The end of japanese chick's story was so . . . incestous !!!

Once again, not seeing someone sexual doesn't mean we need to hug them like that, for cripe's sake; it's a little weird.

What if someone needed comforting in the shower? For pete's sake, he had a coat he should have given her; the scene was asinine.

She wanted to SLEEP with the police officer, and yes, we get she's vulnerable; we've seen that in various stages throughout her freaking story.

That's a good point Cauldron, but the strangeness could have been rectified by him seeing her unclothed, then covering her and making her warm before they hugged.

Yeah, what the heck's with the trash in this film? The cousin making out while they're high I can forgive, not the rest.

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There was nothing incestuous about the final scene with Chieko and her Dad. I can't believe how some people can so misconstrue what they're seeing.

Chieko is painfully aware of how her deafness is isolating her from mainstream society. She's distant from her father. She's a teenage girl whose sexuality is just beginning to burgeon, yet her condition prevents her from exploring it the usual ways. She is rejected and humiliated when she's approached by the young guy (whose friends set him up as a heartless prank) while she's out with her friends after the volleyball game. The dentist rejects her inappropriate advances and tells her to get lost. She sees her best friend making out with the guy she was interested in at the club. I found it quite poignant the way the viewer experienced that scene through her senses - light show, people dancing around having fun, yet all in complete silence for her. She tries to dance, but without the music it's meaningless to her and is just another cruel way of making her feel that she doesn't fit. Miserable, she leaves the club, only to see a street band playing on her way home, yet again driving home the fact that she has never heard music and has no concept of what it sounds like.

Later at home, she arranges for the cop to come around with the plan of seducing him. The cop resists her clumsy advances but for once doesn't completely reject her. He shows her genuine warmth and empathy, and she begins to understand that this is what she really needs. Finally she's alone out on the balcony, still naked and contemplating suicide, when her father arrives home. She hasn't been able to go through with killing herself because she desperately wants to live, and the cop, despite knocking back her advances, has given her a glimmer of hope, enough to make her hesitate. Finally she reaches out to her father, not out of lust but need - the need for reassurance and validation, to know that she matters to someone and is valued. And most importantly, that she is not isolated and alone.

So yeah, she's naked on the balcony. She got naked for the cop. After the cop has left she's begun to contemplate ending it all. She's not going to think, "Well - I better go and get dressed for the big jump". Her father instinctively knows that covering her up is not what's immediately important. What's important is that his little girl is in a desperate crisis and she needs his comfort and protection. Now.

How anyone gets incest from that scene I don't know. I think that says more about the viewer than it does about the scene. In fact I'd be interested to know how many of those who see incest in this scene are themselves childless.