Chemicals React:RisaxOtani - MyAnimeList.net

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-LOVELY COMPLEX-

..Is not your average shojo, to start with. It's a series by mastermind Aya Nakahara that spans out a total of 16 volumes - all centered around the lives of two main characters: Risa Koizumi and Atsushi Otani. It was first debuted in September 2001 and recently ended around December of 2006, originally serialized in Margaret. As of recently, it has been licensed by Viz for American distribution. Then, on July 15 of 2006, the series was debuted into a Live-action movie starring Teppei Koike (Otani) and Ema Fujisawa (Risa)!

Now that the basics are over with, i'll brief everyone on what the story is all about. I mentioned in the first line of the first paragraph that this wasn't your "average" shojo. Many might disagree with this - since it is about the love life between a boy and a girl, but typically, the boy is taller than the girl, when you think of a regular, well-to-do shojo series. The girl that this series is focused on, Risa Koizumi, is 170cm (five feet, seven inches), while the boy, Atsushi Otani, is, well, five feet on the spot. Both have equally firey personalities, outspoken and judged greatly by the opposite sex because of their height. Since both have this kind of personality - they clash. They clash big time. Their entire class refers to them as the "All Hanjin-Kyojin", a popular Japanese comedy duo, who happen to have the same complex as Risa and Otani! Though they may argue, fight, and bite eachothers' heads off (and this is why they call them the comedy duo), something eventually sparks between the two. Through a twist of strange fate, what they thought would be called "most impossible" became possible. Their romance will be one big struggle, and both characters will be put to the ultimate test - can they really get over their height complex? Will Otani ever see Risa as a girl instead of a good friend? Will Risa fall for someone else, since there are many boys that like her? Will they ever get along nicely as a romantic couple? I'll put it this way.. the romance between them gives a whole new meaning to the quote: "You hurt the ones you love.", and I mean this in a more.. physical sense.

-The COUPLE-

-The CHARACTERS-
All the characters listed here are part of the main cast/subcast! If there's any person i've missed, I put them in regular thumbnails without descriptions. Hover over each character to see their anime counterpart!
Koizumi Risa

The main character of the series, a girl of abnormally large height! She stands at 170cm/5'7'' and almost no boy in her class is taller than her. She's always scouting for a boyfriend, but often finds herself alone in in the end. She's a huge fangirl of a band named Umebozu, and happens to share that fandom with only Otani! She has a hot-tempered personality and her impulsive side always gets the best of her. Risa often believes her love life is very hopeless, and on more than one occasion, we can see playing lots of videogames.
Know her more:

Atsushi Otani

The other main character of the series, he stands at five feet tall, the shortest boy of his class and basketball team. He's always looking for a girl either as tall as him or smaller than him in a girlfriend (his age, too). Many of the second graders and underclassmen all have crushes on him (however, he takes no interest in them)! He, too, is a fan of Umebozu, and often agrees to sing Umebozu karaoke with Risa. Though he's short, he's the star player of his basketball team, and shares that firey-hot-headed personality trait with Risa.
Know him more:

Nobuko Ishihara "Nobu-chan"

Risa's trendy and fashionable best friend, and girlfriend of Otani's best friend. She's always there to lend a hand to Risa whenever she needs it - and was one of the first to believe that Otani and Risa made a potentially cute couple! You can often find her trying to get Risa and Otani alone, or with her boyfriend, Nakao "Darling", planning their new scheme for Risa and Otani. Most of the time we see Nobu giving support or advice to Risa about boys, and tries to help Risa confess her feelings for Otani.
Other LoveCom Cast!Profiles Coming out soon..(Ugh..I'm tired ehh!)

-LOVE*COM Live Action-

Yes, that's right! Lovely Complex was such a best-selling manga that it was made into a "live action" movie! It was released on July 15, 2006, and since then, many Love*Com fans have loved it. The movie stars Teppei Koike as Atsushi Otani and Ema Fujisawa as Risa Koizumi! The actors were very fit for their parts - even J-pop singer Nami Tamaki stars in it, as Nobuko, Risa's best friend. Anyways, like any series that was made into a movie, the movie kind of.. packs all the important events in the one hour time frame it is given, skipping out on alot of characters, and just focusing mostly on the development between Risa and Otani. I'm not really a fluent in Japanese, nor do I know any of the dialects, but from what i've read (and observed from reading), the movie speaks in a Kansai dialect. Buuut since i'm only fluent in english, it just goes over my head like nothing xD;. I really adored the acting of the characters, as well, and I was particularly impressed with Teppei (Otani). Though the movie was trying to portray Teppei as five feet (Otani's height), it didn't quite work out, since Fujisawa (Risa) was most of the time, on heels. I think Teppei is seriously the real deal when it comes to Otani, no other Junon boy (japanese pretty boys) could've pulled it off as well as he did. If I had to rate the movie from 1 to 5 stars, i'd totally give it a 4. Why not a 5? It's not really bad, but it wasn't the "oh man best movie in the world!" -- I found some scenes completely unnecessary. Like the scene with Risa's "older sister" (which was actually a really fat guy crossdressing?), it was... not needed. Not to me, at least. I also think Maity (the really "pretty boy") should've been played by another Junon boy, instead of an older man. That really didn't make much sense to me, since Maity was supposed to be sort of young? Other than those two things, I thought the movie was very, very good. It was also really drop-dead hilarious! My favorite scenes in this movie were some of the final moments between the two, where Otani goes on his tippy toes to kiss Risa, and when she replies, she says something like, "Ah! What was that? It tasted like yakisoba!" I also enjoyed the scenes with the summer festival - it was really cute and heartwarming to see Otani and Risa begin to spark together. Even better - he did something quite unexpected, much different from Love*Com's anime/manga counterpart, he faked being Risa's boyfriend because Kanzaki was annoying him! How's that for some more drama? Anyway.. the movie is worth the time of any fan of Lovely Complex, and i'm not just saying that to promote the series ;).
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-Underconstruction-

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	Its good that they've created Love*Com!Because...? Sprecioustant	2 replies	by mrjag »» 06-01-10, 1:09 PM
	Poll: Describe Otani and Koizumi Sprecioustant	0 replies	by Sprecioustant »» 03-25-09, 10:02 PM