Itazura na Kiss - Love in Tokyo (Jdrama)

Another adaptation from a phenomenal manga is here: Itazura na Kiss - Love in Tokyo. This is the 4th live-action that I watched, from Japan, Korea, Taiwan, even Indonesia. Now, Japan has come with its new version of ItaKiss with brand new actors. I personally think this is the best version of all. Now, without further ado, let's jump to the story!

The Story

The epic story is started with the love confession from Kotoko Aihara (Miki Honoka) to Naoki Irie (Yuki Furukawa). She's got rejected immediately. After three years of secretly crushing on this guy, Kotoko's first love flipped by just like that. Kotoko learned Naoki's true character: behind the intelligence and his charming face, Naoki is nothing but an annoying, cold-hearted, arrogant person. Kotoko regrets that she wasted her high school life crushing on someone like Naoki. From this onwards, unexpected fate and incidents start to happen in Kotoko's life. All of sudden, Kotoko's new house got hit by a meteor/shooting star (LOL seriously... 😂) and crushed it down. Kotoko and her father must find a new place to stay.  The family who offered help to The Aihara happened to be The Irie family. Apparently, Shigeo Aihara, Kotoko's father, and Shigeki Irie, Naoki's father were best friends. Kotoko and her father start living in Irie's house until they find a new home. Kotoko couldn't help but felt a little excited because she still likes Naoki after all, but Naoki made it clear to her that he hates stupid women. 

They Make Each Other a Better Person

Naoki who never faced any challenges or hardships found Kotoko as her first trial who ruined his peaceful life. He never gets so many troubles as much as when he is with Kotoko. Naoki started becoming more human and shows emotions and feelings. Naoki was annoyed with this change, but at the same time, he felt a weird excitement that he never felt before. After helping Kotoko studied and see how hardworking she is, Naoki's perspective about her changed little by little, although he never showed it, he has faith that Kotoko will be able to reach her goal because of her perseverance. Kotoko, who's always been living so carefree and has no goal other than getting Naoki's love, has also started thinking about her dreams and do something for her life. Although she is not as smart as other people and her cooking skill sucks, she learned to be better at studying and as the time passed, she is more responsible for things which entrusted to her. Even her cooking skills improved. They are completing each other.

The Growing Relationship

Although it seemed like the relationship between Kotoko and Naoki has gotten better, there's always something that makes Naoki back to his annoying behavior. But he has gotten more protective about her in the way that Kotoko doesn't understand because Kotoko is quite slow at understanding things, she's still thinking that nothing has changed between her and Naoki although compared to their first meeting, Naoki sure doesn't think of Kotoko as a nuisance anymore and has become a very important person to Naoki.

Naoki learns to appreciate Kotoko more

I like how Naoki, little by little, changes to be a better and nicer person because of his encounter with Kotoko. They come to understand each other and Naoki learned about the meaning of hard work. Although he thought of Kotoko as a nuisance at first, he starts to appreciate her more.

Jealousy

Naoki started to feel strange emotions, he gets angry with Kotoko's friendship with Kinnosuke Ikezawa (Yuki Yamada), Kotoko's best friend who has a crush on Kotoko. Naoki may seem cool and careless about everyone else, but he didn't realize he felt a strong rivalry with Kinnosuke, although he always underestimates him because he is from class F. Naoki always makes sure that Kotoko will never fall for anyone else but him.

Naoki believes in Kotoko's capability

Naoki always being rude to Kotoko and hates her so much to the point that he didn't want to walk with her at the beginning of the story. He always underestimates her, but as they started living together, Naoki realized that Kotoko has strong perseverance to reach her goal and since then he knows he can push Kotoko beyond her limit to help her reach what she wants. He knows Kotoko will never give up.

Naoki is becoming more gentle towards Kotoko

You can see that Naoki's behavior towards Kotoko has changed as time passed. He in the past wouldn't even care about her, but as he develops feelings for Kotoko, he does not hesitate to show his feelings, although Kotoko is still clueless about that.

Mischievous Kiss to Fairy Tale Kiss

At the end of their high school days, Kotoko decided to give up on Naoki because Naoki made fun of her feelings in front of their classmates and insulted her friends. Naoki, furious with Kotoko's decision, suddenly kissed her only to make her unable to forget him easily. Naoki barely realized that he was actually jealous of Kotoko's intimate friendship with Kinnosuke, and being provoked by Kinnosuke's statement about who will steal Kotoko from him. That mischievous kiss was their first kiss. The second kiss took a very different scene and circumstances. Kotoko helped Naoki's brother when he got a sudden stomachache which threatened his life and brought him to the hospital. At that time, Naoki was busy working and didn't answer any calls. When he learned the situation, he realized he had caused troubles to Kotoko, but Kotoko still helps him anyway. Naoki then realized how important Kotoko for him, and kissed her when she was sleeping.

The Best ItaKiss Adaptation, and here's why:

1. Miki Honoka is perfect as Kotoko. She has this natural adorable gesture that is not annoying to look at, she can bring out the clumsiness and cuteness from Kotoko's character without exaggerating it. Kotoko's character looks young, lively, fun, and you fall in love with her as you watch her grow and more mature. She is not clinging on to Irie-kun all the time and even stands up for herself. Her life does not revolve around Irie-kun, unlike the other versions of Kotoko, this Kotoko is more independent. She isn't so stupid either and we can see her improving her cooking skill and studying.

2. Yuki Furukawa is Naoki Irie in real life

He is fluent in English and graduates from the same major as Naoki's first major in college, Yuki Furukawa is truly Naoki Irie in real life, although he's much nicer lol. In other adaptations, the one who portrayed his character is acting a bit exaggerated that somehow they lost the unique and typical character of Irie-kun who is supposed to be cool, introverted, and ignorant with the things around him. This version stays faithful to Irie's character until the end, only he becomes nicer towards people around him, but he doesn't change his poker face nor his introvert side.

3. The best Kin-chan

In this adaptation, Kinnosuke is not just comedy relief. He actually becomes Naoki's rival and true second lead character. He has very good chemistry with Kotoko and his feeling is not just a crush, it makes you want to support him somehow. We got to see the growth of his character and how he becomes a professional chef. We even get to see the best part of him like when he kept supporting Kotoko despite his own broken heart, and how he scolded Naoki who has been acting too ignorant towards people around him, including his family, and made Naoki learned the value of people who are precious to him. In terms of appearance and school grades based on the story, Kinnosuke may lose to Naoki (although in real life, both actors are actually so handsome!), but as a person, we get to see that he is a better human being compared to Naoki and somehow Naoki learned a lot from him.

4. The Iconic Things

- The morning coffee Kotoko made for Naoki.
It is stated in the manga that the only thing Kotoko's good at is making a coffee, and this becomes an iconic thing in this adaptation. Naoki always looks calm and satisfied, somehow surprised, when he drinks Kotoko's coffee. Whenever he drinks coffee made by Kotoko, it seems like he just drank the most delicious coffee in the world. It makes you wonder what kind of magic that Kotoko has put in it that makes Naoki seems to enjoy it so much. This coffee thing does not exist in other adaptations.

- The shooting star
This is the thing that hit Kotoko's house which results in her living together with Naoki's family. The probability of a house getting hit by a meteor is one in a million, and whenever Kotoko or Naoki sees a shooting star, they are reminded of their fateful meeting.

- Walking together with 3 meters distance
This is the first rule that Naoki gave to Kotoko when they began to live together. Since they have to go to school together, but Naoki didn't want to get close to Kotoko to avoid any stupid rumors, he told Kotoko that she can walk behind him at a 3-meter distance. Although it seemed annoying at first, they always do this whenever they're walking to school or college together, in every season and at different times.

I absolutely love the wedding scene too, and I highly recommend it to everyone. I hope you enjoy my review and this can be your reference in choosing good J-dramas. Love from the Itakiss family.

PS: All of the gifs were taken from Tumblr and Google. Feel free to message me if you want to be credited or want me to take it down. Jaa, sayonara :)