Daytime Shooting Star: Volume 3 manga review

Daytime Shooting Star Graphic Novel Volume 3 cover image

Suzume Yosano lives in a small rural town that does not have convenience stores, cafés, or traffic lights.  When her parents suddenly announce that they are moving to Bangladesh, they also tell the 15-year-old Suzume that she will be moving to Tokyo to live with her uncle, Yukichi Kumamoto.  Once there, Suzume finds herself attracted to a friend of her uncle's, Mr. Satsuki Shishio, who also turns out to be Suzume's homeroom teacher.

Daytime Shooting Star, Vol. 3 (Chapters 15 to 21) opens with a bombshell.  Suzume whispered “I love you” to Mr. Shishio while she stood over his sleeping form in the school infirmary... Well, she thought he was asleep, but he wasn't!  Now, Suzume feels forced to confess her true feelings for Mr. Shishio to him, but can she?

Complicating matters more than they need to be, Mr. Shishio's former girlfriend, renowned photographer, Tsubomi Kashima, returns, looking to rekindle their romance.  And she loves to troll poor Suzume about her obvious crush on her teacher.  Wait... there is another complication.  Mamura, the boy who usually avoids girls, has something to tell Suzume.

[This volume includes the bonus manga, “Second Kiss.”]

THE LOWDOWN:  The Daytime Shooting Star manga is a typical high school shojo manga.  It is about a girl who falls in love, after all, and it is such a sweet confection.  And this isn't the first shojo about a girl falling in love with a teacher!

Daytime Shooting Star Graphic Novel Volume 3 is the most delightful volume of this series to date.  Creator Mika Yamamori offers a fizzy confection of shifting love triangles and hurt feelings, and the reader will want to drink deeply even as the story tickles her nose and imagination.  The sharp English translation by JN Productions captures the troll-ish and tart aspects of the dialogue, and Inori Fukuda Trant's lettering captures the story's balance of high-strung emotions and sparkling humor.

I must also admit to being crazy about Yamamori's excellent art, especially her figure drawing.  Her lithe figures are tall, lean, and beautiful fashion models.  The clothing is pretty fashionable, too.

I READS YOU RECOMMENDS:  Fans of shojo high school romance will want to read the Shojo Beat series, Daytime Shooting Star.

A
9 out of 10