News
DramaFever Streams Taiwanese Live-Action Itazura na Kiss Shows
posted on by Lynzee Loveridge
Streaming service DramaFever announced on Thursday that it will stream the live-action television series It Started With A Kiss and its sequel They Kiss Again. These Taiwanese adaptations of Kaoru Tada's classic unfinished Itazura na Kiss shōjo manga first aired in 2005 and 2007. Ariel Lin (In Time With You, The Little Fairy, The Legend of the Condor Heroes) stars as Xiang Qin, and Joe Cheng (Honey and Clover, Love Actually, Love or Bread) plays Jiang Zhi Shu.
In the original manga, a high school girl named Kotoko finally tells a fellow senior named Naoki 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 smarts 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 story follows 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 has more than 30 million copies in print. Besides the two Taiwanese shows, the manga inspired a live-action television series in Japan in 1996, a 2008 stage play, a 2008 television anime series, a live-action television series in South Korea in 2010, and a Japanese drama this year. DramaFever is also streaming the 2013 drama starring Honoka Miki and Yūki Furukawa as it airs in Japan.
Digital Manga Inc. is publishing the manga in North America, and the company will release the 10th volume in November.
Thanks to mdo7 for the news tip.
