Itazura Na Kiss to have new remake drama from March 2013

There will be a new remake drama adaptation of popular shoujo manga "Itazura Na Kiss" which was serialised between 1990 and 1999 and has sold 30 million copies to date for the first time in 17 years. The story came to an abrupt end then because its author Tada Kaoru had passed away suddenly. The first Japanese drama adaptation was in 1996 and featured Sato Aiko and Kashiwabara Takashi as the leads. Since then, there have been two remakes in Taiwan (2005 and 2007) and one from South Korea (2010).

This time, the remake will be titled "Itazura Na Kiss ~ Love in TOKYO" which features 16-year-old Miki Honoka in her first leading role as the heroine Kotoko while Naoki will be played by 25-year-old Furukawa Yuuki. Kinnosuke who pines for Kotoko will be played by Yamada Yuki. Miki who prides herself as a huge fan of the manga and has all the volumes in her collection, expressed her worry about being compared to other actresses who had played the same role in the past. However, since she is the only one to play this role in 2013, she is confident that she can pull this off. On the other hand, Furukawa expressed his concern as to whether he is the right person to play Naoki but still hopes to meet the fans' expectations with his hard work. In this remake, one key difference will be that Kinnosuke will be given more screentime to try to win over Kotoko.

The drama will be shown via FujiTV TWO from 29th March at 12 midnight on Fridays and consists of 16 episodes. There will also be a SP shown via FujiTV's Kanto local channel on 21st March at 3.30am.

Source: Oricon