This film is bleak. There is something like a plot. Taguchi commits suicide and from there, a pulse of loneliness, despair, ghosts and death wreaths the world. Thats what happens. I could go through the plot beats but that doesn't matter, none of it matters. Not the characters, nor the series of events that comprise the story of Pulse matter. This film is an atmospheric film above all else. It is not a ghost in the computer story or an internet story, or an apocalyptic story or even a young adult story but rather it is an atmosphere film. This film is its atmosphere and its atmosphere will suffocates you. The tone, mood and ideas that are discussed matter way more than the actual personable story that takes place. This works because the characters don’t really drive what happens, things just take place and you the viewer, reel in horror. Humanity is becoming more and more lonely and atomized. This movie is shocking yet it also hides behind its own ambiguity. That doesn't seem right to me. It's different from the binary of blunt to subtle. Pulse oscillates between the subtlety and bluntness in ways that I had never seen before. This is quite a place to start watching Kiyoshi Kurosawa films. I will definitely have to check out more of his filmography.