Getting to know "Nobody knows."

It seems like most of the information we get about Japan makes the natives look like fad-crazed freaks. The men read comic book porn on the subways. The hip girls dress like muppets. A new hot pink carbonated beverage is invented in Tokyo every five minutes. The hotel rooms are only two feet by two feet and they cost $2,000.00 a night.

Anime movies, j-horror, manja and Gwen Stefani have given me a warped sense of what Japan must be like. Director Kore-eda's latest film, "Nobody Knows," opened earlier this year and can clear your palate of all the kitschy Japanese pop culture.

The film is based on a true story of a group of siblings abandoned by their mother (no father was in the picture) and left alone in an apartment in Tokyo. The film follows the children as they try to remain undetected, find food and survive without water or electricity. You never get the feeling that the children are in danger. Kore-eda is not trying to make their lives seem dramatic. He just follows them through their chores and their occassional days of fun and light-heartedness. It's beautiful and, in the end, heart wrenching.

My favorite scene is one of the most bittersweet. The oldest boy, Akira, has never gone to school and is in charge of his younger siblings. He worries about paying bills, getting food on the table and making sure his siblings are happy. He is friendless and longs to hang out with boys his own age. One day while running errands he finds a ball laying in a park near his home and throws the ball in the air over and over again. He looks for the first time to have no worries as he plays a game of catch by himself with the small red ball.

I find it reassuring that Japan is not the cartoon to which we're normally exposed - even if the reality is excruciating. Japanese kids can fall through the cracks in their country. Mothers can be selfish and neglectful. Men deny paternity and flee the scene. But, in the end, the world through the eyes of these children feel real and human and a perfect antidote to the zero-calorie Japanese pop culture that have flooded our tvs and bookstores.