Keep walking and don’t give up.
Creative Staff
Story/Art: Mika Yamamori
Translation/Adaptation: JN Productions
What They Say
After arriving in Tokyo to live with her uncle, Suzume collapses in a nearby park where she had once seen a shooting star during the day. A handsome stranger brings her to her new home and tells her they’ll meet again. Suzume starts her first day at her new high school sitting next to a boy who blushes furiously at her touch. And her homeroom teacher is none other than the handsome stranger!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Suzume’s dad is transferred to another country and her mom decides to go with him. Since they can’t leave their 15-year-old daughter in the countryside by herself, they send her to Uncle Yukichi’s in Tokyo. At first, Suzume is not very excited about this. The city is too crowded, loud and she even got lost on her way to her uncle’s. But, after she attends her first day in her new school, she thinks that just maybe life in Tokyo might not be that bad after all.
Suzume finds out that Mr. Shishio, one of her teachers, is a friend of her uncle’s. Mr. Shishio is popular but looks after her and gives her very teacherly advice when Suzume feels a bit overwhelmed at bing the new girl in school. She takes her advice and reaches out the boy the sits next to her, Mamura. At first, he seems standoffish and rude, but it turns out he blushes like crazy when he gets close to girls. In exchange for keeping his secret, Suzume asks if they can be friends.
Mamura reluctantly agrees to Suzume’s terms and a fragile friendship begins. Suzume continues to be herself and the girls in her PE class are happy to see what a good athlete she is. Then super cute, Yuyuka approaches Suzume and asks to be her friend as well. They exchange numbers, but it seems Yuyuka may not have pure intentions when it comes to their newly found friendship.
Yuyuka invites Suzume to go bowling, and Suzume readily accepts and invites Mamura too. Suddenly, the whole class is going and Suzume is happy to be fitting well with everyone. However, Yuyuka purposefully sends wrong information to Suzume and she’s left out. Mr. Shishio catches wind of the situation and calls another classmate and gets the right information. He immediately tells Suzume that Yuyuka is the culprit. Suzume decides to go anyway, because she wants to keep on meeting new people.
When Suzume arrives at bowling, she asks to speak with Yuyuka and confronts her. Yuyuka immediately drops the friendly act. Verbal insults evolve into a physical fight. Finally, Yuyuka admits she’s mad at Suzume for being the only one who has gotten close to Mamura. When Mamura arrives to find out what’s going on, Suzume quickly hides the fact that they were fighting and why cute Yuyuka is a mess. In the end, they don’t either like or hate each other and possibly a real friendship might develop. Yuyuka even gives Suzume a little makeover and suddenly other people are taking notice, even Mamura and Mr. Shishio. And just maybe, Suzume realizes she might like Mr. Shishio a little.
In Summary:
It’s been awhile since I started a new shojo series. Sometimes, I’m hesitant to do so, because while I like the genre, I feel so far removed from high school life that I don’t always connect. Even my daughters are older than high schoolers, so I can’t even relate on that level. But I do enjoy a good shojo, so here we are with Daytime Shooting Star.
My overall first impressions were fairly positive. Suzume is a good main protagonist. She honest, has emotions, but isn’t emotional and honestly pretty relatable. Her family is great, especially Uncle Yukichi. There’s even talk of same sex relationships in passing conversations and absolutely no seems to be disgusted by it! It’s refreshing to have attractive characters, yet they don’t at all look a typical shojo cast. I’m looking forward to more and seeing how this story pans out.
FYI – In case you didn’t know this series did spin into a live action movie. The series is completed in Japan with 13 volumes.
Content Grade: B
Art Grade: B
Packaging Grade: B+
Text/Translation Grade: A
Age Rating: Teen
Released By: Shojo Beat (Viz)
Release Date: July 2, 2019
MSRP: $9.99
