Japanese high school drama You Made My Dawn (2023) is what we can think of as a review-proof movie. It does what it says on the tin, it shamelessly indulges in stereotypes, and it has a demonstrable understanding on precisely who makes up its target market and what they want to see. Like it, hate it: your ultimate response says less about the film’s creative merits and more about your taste in cinema. If you enjoy the genre, this is a perfectly enjoyable entry. If you would rather chew off your own arm than speculate on whether or not the moody loner boy has feelings for the overly anxious and bookish girl, it is safe to assume that You Made My Dawn is not for you.

Overly anxious and bookish girl Niwa Akane (Kumada Rinka) is confronted by moody loner boy Fukagawa Seiji (Shiroiwa Ruki) in the schoolyard. She compulsively wears a facemask to hide her expressions. He – an angry rebel with dyed silver hair who paints to express his feelings – wants her to know that he hates her and everything she stands for. Over the course of the school term, circumstances draw the pair together, and long-held secrets appear set to transform their relationship.

Because of course they do. Such circumstances only exist to bring them together. Of course the reason Akane wears a mask in public is linked to some personal tragedy. Of course Seiji’s resentment of Akane hides some deeper affection. There is a seemingly unavoidable formula to these things: critiquing any individual example of the genre is rather like reviewing the weather.

The film is adapted from Shiomi Natsue’s hugely successful series of novels by screenwriter Lee Nawon. It is directed by Sakai Mai, whose previous films include Be a Light to the World (2015) and Opening Night (2017). Sakai’s direction is generally simple and to the point, and one can claim similarly for Lee’s screenplay. This is very much cinema intended for a single purpose: to entertain a teen market. While there is nothing behind the camera that stands out or surpasses one’s expectations, neither is there anything substandard or particularly lax. It is all simple just… there. Take it or leave it.

Kumada Rinka is appropriately angst-ridden and nervous, and does a reasonably decent job – particularly since she spends much of the film acting from behind a medical face mask. Shiroiwa Ruki is perhaps less successful, but he has a much more difficult character to play. While late scenes give some justification for his behaviour, it does lead him in a fairly odious state for the majority of the film. Some of the film does beggar belief, like Seiji’s apparent takeover of the school’s roof as his own personal art studio, but then again that is the sort of unrealistic flourish upon which these kinds of film confections thrive.