Jumpei Yasui

1960s Japan—economic boom, Olympic pride, and a crackdown on “public morals.” An anti-prostitution law targets women but spares male sex workers, the so-called “blue boys.” When police arrest the doctor performing their sex reassignment surgeries, the sensational “Blue Boy Trial” begins. Three transgender women take the stand, igniting a national debate on identity, medicine, and happiness—long before the language of LGBT existed. Though the court ruled surgery legal, the verdict cast a shadow: no such operations would occur in Japan for 29 years. Half a century later, this buried history still reverberates in the lives of sexual minorities.

Cicada is the story of Jumpei-- a man who loses sight of his progeny when he finds out he is infertile, but then is given the gift of clairvoyance and begins to see glimpses of the future. These glimpses lead him to a series of cicada shells, which become symbolic of his desire to shed his old self. Though his lineage ends with himself, Jumpei starts anew as a father-figure to his sister's young son.