Wednesday, March 25, 2015

JDrama Review: Mischeivous Kiss 2: Love in Tokyo


The Gist: Kotoko's (Miki Honoka) dream has finally come true now that she has married her long-time love, Irie Naoki (Furukawa Yuki). There's still work to do, though, as Kotoko and Naoki essentially jumped the dating stage and hopped straight into marriage. With Naoki working through medical school and Kotoko working hard to support him by becoming a nurse, they have to sort out not only what it means to be husband and wife, but what it means for them to be a team. The two of them have never been on even footing when it comes to their relationship and in Kotoko's worst nightmare, marriage hasn't changed much. Naoki and Kotoko aren't the only ones struggling with romance. Kin-chan's (Yamada Yuki) one-sided love takes an unexpected turn when foreign exchange student Chris (Nakai Noemie) arrives and little brother Yuki (Miyagi Yoshiaki) looks like he's going to keep up the family tradition, potentially making all the same mistakes as his brother.

Love:

1. Kotoko and Naoki

This pair is once again, the heart, soul, and everything about this show. Now that Noaki is finally mostly on board with their relationship, you can really see their chemistry sparkle. What I love best about this show is it continues to bring out the best in our leads. They essentially have to learn to depend on each other in opposite ways. Kotoko needs to learn to have some independence. Her entire life up until now has been singularly focused on Naoki and while that doesn't change, she comes into her own and learns to be her own person. Naoki, on the other hand, really has a lot to learn about being a husband. He always says that Kotoko can do the things he can't and let's face it, Kotoko was a born wife. It takes a lot for Naoki to realize when he's jealous, when he needs to communicate, and when he should verbalize to his wife that he loves her.

Again, although they lived together, there's a lot that changes with marriage. I really appreciate that this show didn't shy away from talking about sex in that opening episode/honeymoon special. Kotoko barely feels comfortable holding Naoki's hand and she's about to go on her honeymoon! It's a great moment when Naoki finally breaks down because it finally shows Kotoko (and the squealing viewers at home) that he wants this too. When he gets jealous about Keita, Kotoko's nursing classmate, he handles it so poorly. I love that Kotoko finally speaks up, something to the tune of "I'm the only one in love here." It stings, but to me, I felt it was perfect. She needed to stop feeling like Naoki was doing her a favor by being with her and start working on their marriage together. Now, Naoki is still going to be Naoki - cold and a bit dumb in love - but I liked this moment as a turning point for them.
And wow, that's a lot to say. Also, they kiss a lot and it's glorious. Definitely fills the void from last season.

2. The Ending

Spoilers coming at you. So, I was super curious what they were going to do with the end of this show. Fans of the manga will know that unfortunately, the mangaka died before she could finish the story. Every adaptation has to make a choice about where they are going to end this show. The Taiwan version sticks completely to the manga and stops mid-story. The Korean version stops about halfway through the manga, with a few teaser specials afterwards. The anime has a made-up ending that's pretty solid, but I mus admit, this version ending was in my book goddamn perfect.

I was worried we wouldn't get back to the pregnancy after the initial scare and while I'm sad we didn't get to see more of it. There was this lovely balance of seeing her telling all her friends, how the family excitedly prepares, and then it jumps ahead, just for a glimpse. You see Naoki and Kotoko walking with their little girl between them. They each call the other's name, before smiling and saying "nothing." It's perfect because you can just see how fulfilled and happy they are and they've moved into knowing each other so well that "nothing" really says it all. Naoki is simply beaming in this scene and it's adorable to see him finally so comfortable showing his emotions. The glow in the scene reminds me of that first coffee scene in season 1, which closes the book nicely. I'm usually not a huge fan of an overly perfect ending, but this show has always been the exception in my book. I loved it. Wow, that was also really long. Sorry.

3. Yuki

While this story is definitely focused on Kotoko and Naoki, there's this adorable subplot where Yuki is finding his own Kotoko. She is dumb but determined and Kotoko instantly takes her under her wing. Fans of season 1 will definitely enjoy this as Yuki gets roped into tutoring her and then rejecting her. Yuki gets replaced with another solid actor about halfway through the series as years are flying by in this season to grow him up a bit. Honestly, one of my favorite scenes is when Yuki comes to Naoki and asks him why he chose Kotoko. It's nice because not only does it get Naoki to open up about his romance, but it shows some brother bonding, which is actually not that prevalent this season. Yuki's still hard on Kotoko, but he's able to learn from Naoki and accept that he doesn't need to be a snob when it comes to love. Minor spoilers, but it was also a nice moment to see Yuki and her shopping for baby clothes for Kotoko, which makes them all seem like a happy family already.

Meh:

1. Doesn't Kotoko have friends?

According to a lot of the comments on Viki, this show got chopped down a lot and the DVD's have a much fuller story. I think Satomi and Jinko suffered the most from this. Even though one of them gets pregnant and has a baby, we really don't see any of it. I'm a little sad all of this happened off screen because they were always a good support for Kotoko. This happened again to a smaller effect with her nursing friends, even though they're all at the same hospital. I get that we had to cut a lot to focus on Naoki and Kotoko, but it still makes me a little sad.

2. Kin-chan and Chris

Kin-chan is alone no more! I think my biggest beef with this part of the story is that the middle of their romance is cut out. Now, this show isn't really about them, but I feel like you get the beginning of their story and then he's proposing. With what a good friend Kin-chan is, I had hoped to see a bit more of him consistently through the series. That said, I think this is actually sort of realistic. Once you get out of school and married, you only see your friends once in awhile and they get engaged to people you may not know that well. Again, fans of this story will not be surprised by Chris' appearance, but I'm glad Kin-chan got his due as she was shoehorned into the last episode of the Korean version that fell really flat.

Hate:

1. Kotoko as Nurse

Now, don't get me wrong, I love that Kotoko is working hard to support Naoki in his profession. What I really disliked is that they continued to make Kotoko so inept. I get that it's in her character, but it's also in her character to work hard and get it. I had hoped that they would be kind to her and once she struggled through school and actually made it on the job, she'd at least not be causing harm to patients. But seriously, who hands a scalpel blade down to a surgeon or knocks all the surgical instruments to the floor? This moved beyond cute-dumb to down-right dangerous and I don't think it was fair to her character to write her that way. I appreciate that they give us a few moments of her excelling at it and a chunk of the final episode is dedicated to them working together and she does well. I was cringing for several episodes, but it still doesn't really taint my overall enjoyment. 

2. Naoki's Super Creepy Cousin

If I could just delete this episode from this season, I probably would. This is probably my least favorite storyline. First, they're related so that's creep factor one. Second, I am amazed at how many of these characters just ignore the fact that Naoki and Kotoko are married. This happens in a lot of dramas and it freaks me out every time. Marriage is a big deal and to come up to someone and be like, hey, you should give your husband to me means that you should get punched in the face. Really, even though this ends with Naoki reassuring Kotoko and them being adorable, it's kind of ridiculous that it was a problem to begin with. 

So:

So... based on the fact that I've written about a small novel of why I love this show, you can probably tell that I really loved this show. I'm going to say this kicked the crap out of the Korean version and was just a joy every step of the way. This show finally lives up to its title (seriously, so many kisses, yay!) and it was a real delight to watch Naoki and Kotoko grow together (finally). It's impossible for me to list all of my favorite moments and all I really want to do now is start over with season 1 and watch the story all the way through.

Final Grade: A+

3 comments:

  1. The fun continues with 16 more episodes. That season is less solid than the previous one, but still does a fine job imagining the life of the newly-weds (which is harder, I guess, than narrating the beginning of a romance). The intimacy was better, obviously – we’re talking about married people now – it was sweet to see so many kisses (although none as passionate as a Taiwanese one…). The troubles of marital life were quite accurate, and through the obstacles, the relationship grew stronger. I agree with your comment on the argument scene: it was a turning point, as we could feel that Kotoko had to let all her insecurities out in the open, and Naoki had get a grip and act like a husband. I was rather off-put by Keita pushing so much to break a married couple up, but I guess he brought a necessary pressure into the mix.
    I guess the main weakness of this season is that they lost the realistic approach used in season 1:
    - The new characters who joined the show really felt like the characters circus of HanaKimi. I really loved it in HanaKimi, because that exaggerated comedy is one of the bases of the drama – but in ItaKiss I thought it drove apart from the tone we were previously used to. Most of them seemed highly stereotyped and were not given any real depth (the nurse friends especially, the head nurse, the womanizing doctor, even Chris at times). Plus it was kind of sad to put Satomi and Jinko aside so fast (but I guess it’s natural, as you said, not to see your friends often when you grow up).
    -This time around ItaKiss didn’t avoid the cycles so well: we had several times the conflict with Kotoko always feeling inferior/ not feeling Naoki’s love; the never-ending nurse training - oh my god, at some point I just wanted someone to tell her she was just not cut out to be a nurse; after so many dangerous mistakes, she shouldn’t have been allowed to come near a patient EVER (injuring a surgeon’s hand, seriously?!). She spent one episode failing to give shots in the arm, she finally succeeds, and the next episode she still makes the same mistakes? One step forward, three steps backwards. Really annoying. Just let her get something right already! Spending so much time on it was unnecessary.
    -Plots were also a bit repetitive (with the creepy cousin you mentioned, serving more or less the same purpose than the creepy bride of episode 1, or even the Keita thing). If the writers were out of ideas, I would have preferred them to develop a pregnancy/parenting arc for instance. But the ending mostly makes up for it.
    Despite its weaknesses, the second season was quite enjoyable, and had the merit to let us fully appreciate the relationship between Kotoko and Naoki, that took so long to blossom (poor girl, she waited 6 years ^^)

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  2. I just entered into k and jdramas, I've watched about 6 kdramas and my favorite of all them is Fated to love you, I watched it on Netflix but they took it off, recently I watched descendants of the sun and it's amazing, will you write about them?

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  3. Hi! Thanks so much to your blog and your review, I got to know Itazura Na Kiss Love in Tokyo. I know it's very late but I am still joining the bandwagon. I absolutely love this drama! - both seasons 1 & 2!.
    I've watched at least 4 times already and still can't get enough of Kotoko and Irie Naoki :-)
    Except for the Korean version, I've seen the others, including the Thai version and the 1996 Japanese version, hence I actually recognized "the nurse" in episode 10.
    Well what can I say? For me, this is the version that I enjoyed watching the most. I love the leads. I find the girl lead's comedic antics very cute and charming (I've seen the 1996 version and it's just painful & at the same time annoying watching Kotoko there); plus, I think she is very lovely.
    And, I absolutely love Furukawa Yuki as Irie Noaki. His eyes are very expressive; they speak volumes without him saying anything at all.
    This is a funny and very sweet drama. I've never laughed so hard and smiled silly so much watching a drama.

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