Iyogi is forced by the student council president to confront his irrational fear of foreigners by squiring the French-Japanese transfer student, Enzou, around the school. As he overcomes his fear enough to realize that Enzou has grown-up problems, Iyogi also finds the courage to help Enzou face them. With sympathy comes respect, and in time, love, but Enzou has to return to France for his ailing mother's health and there is no future for them. Although I appreciated how the tragic backstory of Enzou's mother and father created the key structural support for this particular story's resolution, I found that the story lost the absorbing realism that initially saved it from being dull. I think this story would've been better served without a happy ending, as a tale of loss and regret and the repetitive nature of karma ... or, if happiness and the resolution of sad karma was necessary, to place it against the context of delayed gratification and the effect of absence on the hearts of these two young men. All the same, the story is what it is and there is no point crying over lost potential. It's a good story. It could've been a GREAT one, a true masterpiece, but instead it's just a good one.
Honjitsu Wa Seiten Nari