Maru

Sawada is an unsuccessful artist who works anonymously in the studio of wealthy painter Akimoto—a man who has all his assistants paint for him without lifting a finger himself. When Sawada breaks his arm in a bicycle accident, he is summarily dismissed and drifts into a new routine of odd jobs and quiet frustration. While working in a supermarket, he befriends Yokoyama, a similarly unsuccessful manga artist, and Mo, who is ridiculed for his broken Japanese. On the side, Sawada begins drawing circles out of boredom—in sketchbooks, on scraps of paper, on canvas. A chance encounter with Tsuchiya, who enthusiastically buys some of these circle paintings, reveals a surprising fact: his simple “Enso” works, inspired by Zen calligraphy and the idea of transience, have triggered a market hype. Soon Sawada's circles are being exhibited abroad, sold for millions, and galleries are clamoring for him. But the greater the demand, the harder it becomes for him to repeat the original impulse—and fame turns out to be a new form of exploitation.