Aihara Kotoko is in love with the unattainable Irie Naoki. Fate intervenes when one day Kotoko’s house gets ruined by an earthquake, forcing Kotoko and her father to move in to Naoki and his parents’ house. Does Kotoko have a chance with Naoki after all? The romantic comedy begins! Itazura na Kiss is one of those few anime that go past the main couple’s high school life and transcends into their adult life – their marriage, honeymoon, and university/college experiences. The manga which this anime is based off of is unfinished due to the tragic, untimely death of the author. It is said that the anime ended the way the author truly wanted it to finish.
Oh my gooood. This is such a beautiful anime. The relationship with Naoki and Kotoko is wonderfully developed, and it’s so heartwarming and beautiful and I love it. I would love to have a husband like Naoki – he’s my dream man, you know – and this is an anime that every person should watch because it’s so beautiful. I had tears in my eyes during the last few episodes, it was that lovely.
LOL NO.
Excuse me while I rip this crap to pieces.
Itazura na Kiss (“Mischievous Kiss” in English, or ItaKiss as it is commonly known) is not the best love story ever. It is also not romantic in the least. Unless, of course, you’re a masochist. If you want a good love story, go watch…hmmm…I actually don’t watch too many romance anime. Ah, I know. Go watch Kimi ni Todoke, or Wolf and Spice, or Fruits Basket, or even Toradora!. Heck, even School Rumble is a better romance than this. I think I need my brain checked, because /I don’t understand why this anime has so many followers and girls screaming “oh my god I love Itazura na Kiss!”/ Please, someone help me understand why this anime is so popular. Seriously – if you Google “Itazura na Kiss anime review” (or even a manga review) over 98% of reviews are positive. /And I don’t understand./
Wow, I’m so pissed off that I can’t even write this review in the way I originally intended. So let’s go straight to the good stuff, shall we? Itazura na Kiss’s female protagonist is Aihara Kotoko, who is one of the stupidest students in her high school – no joke, she’s been in class “F” (the lowest class) all throughout high school. Unfortunately, the guy she likes is Irie Naoki, the most intelligent boy in school (a TENSAI!!1one! or genius) who happens to be in class “A”, which is the highest class. Naoki also happens to be a total jerk. None of their personalities change throughout the series, which goes on for twenty-five torturous episodes. I—I can’t even get a good synopsis out because I hate this anime so much, ughh. I promise that once I regain my composure, I’ll try to write a “redux” of this review.
Episode seventeen is when the anime actually starts to get good. For no other reason than they introduce Kamogari Keita. Ahh, Keita, you are the only reason I actually kept watching this anime. No joke. Keita is probably the best character in this entire series, if you ask me. For reasons that I will leave to you to find out, if you ever want to check out this anime. Actually – I’ll spare you the pain of doing that. Keita happens to be the only character (that I can remember, anyway) that tells Kotoko to break it off with Naoki because he’s a bastard that doesn’t care about her. You should have listened to him, Kotoko. I’m disappointed you didn’t.
On the plus side, though, this anime has some psychological merits, even if it doesn’t mean to have them. Kotoko is dumb as a rock, and Irie is a genius. Irie uses this blatant gap in their intelligence to use Kotoko and keep her with him, mainly utilizing the carrot-and-stick method. Based on this, we can conclude that Irie has a very low amount of self-esteem, and hides it by being with a stupid girl.
