A 1983 shojo comedy that treats its gay male characters as real people instead of decorative side characters, bishounen eye candy exists, but it's never the point. The plot barrels through diamond heists and romantic tangles with a confidence that feels genuinely ahead of its time, never pausing to wink at its own queerness. Marinera itself is built to feel like an escape, somewhere the normal rules of who gets to be the protagonist actually don't apply.

Patalliro, the short, round boy-king of Marinera, a South Seas nation built on diamond mining, faces a crisis when diamonds start disappearing from sites around the globe and his own country's reserves are wiped out. The only lead left behind is a mechanical spider, so he and his MI6 bodyguard, Major Jack Bancoran, travel to Japan to track down whoever is responsible. A suspect they question is killed before revealing more than the name of a group called Tarantella, and the killer appears to be Bjorn, Bancoran's former lover, who was believed dead. The pair must learn the truth about Bjorn and stop the organization before its plans succeed. The film mixes adventure, comedy and romance.