The New God

In which pinko 'media activist' Tsuchiya chronicles his amour fou for Karin Amamiya, punk chanteuse with the ultra-right-wing nationalist band The Revolutionary Truth. Their notional political differences drown in their shared hatred of US imperialism, and they get to know each other through conversations about race, history, group identity and so on, which achieve hitherto unquantified heights of absurdity and self-delusion. Eventually, Tsuchiya lends the woman a camcorder to document her disillusioning visit to North Korea. When she gets back, he steals her from her existing boyfriend, the band's leader Ito, provoking threats of violence. At least the title gets it right: these idiots can't begin to feel alive at all unless they have a deity to worship.