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| Shibasaki Kou in 35sai No Shoujo |
Our story: Nozomi Imamura is a cheerful 10 year old girl with loving parents and a little sister Manami. She is bright and energetic, and everyone around her loves her as well, including parents, teachers and even classmates!
But tragedy strikes one day when she is riding her bicycle on an errand to the market- the brakes on her bike fail when she is descending a steep hill, and she sustains horrific head injuries.
When Nozomi comes to, it feels like only a day has passed since the accident, but she is to learn a scary truth. She sees an old woman at the edge of her hospital bed and barely recognizes her as a much older version of her Mother (Honami Suzuki) !
Can it be...?
Nozomi...You're AWAKE!
"Who is this old lady?" thinks Nozomi. Surely not her beloved Mother...?
After getting over her disbelief at Nozomi’s awakening, she tells her the unavoidable truth: that she has been in an accident and has been in a coma for 25 years and that she is now a 35 year old woman! Nozomi peers into the mirror and sees only a stranger.
Nozomi is still waiting to awake from the nightmare as she is greeted by her Father (Tetsushi Tanaka) and now grown up sister Manami (Ai Hashimoto). They pretend that things are as she remembers them, but the truth of the matter is, Husband and Wife have divorced and a bitter Sister has long since moved out on her own. 
They keep up the charade as long as possible, with Husband and Manami traveling to the house to pretend to still live there in front of Nozomi. Mom even tracks down a boy that Nozomi liked in school, a man named Yuto Hirose (Kentaro Sakaguchi) to attend and make Nozomi feel at home.
No one is thrilled with upholding the charade, however , and over dinner, while Yuto at first claims to be a Teacher, soon reveals that he’s long since quit that job and informs Nozomi that life didn’t go the way she thinks things did and that people didn't turn out the way she expected.
Sister Manami takes the opportunity to admit that she and Dad aren’t living there, and in FACT, have long since distanced themselves for the home. Seems that with Nozomi’s accident, Mother spent her entire time taking care of the comatose girl, resulting in an ignored Manami and distanced husband, ultimately resulting in a fractured family with no love between them.
Hit with this sudden dose of reality, the delicate Nozomi breaks out in huge sobs of grief. Despite her physical appearance of a 35 year old, inside she is still a 10 year old girl bewildered that her life has turned on her so.
That night as she listens to recording of her previous happy life, she feels like she is utterly lost and alone. 
The next day she makes her way back to the school where she spent so many happy moments, desperate for some proof of her memories, but when she gets there, is stunned to find it has been torn down and a new building standing there.
Yuto is there, send by a frantic Mother when they couldn’t find Nozomi in the house, who quickly advises Nozomi to return home.
The school has changed, but the library is still there, and Nozomi makes her way to it. Back in the day she spent happy moments with Yuto, and she desperately need sto see it.
But Nozomi is on a mission and ignores Yuto.
When she gets there, she realizes that things have moved on. The life she once had has vanished, and she can never return there. And finally, she breaks down.
Through tears she wonders why she ever woke up from the coma, and Yuto takes the chance to tell her something: that she was his first love.
“After your accident, I regretted never being able to tell you, “ he explains. “For the opportunity now to say it, I am grateful you woke up.”
Through her tears, a light sparks in Nozomi’s eyes, and for the first time, recognizes the kindness of the young Yuto in this man’s face. “It’s you!” she sobs again and again. “It’s really you!”
And with that, she is able to achieve a sense of solace.
That evening she makes her way home again, this time, with a look of acceptance in her eyes. going to the covered mirror, she removes the covering and looks at herself firmly, and accepts that this is who she is now.
My GOSH this was one EMOTIONAL episode, Honami Suzuki is heartbreakingly awesome as the Mother who never gave up believing her daughter would return to her, and MAN, Shibasaki Kou absolutely KILLED IT as the perpetually young Nozomi.
You know, in movies like this, they rarely EVER get it right. In Shazam, I never ONCE believed that the grown man was the kid. Nor did I believe that Tom Hanks was the kid in “Big”. But BRAH, I TOTALLY believed Shibasaki Kou was that little girl. Every little inflection of her eye, every tremble of her lips, I really thought, “This is that girl in a grown woman’s body!” Really blew me away.
