It's a beautiful morning in Japan. Young Uehara Tonbo waves goodbye to his father, Kohei, and heads off to school. Soon after he's joined by his bespectacled mother, Choko, who is dressed in her police officer uniform. They amble along, discussing how the first grader's day is going to go. Older sister Aoi dashes by, complaining she's going to be late. Everything looks perfectly normal (except for those two guys in the background wearing gawd-awful plaid pants.) But all is not as it seems, for you see
Mom is dead. She's dead! Ah, it's the zombie apocalypse! We were warned! Why didn't we listen?!? Ahhhhhhhhh!!!
But seriously, she's dead.
Flashback to three months earlier. It's Tonbo's first day of school and as a special treat Choko serves hamburgers for breakfast. The school has a great big opening ceremony with flowers and everything. (My school didn't have any kind of ceremony to welcome first graders. Mom just dropped me off and forgot about me. And I didn't get any hamburgers for breakfast, either! I feel bitter now.) The teacher does a roll call of her students, but when she gets to Tonbo the other cruel little kids laugh at his name. Choko jumps to her feet and yells out Tonbo's name. Everybody turns to look at her as she tells her son to answer the teacher with pride and volume. Way to make the moment even worse.
Choko is rushing off to work when she hears someone shout, "Purse snatcher!" A scruffy man is running away from a cop on a bicycle. Choko goes into badass mode. She grabs the perp by the arm as he tries to run past her. She swings him around and then over her shoulder, smashing him to the ground. Don't mess with the dead!
Choko changes into uniform and goes on patrol. She runs into a group of students who are skipping school (oh no, it's those gawd-awful plaid pants again! It's like part of a school uniform. Grey blazers and brown plaid pants. Dear Lord, what evil is behind all this?) when she hears someone scream, "Fire!" Choko quickly runs towards the danger. She's able to bring out a mother and young baby but there's still another child inside the burning home. Choko valiantly dives back into the inferno and finds the child. However, she's overcome by smoke inhalation and falls to the floor as images of her family run through her mind. Luckily the firefighters have arrived and find them.
At the emergency room, Choko stands by as the doctors work on the little girl. They're able to revive her and Choko is relieved. Someone asks, "What about the other one?" and is told "she" didn't make it. Curious as to who the other victim is, Choko peeks around the curtain to see ... her own body on the table. The Uehara family (the live ones, that is) come into the room to mourn over her body. Choko is unable to be heard or seen by anyone.
Then The Light appears. Choko starts to step into it and dissolve when she hears Tonbo repeatedly crying for his mother to wake up. She steps back out and The Light is all, "Fine. Be that way." and disappears. Choko is crying over her family when she notices a mysterious young man standing out in the hallway. He seems to be able to see her and she goes racing after him. She catches up to him in the lobby and starts asking him all sorts of questions, like he's supposed to be the Information Desk of the Dead. He takes the easy way out and disappears.
Finally accepting she's a ghost, Choko decides to keep watch over her family. We jump forward three months. She wonders why her family can't get over her death in such a short amount of time. Whenever she tries to touch anyone, her hand simply goes right through them and they feel an intense chill. Tonbo is having difficulty seeing so Dad plans to take him to the eye doctor. (In an almost off-hand manner we also learn that Aoi is actually Choko's step daughter.)
Choko accompanies her son to school. He's picked on by other kids and is too depressed to participate in his classes. Choko is watching the school kids play ball, talking to herself about how powerless she feels, when the dead young man from before appears. He explains to her that if she thinks she's powerless then she will be powerless. As an example, the ball rolls towards the ghosts. Choko tries to pick it up but her hands move through it. The mysterious man easily picks the ball up and throws it back to the now frightened kid. (I'm reminded of the scene from Ghost where Patrick Swayze learns from the subway ghost how to kick a can.)
Back at home Choko practices on trying to touch things to no avail. Tonbo comes home from school and mopes around. On a table is a picture of his late mother. Her eyeglasses rest before the photograph. Tonbo tries the glasses on and is amazed at how well he is able to see now. Everything is in focus.
Including his mother.
Not only do the eyeglasses allow him to see his mother's ghost, they somehow enable him to hear her as well. (I mention this because this is one of my pet peeves. Seeing her through her glasses kind of makes sense, but why should the glasses make him able to hear her as well? Just sayin'. Also, I've just noticed he has the word Rainbow in big letters on the seat of his pants.) Tonbo tells his family about the glasses and Choko's ghost, but they just think it's part of his dealing with his mother's death. When Aoi and Kohei try on the glasses, they can't see her. It only works for the little boy.
We're back to the beginning as Tonbo, wearing the glasses, leaves for school. He's happy to be reunited with his mother but when they reach the school yard he insists she not accompany him any further. He doesn't like her spying on him all the time. So what does a ghost do with time on her hands? She goes to her old police department to check up on things. She overhears a couple of officers discussing a string of arson cases. They wonder if the fire Choko died in was also arson. Conveniently, an alert comes in to the department about a factory fire. Choko is on the case.
Outside the burning building a crowd has gathered to gawk. Choko notices one man who looks familiar. She remembers the other fire, the one that killed her, also had a crowd of spectators outside and this man was there as well. Choko is suspicious and follows him to his home. He has a scrap book filled with pictures and newspaper articles about all the fires. He also has a large calendar with certain days marked with a red star. She recognizes the red star dates correspond with the dates of the arson fires. This is the man who is ultimately responsible for her death. But... she's a ghost. What can she do?
That night Choko discusses all this with her six-year-old son, because six-year-old's can handle these kind of things. She attempts to use Tonbo as her mouthpiece and sends him to her old police chief, Mifune Yoshimitsu, to report the arsonist. The chief doesn't believe the child and thinks Tonbo is going crazy. Choko mutters to herself how they need conclusive evidence. Tonbo takes it upon himself to go get that evidence. Way to put your six-year-old into a dangerous situation, dead mom.
With an old-fashioned camera around his neck (you know - the kind that takes actual film), Tonbo shadows the arson suspect. This arsonist isn't much of an arsonist. He has one teeny tiny can of lighter fluid. He's about to set another building on fire when he spies Tonbo taking pictures of him. He chases after the child and tries to get the camera. Choko finally finds them but all she can do is give the arsonist the chill of a lifetime. It's enough to get him to let go of Tonbo. The boy dashes into a warehouse with the arsonist again on his heels. Choko goes looking for help, forgetting the past three months and how NO ONE can see or hear her.
No human, that is. She spies Mifune out walking his dog. The dog can see her and she causes the animal to follow her, meaning her boss has to follow his dog. The arsonist has cornered Tonbo when Choko and the dog arrive. The man can't see Choko but he's utterly terrified by this (adorable) little poodle. Mifune comes to find his dog and Tonbo reports the man as the arsonist, claiming he has photographic evidence as well. Again using him as her mouthpiece, mom and son also tell the policeman about the calendar and where he can find the scrap book in the man's apartment. (On a legal note, would any of this be admissible in court?) The arsonist tries to run. Action Mifune takes him down. The criminal is hauled off to jail and Tonbo is reunited with his (living) family.
Case closed.
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