I'm told the title Aoi Haru can be read two ways: "blue spring" or "teenage years". Anyway, I liked this movie. What I liked were the dark aspects of this movie and the attempts at symbolism. What I didn't like was the somewhat aimlessness of the plot and the attempts at symbolism. I find it a lot like "go" which also has Hirofumi Arai (Aoki). Both violent highschool movies. Some people have compared it to Battle Royale... although I think this has a better basis in reality. Someone mentioned this movie was strung together from several short manga stories, which makes sense, since we tend to jump through several character's story lines. It isn't necessarily a bad thing, as we get to see where each character is coming from and where they end up. The variety is nice but it I felt like the movie lost it's focus at points. Overall, though, I felt it draws the viewer in and manages to stay kinetic throughout. There was rarely a boring moment. Even a girl waiting for her boyfriend ended up being very amusing. The movie is rather violent and disturbing at points, but managed to still be funny and introspective. I'd probably recommend it to people who can still remember what highschool was like.

This felt like a depiction of school as purgatory, and as such, is one of the grimmest portrayals of high school I've seen in recent memory.

Even without the violence, the way the camera never leaves the school grounds (there might have been one scene early on where it did, but even then, it's still on campus over 95% of the time) and the way almost none of the adults seem to care about the students (with the exception of the one teacher who looks after the garden) creates this sensation that the school is a prison, or somewhere that feels impossible to escape from.

It's quite suffocating and intense, and then when you factor in the scenes of violence, it becomes nightmarish. Much of the violence happens partly or fully off screen, which I think was a good move. It still packs an impact, and ensures that the violence is never accidentally made "cool" or impressive.

If you're okay with something downbeat and intense, I could give this a pretty easy recommendation. It's not flawless, and you could criticise the fairly loose story (it ends with a great climax, but I'm not sure if the movie as a whole built to it completely successfully, for example).

But it's well made, decently acted, and packs a punch. It's also currently on YouTube in decent quality and with English subtitles.