Much like Jane Schoenbrun’s I Saw The TV Glow, writer-director Miyazaki Daisuke’s Plastic is at its strongest, warmest, and most endearing when it’s fixated on the bond between two kids united by their shared love for a forgotten piece of fictional pop culture ephemera. But where I Saw the TV Glow rails against the loss of youth, Plastic seems content to wander around the streets of Nagoya aimlessly noodling on guitars.

Miyazaki’s film begins with long shot of a high school girl, Ibuki (Ogawa An), riding her bike around her hometown while listening to her favorite “you’ve probably never heard of them” band, when she passes a bleached-blond busker, Jun (Fujie Takuma), who just so happens to be playing the same song. Instantly obsessed with seemingly the only other person their age who knows the band, the two quickly bond, then fall in love. It...