Daytime Shooting Star Volume 6 by Mika Yamamori
As this series continues, I grow more and more conflicted because heroine Suzume is such a sweet girl, I want her to get everything she wants. Unfortunately the main thing she wants is her teacher Shishio, and as he progresses in dropping some boundaries he was not even all that great at maintaining before, I find him more and more unappealing as a romantic prospect for Suzume. As I tend to do in k-dramas, I’m now firmly rooting for the second lead guy, Suzume’s classmate Mamura. I’m still drawn in by Daytime Shooting Star’s combination of stylish art and teen soap opera plot. As a bonus, Mamura is on the cover of this volume.
In this volume, Suzume and Shishio continue to capture some stolen moments here and there, but she’s often frustrated that she can’t deepen her relationship with him, and she’s continually reminded of the need for distance. She gives him a birthday present that she earned the money for with her part-time job. She attempts to make him a lunch, but sees him turning down food from another student. Throughout all of these interactions Mamura hovers in the background either quietly observing or forcing himself to eat some of Suzume’s first attempts at rice balls. Mamura continues to be a good friend, even when Suzume finds herself stood up by Shishio when he’s tied up with work on Christmas. A little bit of awareness seems to be settling in with Suzume as she realizes that she can be herself around Mamura after spending more time with him. Shishio seems to be losing his grip on his professional ethics, so I’m growing concerned about that, and the fact that Suzume’s uncle is extremely clueless about this developing situation between one of his best friends and his niece.
I have to admit I’m impatient to see how all the slowly building romance in Daytime Shooting Star will pan out. There’s a bit of a train wreck quality to this manga, seeing a young girl invest in the possibility of a romantic relationship that doesn’t seem like it will work, but I’m hoping that Mamura’s flashes of insight and his evolution from a boy who could barely talk to a girl to a young man who will gallantly bestow a scarf on a girl when she’s cold will pan out somehow. Go Mamura!
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