Eiga Sai 2018: Daytime Shooting Star is a rollercoaster of love confessions

Based on the manga by Miki Yamamori, Daytime Shooting Star (Hirunaka no Ryuusei) tells the story of Suzume, a country girl who ends up studying in Tokyo. She quickly falls in love with Shishio (Shohei Miura), a frequent patron of her uncle's cafe. Upon going to school, she finds out that Shishio is her homeroom teacher; in addition, she befriends Daiki Mamura (Exile's Alan Shirahama), who falls in love with her.

Forbidden love isn't exactly new in Japanese storytelling; the subgenre has been around even before the days of cinema. The film does acknowledge the fact that Suzume and Shishio's relationship is unusual, though it sidesteps a lot of other implications loaded within this kind of relationship.

If one can get over that, half the fun of Daytime Shooting Star is finding out who Suzume ultimately ends up with; the film has its share of love confessions (and love confession fake-outs!) that keep a certain level of tension throughout the film. While it may not be as big a draw to casual viewers that have little to no knowledge of the manga, it's a treat for fans who just want to see the love polygon in action. I only have a passing familiarity with the series, but seeing this in a theater full of giggling, screaming female fans totally helped the cinematic experience.

As with all adaptations, the film does suffer a bit of adaptational decay. A bunch of storylines and character moments are truncated or rearranged for the sake of time constraints. Nevertheless, it does have its share of genuinely sweet moments, even for non-fans. Takehiko Shinjo has experience with adapting manga, especially shoujo manga, with the live action adaptations of Paradise Kiss (2011), I Give My First Love to You (2009) and the recent Your Lie In April (2016) under his belt.

Daytime Shooting Star is like a greatest hits version of the manga; to fans it can end up a mixed bag, depending on how invested one is with the characters and their preferred pairing. To the casual viewer, it's entertaining, albeit light and inconsequential, fare.