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1st Itazura na Kiss Live-Action Film's Trailer Previews Happiness' Theme Song
posted on by Crystalyn Hodgkins
Japanese film news website Movie Collection began streaming a new trailer on Friday for Itazura na Kiss the Movie ~High School-Hen~ (Itazura Kiss the Movie in High School), the first live-action film in the two-part film adaptation of Kaoru Tada's shōjo romantic comedy manga Itazura na Kiss. The video previews Happiness' theme song "Always." Happiness wrote the song specifically for the film.
The film will depict plot details that original manga author Kaoru Tada wrote but never drew in manga form. The first film will open in Japan on November 25, but it will first have a special screening during the Tokyo International Film Festival, which takes place from October 25 through November 3.
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 both live-action film adaptations.
The first film stars:
- Reina Bisa as Kotoko Aihara
- Kanta Satō as Naoki Irie
- Shimon Okura as Kinnosuke Ikezawa
- Atsuki Tomori as Jinko Komori
- Nonoka Yamaguchi as Satomi Ishikawa
- Hidehiko Ishizuka as Irie's father
- Hikari Ishida as Irie's mother
- Takanori Jinnai as Kotoko's father
In the second film, titled Itazura na Kiss The Movie Part 2 Campus-Hen (Mischievious Kiss the Movie Part 2: Campus Arc), the characters will go to college. The story will follow the love polygon relationships that form with the introduction of the beautiful genius Yūko Matsumoto and the tennis club sempai Sudō.
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.
