Renai Discourse

Inspired by Roland Barthes’s seminal text of the same name, Renai Discourse offers a thoughtful exploration of intimate human relationships and the elusive nature of romantic connection. The film centers on a couple seated together in a quiet café, where they engage in a subtle conversational game designed to help them articulate their feelings about love. As they attempt to define what it means to truly care for another person, their dialogue reveals the inherent limitations of language when confronted with deep emotion. Rather than arriving at any profound understanding or capturing the true essence of love, the pair finds themselves caught in an endless loop of abstraction. Their words continuously orbit the subject, circling closer yet never quite touching its core. This delicate interplay highlights the frustrating gap between the desire to express affection and the inability to fully communicate it, turning their simple café encounter into a poignant reflection on the boundaries of romantic discourse. This animated short was completed in 2024 as a graduate thesis project at the Tokyo University of the Arts, produced within the Graduate School of Film and New Media's Department of Animation.