Itazura na Update
Wait, what? A popped collar? Seriously? Your torturous unrequited love is for a guy who pops his collar?
Funny thing about Itazura na Kiss. It’s not very good-looking, its protagonist is a big dummy, it has no flash factor, and when you get down to it, it covers fairly standard shoujo themes. Sometimes, like right now when real life is super busy, I have a hard time even sitting down to watch it. Oh, Kotoko’s just gonna do something dumb again, isn’t she? But immediately after the credits are over, I am totally won over and 100% ready for the next one.
Is this, perhaps, what Irie-kun is starting to admit to himself as well?
I’ve been thinking about this for a while. Sure, it’s an anime, and yes it’s quite the fantasy romance story, but suspension of disbelief demands that I ask myself: would he really go for her after all this? I think the other viewers of this show would be happy to admit that they hate Kotoko sometimes too — even though you’re rooting for her, the character seems totally willing and more than able to sabotage herself at every possible turn. And yet, there she is, cute and charming at the end of it all. And you just have to love her. So maybe it’s not so far-fetched to think that her fellow characters — tsun-tsun though they may be — could feel the same way we do. Go Kotoko!
I had another secondary thought too. Kotoko’s big success of the past few episodes was saving Yuuki when his intestine got wrapped up in his bowels or whatever (nast…). That was luck. Fate has clearly used Yuuki’s bowels as a hapless pawn, but that means fate is on Kotoko’s side! It’s the universe that fucks things up — it’s her. Anytime things seem to go well, it’s luck, but when shit goes down the can, it’s Kotoko and her well-meaning idiocy.
At any rate, fate seems to be taking a much larger interest in what Kotoko’s doing of late. And, intriguingly, so has Irie.
So when we achieve success, it won’t be because of Kotoko. It will be in spite of her. But we’ll still love her.
Love overcoming odds? xD
Anyway, I think It’s not how handsome Irie is supposed to look to us, rather we can assume that going by the writers art style, Irie is supposed to be awfully handsome. Unlike many people, I actually like Irie’s character. It’s very different from many of todays male protagonists. I guess that’s the main difference between the 90’s and now, right? =D
Ezs last blog post..Some ‘Old’ Game Music for all you fans!
I watched episode 09 and 08 of this and it was okay, midnightrose doesn’t like Kotoko lols
@blissmo: dude, her voice is all EH EH EH squeaky. I feel sorry for her: if I were her, I’d be gouging his eyes out by now. Can’t wait to watch the other episodes
midnightroses last blog post..Why do the wrong people travel, when the right people stay at home?
Ahh, yes, Itazura na Kiss. I believe my love for this series is plenty well-documented, but anyway:
I’m not going to mince any words about it: it’s pure and total fluff. Completely. If Itazura na Kiss was not a manga but rather an English-language YA novel, it would be in the bookstore between the Gossip Girls series and the Georgia Nicolson series. That’s how fluff it is.
Do I care? No. The story is done in a fairly standard format. What keeps me (and I presume you and everyone else) addicted to this series as opposed to Special A is the most important thing in any fiction medium: execution. It doesn’t matter how original (or unoriginal) your plot/characters/writing style/whatever is, it’s all in how you execute it. The world is full of things that tried to be original and novel and didn’t succeed very well (I point to House of Leaves to illustrate this), and things that were completely unoriginal in concept and enjoyed massive success (I doubt I could find an example of something along these lines that wouldn’t set off a ton of people going NO IT’S ORIGINAL YOU IDIOT, so I invite the reader to pick their favorite really popular series that they feel is totally unoriginal and pretend that I said that instead of what I actually did say). There’s also examples of the reverse–original concepts that enjoyed massive success, and unoriginal concepts that faded into obscurity.
Success, quality, whether you like something, whatever, is defined by how well-executed the work is, and how well that execution lines up with your taste. There are people who get hung up on the notion that something has to be “creative” to be really good. I can point at the success of the first three Indiana Jones movies versus the tepid reaction to the fourth one, and simply say that there’s no difference between the old and the new other than how they were executed.
That said, you certainly shouldn’t feel bad about liking Itazura na Kiss. I’ve had people explain the feeling of the show to me as “I love the series, but I only love it while I watch it.” In my case, I can be at work and then my thoughts will trip over Kotoko and Irie and all of a sudden I am a gushing fangirl (note: I am male) and getting excited and bouncy. I refuse to dock the series from my rating of a 9 (and it will get a 10 if it keeps things up as they’re going) unless it ceases to have that effect on me until after the series is over with.
(edit: I have discovered that it is physically impossible for me to sit down and type something without using lots of words. Lots and lots of words. Except when I have to write a paper for class. Then the words never come.)
OGTs last blog post..Itazura na Kiss: Alas, The Title Was Literal, Not Metaphorical
@Ezt: I was referring to the dated, not-very-interesting look of the show, not Irie, I think it gets the point across pretty well that he’s a right catch — i.e, out of her league. I’m not sure if it’s the 90s (Shinji Ikari is from the 90s too….), I think he’s just a good character. But he does pop his collar.
@blissmo and midnightrose wait don’t you girl-types all talk like that? I need to get out more… seriously though, I’d start from the beginning, it makes recent developments in the show that much more awesome.
@OGT your bunches of words don’t bother me. I enjoy reading them regularly, but I haven’t been by to read your bunches of words on Itazura lately because I fell so far behind and was really worried about spoilers.
But you hit the nail on the head. I know I wasn’t the only one last season to say that True Tears succeeded based on execution, so I’ll put that example out there to set those people off. And House of Leaves is definitely a perfect example of the opposite (I think, never bothered to finish it). I do believe some pieces of art/entertainment can succeed based solely on a great idea with mediocre execution. That would have to be a really extreme case to work in anime though, which usually has to sustain you for at least 13 episodes.
I never feel bad about liking the series — maybe slightly embarrassed, being male and all — it’s just when I’m not watching it, it often gets passed by in my mind for more “glamorous” stuff like Kaiba, Kurenai, or Real Drive and I end up not watching it until I have more time. But when I do watch it, I enjoy the hell out of it.
@otou-san:
Actually, my voice is quite low and monotone LOL
I am totally unabashed about liking Itazura na Kiss or any of the other shoujo series I love. I generally make time to watch Itazura na Kiss, as it’s incredibly fun and makes me forget about anything bad that happened in the past couple days. Everything else is secondary.
OGTs last blog post..Itazura na Kiss: Alas, The Title Was Literal, Not Metaphorical
Otou
You’re right, he does pop up his collars O_O
OGT
Bwahahaha. Ditto to that
Ezs last blog post..Some ‘Old’ Game Music for all you fans!
OGT, I’d say that not only makes Itazura exemplary shoujo but just plain great anime, because isn’t that the big reason why we watch anyway?
otou-sans last blog post..The Tower of Druaga: The Aegis of Uruk (Review)
[...] a certain other really awesome male this season (if only for entirely different reasons), Ken’s triumphant return is marked (or marred, [...]
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