Day 5 – Anime You’re Ashamed You Enjoyed
I’ve thought a lot about this and there are some titles which came to mind, especially those which I liked when I was younger. But I was younger back then! So I thought I’m not ashamed that I enjoyed them because I think my age then justified the things that I liked. So, with this one, I’m going to share about a guilty pleasure.
Itazura na Kiss
Itazura na Kiss, or ItaKiss, is a shoujo manga written and illustrated by Tada Kaoru. The manga is never finished and will never be because the mangaka died in an accident. However, her husband knew of her plans regarding the story. That’s why the anime got an ending as per her husband’s permission.
If you don’t already know, ItaKiss is a popular series not only in Japan but also outside their country, too.
Aside from the manga and this anime, it had a lot of drama adaptations. There was one Japanese live action drama back in 1996.
In 2005, Taiwan made adaptations of it, entitled It Started With A Kiss and They Kissed Again.
Korea also adapted it with the title Playful Kiss.
In 2013, there’s a remake in Japan and they called it Itazura na Kiss ~ Love in Tokyo and it had 2 seasons.
Then, Thailand released Kiss Me in 2015, but it’s a drama loosely based on the series. So the plot and especially the characters feel different.
Last year, 2016, Taiwan had a remake of it and called it Miss in Kiss.
For some reason, Japan, again, is releasing a trilogy movie of ItaKiss which started in 2016. The second was released early this 2017 while the last one is scheduled to be on December 2017.
You get the gist of how crazy popular this is, right? But despite the large fanbase all over the world, I’m still ashamed that I enjoyed it all because of its plot and the main characters.
The story is about Kotoko, a girl in love with a guy named Naoki. She gives him a love letter, but he rejects it, pointing out that he’s not interested in stupid girls. See, he’s in the top of their year while she’s in class F. Because of a horrible accident — that is, Kotoko’s newly-built house being struck by a meteorite (I know! Ridiculous, right?) — she and her dad got invited by her dad’s friend to stay at their house. And then, that house happens to be — surprise, surprise — Naoki’s house! So they live together with his mom supporting Kotoko’s love and yes, they gradually fall in love with each other.
Kotoko is a stupid character. Seriously, I felt a lot of secondhand embarrassment because of her when I was watching the anime and some of the adaptations. I was so irritated by the fact that she “fell in love” with Naoki without even having an interaction with him. She even stuck with him even if he was shooing her away. Her world revolves around him — her decisions and motivations are all for him and it’s just… CAN’T YOU DO SOMETHING FOR YOURSELF? But she’s happy just to please him and it’s just so. Ugh.
Then, there’s Naoki, a genius of a tsundere who doesn’t need to study because he can memorize everything with a single glance. He’s good at sports, too, and is popular because he’s handsome and intelligent. Because he’s mostly silent about his feelings, it looked like their relationship is unbalanced. He’s that rude perfect character that easily gets on my nerves.
To be fair, though, I think their relationship got better near the end, though the process on how they got there is terrible. But yep. I still watched the anime. And most of its adaptations. Yup. This is a big guilty pleasure of mine and I can just cry thinking about it.
Treasure Box 
it sounds liek classic shoujo to me, and the many adaptations is a testament to it. It reminds me of how many times Hana Yori Dango was adapted because of its solid premise as well. Seriously, i grew up w Meteor Garden, and later realized it was Hana Yori Dango, lol.
The author dying is extremely sad though, but her work’s legacy will surely stand the test of time. 🙂
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Yep. I’m at the point of my life where I finally question why the jerk male leads are appealing, though. I would have put Ookami Shoujo to Kuro Ouji here, but I didn’t watch the anime since I dropped the manga before it was adapted. Ohh~ HanaDan! For some reason, I think the Japanese drama is more likeable than Meteor Garden. But yes, it’s a classic shoujo formula.
Yes. It’s been more than a decade and it’s still gaining fans, so it’s like a posthumous award.
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Ookami Shoujo to Kuro Ouji looks like formulaic shoujo as well. am i a bad person for liking those things? XD
jerk male leads are just bad boys we all want to tame. haha
meteor garden is just weird. it was very popular for a time though, and they even returned it on tv after sometime, with much hype. i do love the idea of a girl dressing up as a boy. so much hijinks, lol.
awww… that sounds extremely lovely. its nice to know her story is still touching hearts long after her passing.
btw, you don’t have twitter? i randomly messaged your tumblr, lol.
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Yep. Are you planning to watch it? And of course not! XD we just have different preferences.
Hahaha! I guess that’s true though it’s kinda stressful for me to think like that when it comes to reality.
Lol. True~ kinda same with girly boy and boyish girl stories. 😀
Really? I’ll get to that once I go online in my laptop. (Currently on mobile.) I used to have a Twitter acct but I don’t use it anymore. :))
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i might watch it. hahaha. it’s in my plan to watch now. XD
yeah, bad boys are hard to tame.
ah, for some reason every aniblogger use twitter, so i was forced to have one too. haha.
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I’m going to wait for your review of it. Haha!
Ohh… well, I’m not going to be able to actually use it frequently because there’s no internet connection where I’m currently staying so maybe I’ll just create one next time. :))
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