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Variety: Itazura na Kiss Shōjo Manga Gets Film by Studio Gaga (Updated)
posted on by Crystalyn Hodgkins
Update on July 15, 2016: Variety's article, when originally posted, said that the Itazura na Kiss - The Movie film would be an animated film, but now the article has been changed to say it will be a live-action film. ANN's original article is below:
Entertainment news website Variety reported on Thursday that Kaoru Tada's shōjo romantic comedy manga Itazura na Kiss will get an anime film adaptation. According to Variety, the Japanese independent distributor GAGA is entering the anime production business and is animating the film as its first project.
Minoru Mizoguchi, a scriptwriter who has produced other Itazura na Kiss projects and is a good friend of Tada's husband Shigeru Nishikawa, is directing the film. GAGA is partnering with the Korean production company Asia Pictures Entertainment and music agency LDH to produce and distribute the film. The film, titled Itazura na Kiss - The Movie, will open in Japan in fall 2016.
GAGA will also serve on the production committee for new anime series, starting with two new television anime series that will be announced at the AnimeJapan event on Saturday. GAGA board member Koji Hyakutake will oversee the new animation production business.
Mizoguchi is also directing the two live-action film adaptations of Tada's manga. The two films, titled Itazura na Kiss the Movie ~High School-Hen~ (Mischievious Kiss the Movie: High School Edition) and Itazura na Kiss The Movie Part 2 Campus-Hen (Mischievious Kiss the Movie Part 2: Campus Arc), are slated for this fall and sometime this year, respectively.
In Tada's classic unfinished manga, a high school girl named Kotoko Aihara finally tells a fellow senior named Naoki Irie that she has loved him from afar since she saw him on their first day of high school. However, Naoki, a haughty "super-ikemen" (handsome male) with 200 IQ and sports talent, rejects her offhand. Fate intervenes when a mild earthquake ruins Kotoko's family house. While the house gets rebuilt, Kotoko and her dad stay at the home of her dad's childhood friend...whose son is Naoki.
The original manga followed Naoki and Kotoko through high school and beyond, but the manga is unfinished because Tada passed away in an accident in 1999. The popular manga ran in Shueisha's Bessatsu Margaret magazine from 1990 to 1999, and it has more than 35 million copies in print.
The story previously inspired a live-action television series in Japan in 1996, two live-action television series in Taiwan under the name It Started with a Kiss in 2005 and 2007, its first stage plays in 2008, and a live-action television series in South Korea in 2010. The manga also inspired a 2008 television anime. More recently, the manga received a second Japanese live-action television adaptation in 2013.
Digital Manga Inc. published the 10th manga volume in North America in 2014, and Discotek Media also released the 2008 television anime in 2014. DramaFever and Hulu streamed the first season of the most recent live-action television adaptation in 2013, and DramaFever and Crunchyroll also streamed the live-action television special Mischievous Kiss 2- Love in Okinawa (Itazura Kiss 2- Love in Okinawa) in 2014. Crunchyroll then streamed the second season in 2014.
Source: Variety; Mark Schilling
this article has been modified since it was originally posted; see change history