story 7
although the plot is criminally basic---oblivious, country girl breaking out of her shell and plunging in a new world meets two potential partners (a very obvious love triangle sketched out from just a few chapters in). country girl meets snobby girl who eventually becomes her best friend, and surprise! snobby friend likes one of country girl's future partners (obviously it's the cryptic, keep-to-himself-one too!). country girl's group of friends' love stories are cute, always refreshing to see other romances happen in the manga aside from the main one.

art 10
yass!!! slayage!! the art and the title is what drew me into reading this manga 2 years ago. i saw the title daytime shooting star, saw the cover, and immediately started reading. the details are insane---the eyes are always fleeked to perfection, and the hairs are always laid. easily one of the best manga art i've read (in the shoujo genre of course)

character 9
suzume is super refreshing!! not your typical, generic shoujo lead who blushes and swoons at everything the guys do. loves to eat, doesn't like to dress up in particular, a straightforward personality. (no hesitating bullshit) i absolutely love her. level headed, and the most mature 15 year old i've ever read about, lol.

sensei is amazing as well, a cool, easygoing teacher with beaming smiles. although he's mischievous af, he's actually very deep, he considers things from other people's perspectives, stays rational. not those teachers in sensei shoujos where the teachers are basically highschoolers thrown in the aesthetic of a classroom teacher. satsuki is actually much more than a generic shoujo manga teacher.

mamura is cute, your average tsundere who blushes often. suckers for the quiet and cool shoujo manga boy lead will def like him lmfao. his interactions with his family is cute, he has a little brother named daichi who he loves very much. his sudden streaks of bold manners in regards for his feelings for suzume is... questionable. unlike sensei, mamura lets his feelings take a hold of him, often threathening sensei and such. always pushing himself on suzume on her vulnerable moments. this is the only flaw in his character, i guess.


spoilers from here on out
enjoyment 5
ah well, let me try to be as unbiased as i can while explaining this part? so suzume's uncle finds out about her relationship with sensei. her uncle being as protective as he is, requests sensei to end things between them. sensei thought about it seriously---how he doesn't want to hurt her and all that shit. so he lies to suzume, tells her he doesn't love her, even though surprise, he really does. mamura takes this as his chance to make his moves on suzume. suzume's confused at first, doesn't know what to do. then she made up in her mind that she'll be facing only mamura from now on.

aaaand now my deduction:
BUUUUUULLLLLLSSSSSHHHHHHIIIIIIITTTTTT
i don't know about you, but i instantly hated mamura for taking advantage of suzume's current predicament. sensei HAD to lie, he didn't want suzume's uncle to end things between them in an even nastier way, doesn't want to hurt her and shit. and people are probably going to say, actually, he did hurt her. and this is where the bs comes in.

did the mangaka forget about sensei?

as in, as soon as sensei made the decision to put suzume's happiness before love, it was like he was thrown completely out the battlefield. mamura swoops in and brainwashes suzume until she literally had to announce out loud, "from now on, i'm properly facing mamura" (or some dumb bs like that)
sensei was never given that scene where they talk it over and regain love again, in fact, that happens right at the END of the manga, when everything's basically wrapped up.......
??
this wasn't a balanced fight for love at all, lol. the majority was fed, the blushing, tsundere guy who can only tolerate suzume, well, got suzume. i felt like the mainstream ending just happened. i mean yes, the manga broke the curse of the first-meet-will-be-the-end-ship thing, but in the end, the heroine was swept over by the shallowest character known in the history of shoujo mangas: the cool kid.
because sensei wasn't mean in a "cute" way, he wasn't favored by the majority. because he was the teacher, not the NORM highschool classmate, he wasn't favored by the majority. shit, because he didn't have cute blushing moments like mamura had he wasn't favored by the majority.

rant ends here. tldr---feels like the ending was written to feed the hungry mouths of shoujo girls who wanted suzume to end up with the cooler, blushing tsundere that is mamura.

but idkkkkk, thats just me tho :>
overall 10!