Hirunaka no Ryuusei (Daytime Shooting Star) [Review]

Title: Hirunaka no Ryuusei (Daytime Shooting Star)

Author: Mika Yamamori

Genre: Shoujo, School life, drama.

Publishing year: 2003

Volumes: 18

Rating:

★★★✩✩

Hello, today I want to talk about this manga a friend of mine recommend me. This manga has got kind of popular lately, it will even have a live action movie (I don’t recall where I read that), but it’s still unlicensed in the US and it seems it is because it’s not that popular in Japan.

Suzume Yosano

            Hirunaka no Ryuusei tells us the story of a girl named Suzume Yosano, she has lived in the countryside until she’s forced to move to Tokyo to live with her uncle. The day she arrives at Tokyo she gets lost and meets a peculiar dark haired and stylish boy that helps her to get to her uncle’s house. When she starts school, it turns out that that boy is her new homeroom teacher. After a while, Suzume falls in love with her teacher, Satsuki Shishio, but things won’t be easy because of their forbidden relationship as teacher and student.

            To me the plot of teacher-student relationship seemed really interesting, I’m not familiar at all with shoujo manga when it isn’t a comedy too, and this one didn’t seem the typical story of high school students that fall in love, so I gave it a try.

Suzume and Shishio

            I’m must say I’m not really fond of the protagonist, I got frustrated because of some of her actions. Despite knowing that her feelings would be troublesome to Shishio sensei, she did what she could to get closer to him. Shishio is a playful character, so it was hard sometimes to know if he was being serious with her or just friendly… and he frustrated me too. Sometimes he would let her get close to him, having dates, going out, and sometimes he would try to avoid her and he would hurt her.

            There is a third party in this story, because a good love triangle is a MUST in most shoujo manga… the third party is Daiki Mamura, Suzume´s classmate. He is super cold with girls, and feels disgust towards them because of a family issue. Suzume is the first girl he befriends with and he ends up falling in love with her. He knows what kind of relationship she has with Shishio sensei and disapproves it.

            Suzume has to choose between Shishio and Mamura, it’s really interesting how the plot develops and how she ends up making a choice, will she choose the teacher, her first love? Or will she choose her classmate and believe in love a second time? The ending was kind of unexpected.

Mamura and Suzume

            It’s a pretty good manga, even though I felt frustrated a lot and had to put my tablet down for a while. The characters are unique, they have deferent personalities and feel relatable, and it’s easy to sympathize with them. My favorite character is Mamura, he is a cinnamon roll and must be protected. He is super sincere and lovable, he really cares for Suzume and does his best to help her or comfort her when she needs it. Shishio is adorable sometimes, but he definitely was not my favorite to end up with Suzume.

            The art style is not my favorite, but it’s really pretty and neat. Mamura and Shishio are really cute and all characters are identifiable. It’s a manga that it is somehow different to the typical shoujo and school life stories, if you want to read a shoujo manga with a more realist love story and characters, you should read this one.