Play It Cool, Guys

What unites Hayate Ichikura, Shun Futami, Takayuki Mima and Souma Shiki is not heroics, a shared goal or even friendship at first sight, but a string of small, almost invisible disasters: a forgotten wallet, mixed-up belongings, awkward pauses, clumsy gestures and attempts to keep a straight face when that face is already burning with embarrassment. Each has his own defense. Hayate shrinks inside but tries to smile. Shun stubbornly passes off every accident as a deliberate move. Mima carries on as if nothing happened, which oddly reassures everyone around him. Souma accepts his slip-ups as part of himself, though his ease hides uncertainty about his future. Their "coolness" is less a pose than a strange gift: even when they stumble, they keep going.

Chance encounters gradually grow into a quiet everyday story about people drawing closer at a café where their paths cross, at work and on walks. Into this orbit comes Motoharu Igarashi, a sociable, perceptive 27-year-old writer and Mima's childhood friend, who believes you cannot write about people without truly trying to understand them.

The real question is not whether the heroes will defeat some great evil, but whether they can accept their own awkwardness without hiding it behind a mask of perfection.