Love Letter

Two years after her fiancé Itsuki Fujii dies in a mountain-climbing accident, Hiroko Watanabe of Kobe attends his memorial service still deep in grief. On impulse, she copies an address she finds under his name in his old high school yearbook and mails him a letter — knowing it cannot reach anyone. To her shock, a reply arrives. The sender is a young woman named Itsuki Fujii (both women are played by Miho Nakayama) who lives in the snowy port city of Otaru and bears a striking resemblance to Hiroko. She is the male Itsuki's former classmate, their shared name once a running joke among their peers.

The film alternates between the two women as they begin an unlikely correspondence. Female Itsuki works at the public library and is suffering from a persistent cold she refuses to treat, haunted by the memory of her father, who died of pneumonia during her high school years. Hiroko shares the mysterious letters with her good-natured friend Akiba, who confesses his romantic feelings for her and urges her to let go of the past. It is revealed that at one point Akiba, trying to help Hiroko move on, sent an intercepting letter to Otaru requesting proof of Female Itsuki's identity — meaning not every reply Hiroko received came directly from Female Itsuki.

To resolve the mystery and push Hiroko toward closure, Akiba proposes a trip to Otaru to meet Female Itsuki in person. Female Itsuki, however, is maneuvered by her family into going to the hospital, where she falls into a feverish sleep and dreams of her father's death. Hiroko and Akiba wait outside Female Itsuki's home but lose their nerve and leave a letter in the mailbox instead of knocking. The two women briefly glimpse each other from a distance before parting without speaking.

Back in Kobe, Hiroko scrutinises the old yearbook again and notices that two students named Itsuki Fujii appear — one male, one female. She begins to suspect that her physical resemblance to Female Itsuki may be the very reason her fiancé fell in love with her, and she writes asking Female Itsuki to share her memories of the male Itsuki.

Through a series of warm flashbacks, Female Itsuki recalls a shy, peculiar classmate who shared her name. Because they were alphabetically and nominally paired, their classmates endlessly teased them as a couple, embarrassing them both. Female Itsuki half-heartedly tried to act as go-between for Sanae, another girl who harboured a crush on Male Itsuki. When Female Itsuki was absent from school during her mourning period after her father's death, Male Itsuki came to her home and asked her to return a library book on his behalf. It was the last time they ever spoke; he transferred to another school shortly afterward. Back in the present, Female Itsuki visits her old school and learns for the first time that the male Itsuki died in a mountain accident two years ago.

In a parallel emotional climax, Hiroko and Akiba travel to the mountain where her fiancé perished. Akiba wakes Hiroko at dawn to watch the sunrise and points to the peak. Hiroko, echoing the playful tone of her first letter, shouts into the cold mountain air — a farewell that is also a release. At the same moment, Female Itsuki wakes in a hospital bed, saved just in time after her neglected cold had developed into pneumonia, mirroring her father's death and resolved, unlike his, by her mother and grandfather braving a blizzard to reach her.

Some time later, volunteer students from Female Itsuki's former high school library come to visit her, bringing with them the book that Male Itsuki had once asked her to return. Looking at the checkout card inside, they find his name — and on the reverse side, a careful pencil sketch he had made of Female Itsuki's face, hidden there and never seen by anyone. Moved by the discovery, Female Itsuki begins to write a letter to Hiroko about the drawing, then stops. She decides to keep this final secret of his love to herself, and does not send it.

Sources: Wikipedia, Web search (Letterboxd, AsianMoviePulse, Windows on Worlds cross-reference)