Goodbye, Don Glees!

In a quiet Japanese province, where summer smells of sun-warmed grass, earth after the rain and the smoke of festival fireworks, Roma Kamogawa lives as if on the sidelines of someone else's youth. He moved here from Tokyo long ago and never learned to feel at home among his classmates, who are too loud, too self-assured and equally indifferent to anyone who falls out of step with the crowd. His true friend became Toto Mitarai, an equally awkward and withdrawn boy, and together they invented a little kingdom of their own called the Don Glees. It was not just a secret hideout or a childish game: hidden in that name was a stubborn right to be different, to not smile on command and to not dissolve into the crowd. But the years go by, Toto leaves to study in Tokyo, and Roma is left alone, missing Tivoli, the girl who moved to Ireland, and clinging to memories like an old photograph in which one can still make out a light that is no longer around.