protagonist is Kumiko (Kaya Kiyohara), who prefers to be called Josee, a character from one of her favorite books. Unable to use her legs from birth, Josee, now in her early 20s, is cared for by her loving but controlling grandmother, who forbids her to leave the house except on short walks.
It’s on one of these walks that Josee loses control of her wheelchair and careens down a steep hill. Luckily, her fall is stopped by Tsuneo (Taishi Nakagawa), a university student who lives in the area. An aspiring marine biologist, Tsuneo works multiple part-time jobs to save enough money to study abroad. The night Tsuneo inadvertently saves Josee, her grandmother offers him a new job with better pay than most: to look after her granddaughter.