You'd have to have a pretty broad definition of "youth" to consider the behaviour of 31 year-old character of 'LOVE STRIKES!' (MOTEKI), as being in any way acceptable, but then in this day and age youth seems to be more a condition or state of mind. Or, in the case of Yukio Fujimoto, something of an affliction.
Fujimoto is a geek with a job at a trendy youth magazine that allows him to indulge his interests in manga, music and comedy and get paid for it as well. It's every young man's dream. On the other hand, being socially awkward is always going to be a hindrance to a guy who also desperately wants to lose his virginity. Hitting it off with a guy on a social networking site who shares similar interests, Fujimoto at least tries to be more sociable, but when the "guy" turns out to be a girl, and a cute one too, Fujimoto begins to think that his Moteki (his "irresistible period") has finally arrived.
There's a serious point to be made about it being in the interests of a consumer-driven society to extend childhood interests as long as possible into a generation that has considerably more purchasing power than teenagers, but you probably shouldn't expect so much from a film that has an exclamation mark in the (English) title. Nor from one that is derived from a television series. Filled with catchy J-pop songs, shallow characterisation and a condescending if not downright sneering tone towards its characters LOVE STRIKES! could itself be accused of cynically pandering to its young audience, or worse, making fun of them.
But then again, we don't expect 'The IT Crowd' or 'The Big Bang Theory' to have any serious points to make about the exploitation of geek culture. If it weren't as funny as it is, if there weren't some degree of truth and a measure of recognition in the situations and if it wasn't as damn clever about the manner in which it puts its comedy across, you'd have some serious reservations about LOVE STRIKES! As it is, it's hard not to like.
