such a deep sad story. Great storyline

I remember my parents taking me to the theater to see an Adam Sandler movie with a similar premise. The difference is that this is a Japanese high school girl drama for Japanese high school girls, starring the mandatory boy band guy. Could it be worse than an Adam Sandler movie? Not sure... I can already imagine this being marketed to western audiences as some kind of film festival poignant drama. The fact that it draws from supposedly serious source material is a double-edged sword: on one hand, the crew puts in more effort than you'd expect from your average high school drama; on the other, the result comes out as corny, pretentious, and terribly dull.