Hirunaka no Ryuusei
Daytime Shooting Star

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"You're my daytime shooting star."

Falling in love has been likened many times to being on a rollercoaster—it has its ups, its downs, its twists and turns. But an amusement park ride always comes to an end eventually, then you're left to wait in a long line before you get the opportunity to ride again. That metaphor is strangely appropriate, especially for this manga. It's not just about falling in love the first time—it's about picking up the pieces when the first time doesn't work, and eventually learning how to fall in love again.

The synopsis is deceptively simplistic in that it reads like any other school, ... slice of life shoujo manga you have ever seen. Suzume is a country bumpkin that moves to the city, and the mysterious man that helps her when she gets lost in the cement jungle happens to be her homeroom teacher. It would only sound more cliche if there was some romantic development between the two. Well, of course there is—its a romance manga, after all.

HnR is not bereft of any of the cliches that plague the shoujo genre, but it does avoid the gag-inducing pitfalls that a lot of them succumb to. However just because something avoids doing something common and boring doesn't inherently mean that it is good. What makes this series something of a gem is that it succeeds where many of its predecessors and peers have failed.

It has a compelling cast that encompasses even the most minor side characters. Almost everyone is multi-faceted and receives some level of development, even those more peripheral to the story. Shishio is an incredibly unique character in just how childish and immature given that he's a teacher, and just because he's an adult doesn't mean he's immune to making mistakes or poor decisions. If anything he exemplifies poor decision making, but that's part of being human. Suzume on the other hand is incredibly mature if not a bit clueless at times. The series is highly devoted to her development in learning what it means to love someone, because love is not something so simple as the butterflies fluttering around in your stomach when you see the person you like. Loving someone is making sacrifices, is being honest—so much more than she is initially prepared for.

Mamura, for his part, is an interesting foil to Shishio. He is not unflawed, and in fact spends the majority of the story learning how to be a more open person when he's initially so shut off from everyone else. Suzume opens his eyes to the rest of the world, and gradually he's able to be a little more honest with himself. He's not without his moments of childishness, but he matches those with moments of wisdom as well. Mamura is someone who is incredibly perceptive and observant, especially when it comes to Suzume.

In regards to the plot, we are presented with the trope of student-teacher but it's not dealt with as typically or flippantly, in fact it's incredibly realistic for a shoujo manga. Angst is not present in this story for the sake of angst, but because this is how real life works—this is what happens when two people enter a relationship when neither one of them are fully prepared for or aware of what it means to love someone when the rest of society would look down on you for it. In fact, that's never the only obstacle when you love someone. Your love also means the scrutiny of the people around you, the people who care about you and may be concerned about your relationship. The fact is, there aren't always happy endings to every love tale, most of them are bittersweet. We hurt, we learn, we move on. That is exactly the essence of this story—learning not to hang on to the past, learning that true happiness means moving forward.

The art for HnR is phenomenal, not just because it is beautiful and clean. But because every panel is expressively constructed, and each page has little tidbits in the background that give you deeper insight into the characters—all of whom are individually flawed with their own set of strengths. Even their designs are unique enough that you will not have any trouble differentiating between each character. It's clear that Yamamori-sensei went to great length to ensure each character was fleshed out in even minor ways. She is incredibly talented especially at the emotional scenes, where the dialogue and the panels so clearly convey much more emotion than what's given on the surface.

This has been a third revision for this review as I took some time after finishing the series to really contemplate its strengths, weaknesses, and how well it fulfilled its potential. A love triangle is not a popular trope, in fact it's something that most people generally tend to get annoyed at. It's overdone especially in shoujo, and so it's no surprise that many people will dislike this series because it utilizes that very cliche.

However, I contend that love triangles in other series feel contrived, superficial and serve only to drag out the plot and deliver unnecessary angst. This is not the purpose of this trope in HnR. It exists here as a integral part of the plot that serves not only to break the traditional mold of shoujo where the end pairing is obvious, but also to demonstrate an important point—moving on. Too many romance series focus on holding on to relationships when they only hurt you, whereas HnR focuses on moving on toward the future. It wasn't just a suspenseful device, although it certainly served the purpose of keeping us on pins and needles with bated breath 'til the very end, wondering who Suzume would truly end up with.

Having said all this and expressed why I am so satisfied and endorse this series so much, I feel it's only fair to admit that the end pairing was not the one I was hoping for in my heart of hearts, but it was the one that was necessary for this series to be as amazing as it is and for the characters to stay true to who they are. Yamamori has presented us with a realistic story of first love, how it comes with heartache and how you eventually learn to move on when that happens. And how you'll eventually understand what it means to be someone else's daytime shooting star.

This is the story of a paedophile and a society that accepts paedophiles. In this hopeless fantasy world, a teacher and a student fall in love. Those around them support their illegal relationship at no consequence. If this were the real world, that teacher would have his teaching license revoked and locked up in jail as he is clearly unfit to be a teacher.

The characters in the manga are insufferable. The only thing in their lives they seem to care about is love. There is no depth to any of the characters, they are merely defined by the people that they want to date. ... I wish these characters had hobbies or traits that made them human. Not a single person on earth agonises about their romantic interests 24/7. I am genuinely worried for the cast of characters, they have no dreams nor aspirations. Once they graduate from high school, they will have nothing but bad grades and no job. They will be down at the local welfare office begging for money or visiting the local prison to get groomed by their paedophile teacher.

Besides the paedophilic undertones, this manga offers nothing that you haven't seen before. It is a very generic shojo manga that has every single trope that you can imagine. It has the school festival and beach arc. It has the embarrassed faces from touching someone's hand accidently, the entire two page spread confession scenes and of course the tropey characters. Despite the story having little to no originality, it is still somewhat enjoyable. The tropes are take a slightly different twist than most which elevates the manga slightly.

Other people who have written reviews for this manga mention the artwork as being outstanding, I would beg to differ and actually say that the art is lazy. There are hardly any backgrounds in the whole manga. It is either texture, a text bubble or entirely white. The author only draws characters, there is no effort spared in detailing anything else in the world to make it feel alive. All great artwork is in the details. Masterpieces such as Berserk, Dorohedoro and Blade of the Immortal leave not a blank space on the page unless for dramatic effect. There is immense care put into the artwork that shows off the author's ability to draw a captivating world. I know that Hirunaka no Ryusei is essentially only set in a school, but just because it is a slice of life, it does not mean that you can entirely skip out on drawing in backgrounds. The only thing I can give props to is the design of the female characters. They look cute and are distinct enough to not mesh in with every other shojo protagonist. The male characters look straight out of a K-pop group and defy what males in the natural world actually look like.

Overall, this manga is pretty average. It does nothing to change the shojo formula. The only thing it has going is a problematic paedophile side quest that nobody seems to have a problem with. In fact, on the contrary, it is encouraged by the characters in the story.

Anyway, if you want to read a story about how a paedophile grooms an unsuspecting student, this is the manga for you.

(note: I read this manga in Japanese).

Regretted re-reading after all these years.

Surely piqued my interest because of the art. Hands down for me. There's also a nice variation of character design and you can recognize them properly.

Started strong, with female MC having a unique character unlike the overused weak type, but then ended up not facing the issues head on as opposed to how she's supposed to be. I appreciate how the author weigh in the consequences student-teacher relationship hence Shishio's path of action. The issue is with how the 2nd male lead was developed, it's shallow, his actions doesn't go well with how his character was built.

I'd say the ... final chapter was forced when clearly the few previous ones shows how much the FMC still has strong feelings to her first love. Contrary to the popular opinion, it's not realistic at all since no one will definitely do what the FMC did on the last part.

Overall, it felt like a tragedy, where you don't end up together even though you have strong feelings for each other, felt like the FMC chose that guy at the end just because she's in a commitment with him at the moment.

I recommend reading Tsubaki-chou Planet by the same author to feel a little bit better after reading this series. Feels like this is how she originally wanted this series to end. So much similarity except almost totally remove the idea of other love interest.