Matsumoto has an elaborate concern for detail. Clothes change like the seasons, following the characters and adding to their already great psychological and symbolic depth. Matsumoto is intelligent and has great cultural grounding. He cultivates rightness on all levels. The characters are suspended.
Faces are therefore of an unbelievable exactness and expressiveness.
He stylizes reality, obviously, but with exactness, without excess, without relying on reified, systematized codes. The care for detail is also found in the description of the city. He describes the city, makes it move from within, shows its circulation. The city is the other main character of this story. Neither is it the hyper-historic district so dear to urban scholars.