JAPAN: Mischievous Kiss

Every once and a while I have to stray away from Korean shows and watch a show from another country. For some reason I couldn't shake the feeling that I should be watching Mischievous Kiss: Love in Tokyo, so I watched all 16 episodes on DramaFever despite the fact that I really wasn't planning on it. I had watched the Korean version and figured I'd seen it all so it'd be okay to skip this one, I was happily mistaken.

Overview: It is Japan's 2nd television adaptation of the manga  Itazura na Kiss by Kaoru Tada, the first was released in 1996. Some of you may be familiar with the Korean version Playful Kiss starring Kim Hyun Joong (Ji Hoo in Boys Over Flowers). The show is about a girl who is hopelessly in love with a cold, genius classmate. She musters up the courage to give him a confession letter in front of the whole school, but gets harshly turned down. However, through a very unfortunate event she ends up living with her crush. This inevitably causes them to get closer, which is not always a good thing in her case. Though she tries her hardest to win him over, events keep arising that seem to drive them further apart. Will her persistence help her prevail in the end? The answer is YES.

What I liked:
The Korean Version, Playful Kiss, was actually the third Korean drama that I watched. So, I think of it fondly (sort of, I have mixed feelings). Anyway, I actually like this version better, but I will admit that I find the Korean cast as a whole more attractive (but that's just me).

I liked the pace of this show. It felt much shorter than the Korean version, probably because it was. Each episode was only about 45 minutes long whereas the Korean episodes were about an hour long. Also in the Japanese version a lot of the unnecessary events that weighed down the story line, like the field day or the bet between Seung Jo and Ha Ni, were taken out. This definitely helped lighten the show.

The thing I liked the most is that the main character, Kotoko Aihara, though similar to Oh Ha Ni in the fact that she gets completely hung up on a dude that doesn't even like her, manages to build her own life rather than just build her life around the guy she likes. In many ways she does give up her own self for her crush Naoki Irie, but it's not to the extent that Oh Ha Ni does. And though Kotoko never really establishes her own dreams outside of Irie I feel like she has the potential to. The fact that she didn't instantly say she wanted to be a nurse after hearing Irie say he wanted to be a doctor gives me hope. 

I also loved Irie's mom in this version. I loved Seung Jo's mom too, but this lady didn't come off as desperate to make Kotoko apart of her family. The moms were the best part of both series. The one thing that Naoki's mom did in this version that made me love her (SPOILER ALERT) was try to ruin the meeting between Irie and Sahoko Oizumi who Irie will be engaged to later. It was totally rude, but hilarious.

I thought the hugs, that's right HUGS, looked really comfortable. After Irie finally confessed his feelings to Kotoko, he hugged her and for some reason it just looked like one of the best hugs ever. The second hug in the house looked really comfortable too. There is just something about a simple hug between two people that love each that looks so great.

I really enjoyed Yuki Yamada as Kinnosuke Ikezawa. Yuki Yamada is so handsome, but he also has some great acting skills. Kin-chan was so sweet and genuine with Kotoko. and I loved his numerous face offs with Irie. I really like the character because he had ambition, which in all honesty was something that neither Kotoko nor Irie really seemed to have. Irie was good at everything so he kind of just went with the flow and Kotoko did the same. However, Kin-chan was serious about becoming a chef and was really working hard to see that through even if the girl he liked wasn't next to him.

What I didn't like:

I didn't like how mean Irie was to Kotoko. I expected him to be cold because that's just the character, but it still bothered me how harshly he treated her sometimes. However, because he treated her that way the whole time the character never seemed to develop. It was so frustrating how stagnate he was. Even Kotoko changed, maybe she didn't mature, but she wasn't the same Kotoko from the beginning of the series. 

I didn't like that he broke his engagement. I don't remember Seung Jo going that far. To me he should have not gotten engaged or not broken the engagement.

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This isn't a drama that needs much analyzing because in all honesty not much thinking is required to watch it. Overall I found the drama to be quite enjoyable. It was cute and that's all I needed at the time. I am anxiously awaiting the supposed second season of the show. I'll have to take some time before I watch the Taiwanese version, but after watching the Japanese version I am kind of looking forward to it. 

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Thanks for reading!