Akiko Ohku is best known for directing comedies about lonely single women on the lookout for love, including her 2017 breakout hit, ¡°Tremble All You Want.¡± Mayu Matsuoka starred as a nerdy office worker obsessed with ammonite fossils and a teenage crush she never got over.

But as Ohku¡¯s latest, ¡°She Taught Me Serendipity,¡± shows, her films are not purely rom-coms. When the stories turn serious, their protagonists¡¯ pain becomes all too real.

¡°She Taught Me Serendipity¡± is the director¡¯s first to center on a guy ¡ª a quirky, immature college student. But the two women who enter his small world both have strong personalities; he is a weak reed by comparison.