Throw together a nerdy guy with a superpower, a purehearted girl who falls for him and his best friend who’s been secretly in love with him since childhood, and you’ve got a typical setup for a love triangle, variations of which can be found in many a manga and movie.

In Keiichi Kobayashi’s quirky rom-com “Love Is Light,” which was adapted from a manga series by the mononymous Akieda, this story plays out in ways fresh and charming, despite its familiarity. Wisely, the film focuses more on its protagonist's tortured personal journey than his predictable final destination.

Formidably smart and excruciatingly polite, university student Saijo (Fuju Kamio) has an unusual intellectual interest: the definition of love, and not only in the dictionary sense. His curiosity stems from his mysterious ability (though he considers it a curse) to gauge feelings of love in the women around him by the tiny globules of light they emit. But what, he wonders, does this light really mean? Mere sexual attraction or something more?