Itazura na Kiss Manga Gets Korean Live-Action TV Show
A live-action Korean television series adaptation of Kaoru Tada's classic shōjo manga Itazura na Kiss is in production for airing this fall. Group 8, the production company behind the live-action Korean version of Boys Over Flowers (Hana Yori Dango), is producing the new project. Hwang In-Roe (Palace) is slated to direct.
In the original romantic comedy manga, a high school girl named KOTOKO finally tells a fellow senior named Naoki (Ren Yagami) 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 manga's story follows Naoki and KOTOKO through high school and beyond, but it never ended because Tada lost her life in an accident in 1999.
The manga was already adapted as a television drama series in Japan (1996), another drama series with a sequel in Taiwan under the name It started with a kiss (2005), and a television anime series (2008). The 23 manga volumes have sold 27 million copies just in Japan alone.
Digital Manga Publishing published the second volume of the manga in North America earlier this month.
