General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

The Great Passage (舟を編む)

The Great Passage (Fune o Amu, 舟を編む) is a 2013 Japanese drama film directed by Yuya Ishii, adapted from Shion Miura's novel of the same title about the staff of a publishing company's dictionary editorial department compiling a new Japanese dictionary¹. It opened in Japan on April 13, 2013, runs 133 minutes, and was distributed by Shochiku and Asmic Ace²^•³.

Key fact	Detail
Original novel	By Shion Miura, published 2011 by Kobunsha; won first place in the 2012 Japan Booksellers' Award⁴^•¹
Film release	April 13, 2013, Japan; 133 minutes; color; distributors Shochiku and Asmic Ace²^•³
Director / screenplay	Yuya Ishii; screenplay by Kansai Watanabe²
Lead cast	Ryuhei Matsuda as Mitsuya Majime, Aoi Miyazaki as Kaguya Hayashi, Joe Odagiri as Masashi Nishioka³
Subject	The compilation of the new dictionary 大渡海 (Daitokai), a mid-size Japanese dictionary of about 240,000 words⁵
Awards	Japan's entry for the 86th Academy Awards Foreign Language Film; six top prizes at the 37th Japan Academy Prizes including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Screenplay¹
Later adaptations	TV anime in Fuji TV's noitaminA slot (2016); NHK BS Premium drama Fune o Amu: Watashi, Jisho Tsukurimasu (2024)⁴^•⁶

Spoilers

Plot

Mitsuya Majime works in the sales department of the publisher Genbu Shobo, where colleagues treat him as an oddball. Recognizing his unusual talent for capturing words, the company transfers him to a dictionary editorial department charged with compiling a new dictionary, 大渡海 (Daitokai)¹. The department is a collection of strong personalities: a veteran editor near retirement, an elderly scholar who has devoted his life to Japanese-language research, and the sociable Nishioka Masashi, who gradually grows attached to the work². Kaguya, the granddaughter of Majime's landlady and an aspiring chef, becomes his love interest; although he works with words professionally, he cannot find the words to express his feelings to her¹. The veteran scholar Matsumoto Tomoyuki, the dictionary's supervising editor, is played by Go Kato⁸.

The drama unfolds over the long span of the project. The film traces the editorial team's fight across the sea of more than 200,000 words with humor, and reviews note that the film shows roughly 15 years of steady editorial work, including example-sentence collection, headword selection, and endless argument over definitions²^•⁹^•⁵.

The source novel

The story first reached print as a serial. Shion Miura wrote the work for a women's fashion magazine from 2009 for about two years before it was collected as a book, which then won the 2012 Japan Booksellers' Award, a prize voted by booksellers nationwide⁷^•¹. Miura is also known for Mahoro Ekimae Tada Benriken, which won the 135th Naoki Prize².

The novel follows earnest, socially awkward editor Mitsuya Majime and his colleagues in a dictionary editorial department as they build the new dictionary 大渡海⁴. The title plays on the idea presented in the work that a dictionary is "a boat that crosses the sea of words": compiling (編む) the boat that carries people across⁷.

Production and reception

Yuya Ishii, whose earlier films include Sawako Decides (川の底からこんにちは) and Hara ga Kore Nande, directed the film; his Sawako Decides had won the Grand Prize at the 29th Pia Film Festival and Hara ga Kore Nande was invited to the Forum section of the 60th Berlin International Film Festival¹^•¹⁰. The film was produced by the "Fune o Amu" Production Committee, whose members include TV Tokyo, Shochiku, Asmic Ace, Dentsu, Kobunsha, and others¹⁰.

The Japanese Academy's critic page describes the film as having opened a new territory, dictionary making, within a lineage of Japanese films built around specialized worlds, and praises Ishii's treatment of the editorial debates over words and characters as if they were an action film⁹. On the review aggregator Filmarks the film holds a rating of 3.8¹¹.

Awards

The film was selected as Japan's entry for the Foreign Language Film category of the 86th Academy Awards¹. At the 37th Japan Academy Prizes (2014) it was named Best Picture, and took the top award in six categories: Best Picture, Best Director (Yuya Ishii), Best Screenplay (Kansai Watanabe), Best Actor (Ryuhei Matsuda), Best Sound Recording (Yamato Kato), and Best Editing (Shin'ichi Fushima); Aoi Miyazaki, Joe Odagiri, Takumi Saito-related crew in music, cinematography, and lighting categories received Excellence Awards, and Haru Kuroki received the Newcomer of the Year award¹. It was named Excellent Work in 13 Japan Academy Prize categories in total⁸.

Other adaptations

The story has been adapted repeatedly. Fuji TV announced a television anime adaptation in its noitaminA late-night slot for the October 2016 season; the anime, directed by Toshimasa Kuroyanagi, won the New Face Award in the Animation division of the 21st Japan Media Arts Festival, which credited its careful depiction of the Daitokai compilation and animation-specific scenes such as a "sea of words" of overflowing type⁴^•¹². In 2024 NHK BS Premium broadcast the drama Fune o Amu: Watashi, Jisho Tsukurimasu, which traces the more than 15-year path to the release of the mid-size dictionary and expands a selected portion of the original storyline⁶. Marking the film's tenth anniversary, a limited revival run including 35 mm film screenings was held in March 2024¹.

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Comedy and romantic films (individual works) › Comedies of 2013 to 2014 › Titles symbols to I

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

Notice something wrong?