This queer element drives the emotional core, secrecy, and resolution, with explicit homophobia from peers and family (including a father viewing it as a curable 'disease') as a primary conflict. Director Hirokazu Kore-eda consulted LGBTQ support organizations, revised the script based on their feedback, employed an intimacy coordinator for the young actors, and stated he 'needed to depict a queer relationship head-on,' earning the film the Queer Palm at Cannes.

These choices embed contemporary identity-focused framing into a story of childhood friendship and misunderstanding, elevating the ideological dimension beyond organic character development. Casting remains entirely Japanese and consistent with the setting, with no race or gender swaps of established characters, but the deliberate foregrounding of queer childhood and societal repression as the 'monster' of misunderstanding marks a clear activist intent in execution.