Go, Go, Second Time Virgin: A Nihilistic Requiem on a Tokyo Rooftop

Go, Go, Second Time Virgin—or (ゆけゆけ二度目の処) Yuke Yuke Nidome no Shojo in Japanese—(1969), directed by Kōji Wakamatsu, is a raw, gut-punching film that follows two teenagers, Poppo and Tsukio, whose lives are scarred by trauma and violence.

The movie unfolds almost entirely on the rooftop of a Tokyo apartment building, a stark setting that feels like a pressure cooker for alienation and despair.

Poppo, a young woman who’s endured repeated sexual assaults, including a brutal gang rape at the film’s start, forms a fragile bond with Tsukio, a boy who watched the assault unfold without intervening, haunted by his own history of abuse.

Over the course of a single day and night, the two bare their souls, sharing stories of pain, grappling with their existence, and hurtling toward a tragic end.

Drawing inspiration from a poem by Yoshinori Nakamura, the story hinges on the fleeting connection between these two lost souls. Abandoned by a cold, indifferent society, they cling to their bond as a fleeting act of defiance.

The film builds to a crescendo of violence and a double suicide, echoing the Japanese concept of shinjū (lovers’ suicide), but stripped of the romantic gloss found in traditional theater like bunraku or kabuki.

This grim finale drives home the film’s nihilistic tone, where death feels like the only escape from an endless cycle of suffering.