Kenichi and Miki are a couple for quite some time, but their relationship has lost its fizz. Not even their sex is giving Kenichi the right satisfaction any more and he starts chasing after other woman. A chance encounter with Yoshiko, his old girlfriend from high school times, presents a good opportunity. They spend the night together, but when Yoshiko leaves Kenichi’s apartment the next morning, she is hit by a car and dies. When Kenichi learns that Yoshiko had no family he decides to find her family’s gravesite and bring her ashes there.
Miki grudgingly accompanies her unfaithful boyfriend to Yoshiko’s hometown in Niigata. From the encounters on their journey with former neighbors and acquaintances of Yoshiko Kenichi realizes that he had never really known her. The death of his former girlfriend leads Kenichi to a soul-searching voyage of discovery into the past that unearths new and unforeseen emotions. The journey gives the couple the chance to reevaluate their relationship.
Sakamoto Rei is the youngest of the so-called shichifukujin-directors who made their debuts in the 1990s. Sakamoto has been trained as assistant director for Zeze Takahisa and Sato Toshiki and with the latter he shares an inclination towards stories set in everyday life situations. Yariman follows a familiar template, which can also be seen in other films of Sakamoto such as his debut 3 Balls, 1 Strike (shown at the Udine FEFF in 2002), of a soul-searching voyage caused by the death of a good friend.
Yariman is typical for the shichifukujin-generation in its shift away from overtly political and socio-critical stories towards stories focusing more on interpersonal and gender relations. The issues addressed in Yariman — death, loss, grief, memory — are essential issues to humankind, but Sakamoto treats them not in a heavy, but very light and respectful way.