‘My Love Story with Yamada-kun at Lv999' shows that even stoic gamers can fall in love

Japan Times

21-03-2025

Male heartthrobs in movies based on shōjo manga (girls' comics) generally share one attribute: They're romantically unavailable to the frustrated female protagonist in the opening scenes — or even for much of the film.
The latter dynamic is at work in 'My Love Story with Yamada-kun at Lv999,' Yuka Yasukawa's sweet, leisurely paced romantic comedy based on a bestselling manga by the single-named artist Mashiro. The college student protagonist, Akane Kinoshita (Mizuki Yamashita) falls madly in love with Akito Yamada (Ryuto Sakuma), a high school student who is not only uninterested in romance (and tells her so to her face) but also emotionally blank with a vocabulary that doesn't extend far beyond 'yes' or 'no.'
Nonetheless, at his elite high school Akito makes female classmates swoon just by walking through the halls. Seeing this comically staged spectacle, Akane starts to lose hope. Given this swarm of rivals, what chance does she really have?
Akito is also a pro gamer who dominates an online RPG called 'Forest Of Savior,' and Akane first meets him through the game, of which she is a novice player. (Her ex-boyfriend got her into it before brutally dumping her in the film's first scene.) Invited to a party for the game's hardcore devotees, she spends days slimming down, shaping up and refreshing her wardrobe with the aim of showing up the ex, who has since acquired a new girlfriend. Once at the party, however, she embarrassingly trips and loses a shoe. The good-looking guy with kind eyes who hands it back to her is none other than Akito.
Her new Prince Charming helps her in other ways, too, from bandaging her bruised ankle to taking her home after she passes out drunk. Thankfully, he never takes advantage of the situation, and Akane sees signs — or perhaps just imagines? — that he might, in his own inscrutable way, reciprocate her one-sided love for him.
The story unfolds slowly with feather-light comedy inserted between the highly charged encounters of Akane and Akito at meetings of their game 'guild,' of which he is a much-admired leader, and elsewhere. Though her bestie, Momoko (Mahiru Coda), urges her to make her feelings known, Akane hesitates. That is until a rival appears, Akito's nerdy classmate Yukari (Mizuki Kayashima), who is even more hopelessly head-over-heels than Akane is.
How this love triangle will resolve itself is hardly a mystery, but Akito proves to be more than a living simulacrum of his expressionless game avatar. As played by ACEes boy band member Sakuma, Akito is gently ghost-like through much of the film, but gives subtle indications early on of suffering an inner pain that has left him wary of expressing emotions despite his good heart.
As Akane, former Nogizaka 46 idol group member Yamashita lights up the screen with a perfect, if often forced, smile and makes her character both relatable and sympathetic in her abject misery.
To brighten the gloomy clouds hanging over the film's central relationship, everything from Akane's room to the coffee shop where she meets Akito and other guild friends is filmed in perky pastel shades. But 'My Love Story with Yamada-kun at Lv999' is more than a warmly colored romantic fantasy, exemplifying as it does that ancient truth: It hurts to be in love, but it hurts even more not to take a chance