Ghost: Death was... eternal loneliness.
Ghost: [recurring line] Tasukete.
[first lines]

Ship Captain: Change course. Direction, 120 degrees.
[last lines]

Michi Kudo: Now, I'm alone with my last friend in the world, and I've found happiness.
Ryosuke Kawashima: What's this?

Harue Karasawa: That? Something we programmed here. If two dots get too close, they die, but if they get too far apart, they're drawn closer.

Ryosuke Kawashima: Huh... what's it for?

Harue Karasawa: A miniature model of our world... But only the grad student who designed it understands it.
Harue Karasawa: Ghosts won't kill people... because that would just make more ghosts. Isn't that right? Instead, they'll try to make people immortal by quietly trapping them in their own loneliness.
Michi Kudo: It all began one day, without warning, like this.
Michi Kudo: Still no answer at Taguchi's?

Junko Sasano: No.

Michi Kudo: It's been over a week, he must have his reasons.

Junko Sasano: It shouldn't take a week to work on that disk.

Michi Kudo: No, something's wrong. Maybe I should see if he's okay.

Junko Sasano: I just got the creeps.

Michi Kudo: What?

Junko Sasano: I don't know, I just feel like something's wrong. Like something's horribly wrong.
Michi Kudo: Have you finished working on that disk?

Taguchi: Yes, it should be somewhere in that pile.

Michi Kudo: You okay? Are you sick?

Taguchi: No.

Michi Kudo: What have you been up to all on your lonesome? We're friends.

Taguchi: Yeah... stuff... help yourself to the disk.
Junko Sasano: It's so upsetting, I don't know what he was so depressed about. He never said anything, so what could we have done?

Toshio Yabe: Maybe he just suddenly wanted to die. I get that way sometimes. It's so easy to hang yourself.
Toshio Yabe: Say, would you take a look?

Junko Sasano: At what?

Toshio Yabe: At Taguchi's disk.

Junko Sasano: What's that?

Michi Kudo: It's Taguchi's place.

Junko Sasano: Is that Taguchi?

Toshio Yabe: Yeah, I think so, look.

Junko Sasano: [sees the same image on the monitor of Taguchi's computer in the image] What's going on? Isn't that the same scene?

Toshio Yabe: I can't tell.

Michi Kudo: Hold on.

[points to screen]

Michi Kudo: That's a face, a reflection.
Junko Sasano: It was Taguchi, wasn't it?

Toshio Yabe: Sure seems like it.

Junko Sasano: What's going on?

Toshio Yabe: Maybe something strange is going on.

Michi Kudo: Strange?

Toshio Yabe: I don't know.

Junko Sasano: I don't even care anymore.

Toshio Yabe: Something's definitely not right.
Ryosuke Kawashima: [reads instruction manual] Welcome to the Internet.

[gets on the computer]

Ryosuke Kawashima: 'Have fun', okay, I'll have fun.
Ryosuke Kawashima: Can a computer dial you up itself?

Yoshizaki: Are you in computer science?

Ryosuke Kawashima: No, economics, no relation.

Yoshizaki: Huh, sounds like a hacker.

Ryosuke Kawashima: A hacker, huh... it said 'Do you want to meet a ghost?' Some website like that.

Yoshizaki: A ghost, huh?
Michi's mother: Are you eating this junk again? They're not good for you.
Michi's mother: Have you called your father?

Michi Kudo: Nope.

Michi's mother: I see, but what if you get in trouble? I can't rush over. It's awkward for me to see him, but you should.

Michi Kudo: Forget it, he's out of the picture.
Michi Kudo: I'm fine, I got my friends.

Yoshizaki: You sure? I guess you'll be alright then. You're so trusting and get carried away.
Harue Karasawa: What got you started on the internet?

Ryosuke Kawashima: Nothing in particular.

Harue Karasawa: You don't like computers.

Ryosuke Kawashima: Not really.

Harue Karasawa: Wanted to connect with other people?

Ryosuke Kawashima: Maybe, I don't know. Everybody else is into it.

Harue Karasawa: People don't really connect, you know?

Ryosuke Kawashima: What?

Harue Karasawa: Like those dots simulating humans. We all live totally separately. That's how it seems to me.
Toshio Yabe: I saw a face.

Michi Kudo: What?

Toshio Yabe: A really horrible face. I've never seen anything like it.

Michi Kudo: What are you saying? What did you see?

Toshio Yabe: The Forbidden Room.

Michi Kudo: The Forbidden Room? What's that? Is that the room with the red tape?

Toshio Yabe: Don't you dare go in there!
Boss: Words said in friendship with the best of intentions always wind up hurting your friends and then you wind up getting hurt. Is friendship always that way? If that's so, what's left? If I were you, who needs friends like that? A courageous choice in itself.
Ryosuke Kawashima: [reading a book about phantoms] "Everyone dies, therefore there's no logical reason for ghosts not to exist. How many ghosts have existed since prehistoric times?"
Yoshizaki: The spirit, or consciousness, the soul, whatever you want to call it, it turns out the realm they inhabit has a finite capacity. Whether that capacity accommodates billions or trillions, eventually it will run out of space. Once it's overflowed to the brim, it's got to overflow somehow, somewhere, but where? The souls have no choices but to ooze into another realm, that is to say our world. Maybe at first it started with something really simple, once that realm reached critical mass, any device would've sufficed, thrown together with the means and materials at hand. That's how I see it.
Yoshizaki: Through that process it spread around the world. But now they're no longer the faint presence they began as. You saw one yourself.

Ryosuke Kawashima: I don't believe your stories.

Yoshizaki: Right, sorry, it's all hypothetical.
Yoshizaki: But, if this really happened, there's no turning back. No matter how simple the device, once the system's complete, it'll function all on its own and become permanent. In other words, the passage is now open, that's how it looks.
Junko Sasano: Michi, what's going on? Why do you think everybody's disappearing?
Doroningen: Tokyo: Missing Sakai Mitsuo, Tokyo: Missing Yamazaki Naoko, Kanagawa: Missing Hirayama Michio, Kanagawa: Missing Kauahara Takumi, Saitama: Missing Tomioka Shigeki, Tokyo: Missing Yoshida Tomoko, Tokyo: Missing Nakajima Kumi, Kanagawa: Missing Kitaoka Eri, Tokyo: Missing Fukuda Tatsuya.
Harue Karasawa: I've always wondered what it was like to die, from when I was really little. I was always alone.

Ryosuke Kawashima: Any parents or family?

Harue Karasawa: Sure, but they're irrelevant.

Ryosuke Kawashima: Right.

Harue Karasawa: That after death, you live happily with everyone over there.

Ryosuke Kawashima: Can we stop talking about this?

Harue Karasawa: But it may be true.

Ryosuke Kawashima: Sure, but...

Harue Karasawa: Then in high school it dawned on me, you might be all alone after death too.

Ryosuke Kawashima: There's no way to know, how could you know?

Harue Karasawa: The idea was so terrifying, I couldn't even bear it, that nothing changes with death, just right now, forever. Is that what becoming a ghost is about?
Ryosuke Kawashima: What have ghosts to do with us? Besides, we're alive.

Harue Karasawa: Then who are they?

[turns on monitors]

Harue Karasawa: Are they really alive? How are they different from ghosts?

[pause]

Harue Karasawa: In fact, ghosts and people are the same, whether they're dead or alive.

Ryosuke Kawashima: It's not right, it's wrong. They're all crazy! Nobody knows what happens when you die, all this about ghosts, but I won't believe in them even if I see one.
Junko Sasano: Michi, am I just going to die like this?

Michi Kudo: No.

Junko Sasano: Of course not... I'll just go on living like this... all alone.
Ryosuke Kawashima: Just maybe in 10 years, or at least while we're still alive, they'll invent a drug that prevents death. Then, we could live forever and ever. Of course you might say I'm crazy, but I'd rather bet on *that*.

Pulse Quotes

Extended Reading

Pulse short comments

Dannie 2022-04-21 09:03:49

There is only a thin line between a lonely human being and a fool, and Kurosawa Kiyoshi's apocalyptic atmosphere has reached its peak this time, with dark tones, industrial noise, and screams of human voices. PS: Kumiko Aso at 20+ is so cute that the director doesn't want her to die.
Caden 2022-04-21 09:03:49

The best horror movie ever! Plastic film, shadow fragments, jumping from water tank, female ghost in slow motion, ghost calling for help, hugging screen. Emotional images, human alienation, "seeing" is contagion, the core of existentialism in the Internet age. Everyone is making secret rooms and turning into ghosts. Like experimental particles, human relationships are endless cycles: too close and they die, too far and they come closer. The apocalyptic feeling in the second half proves that the ghost world is overflowing and has no substance. Kurosawa Kiyoshi's horror atmosphere is too much for my taste, obsessed with abandoned buildings, the reflections in the game hall, and the several sets of window tapes are quite experimental, and I look back crazy. ps. What a hopeful ending song