Miki Honoka: "Itazura na Kiss ~ Love in Tokyo" drama episode 1 recap and screenshots

 Air Dates: March 29 to July 19, 2013.... Fridays at midnight on Fuji TV TWO

Main Cast:

Miki Honoka as Kotoko Aihara

Yuki Furukawa as Naoki Irie

Yuki Yamada as Kinnosuke Ikezawa

Nanami Fujimoto as Jinko Komori

Kasumi Yamaya as Satomi Ishikawa

Yoji Tanaka as Shigeki Aihara

Tomomi Nishimura as Noriko Irie

Kakaricho Imoaraizaka as Shigeo Irie

Yuga Aizawa as Yuki Irie

Satoshi Tanaka as Odawara

  Remember last year when this drama came, thought it looked interesting and was going to give it a try but never did though and forgot all about this show. On September 12th season two of this drama started and thought I'd go back and give the first one a try. Been taking a mini vacation from drama reviews recently as I got a bit burned out from watching and reviewing so many, this looked like a good one to come back with. Hopefully I'll be able to keep the recaps shorter than the usual ones, noticed there's quite a few other reviews out there for this series so I won't make these too long and just try to cover the basics, then again I've said that often about these recaps and they never do end up being short. There's also going to be plenty of screenshots, don't know why but been taking many more of them for this show compared to other dramas so if I do leave any details out they'll probably be in the mega amount of screenshots that I'll be posting. Also will be doing two episodes at a time so episode two will be right after the next post which has so many screenshots from this episode.

 Said I was going to keep this brief, the above paragraph didn't start out that way. Quite a few characters in this drama but the main two which I mainly be talking about are Kotoko and Naoki, they're a pair of seniors in the same high school. Kotoko though she seems bright is in Class F which is where the bottom of the barrel students reside. They're not troublemakers but they are certainly not close to being the brightest but most of the characters we meet in the class do end up going to college. Kotoko is quite a popular girl though she's sort of inept at most things, she's not an athlete and even though her father owns a restaurant she is a terrible cook, the main reason she gets bad grades is that she doesn't at all.
 On the other hand Naoki is the complete opposite, he's a handsome young man from a very rich family. He's the best tennis player in the region and to top it off he's in Class A in the high school, he's the smartest student in the school and one of the brightest in the country, there's not one girl at the school who wouldn't to anything to me his girlfriend.
 And that includes Kotoko who has a secret crush on him for two years, ever since he gave the freshman introduction speech. I took her two years but Kotoko finally got up the courage and wrote a love letter to Naoki and one day on the school grounds handed it to him. Naoki had no idea who she was and wanted nothing to do with her and just walked away refusing her letter. Kotoko was naturally crushed but not to the point of tears, what was worse for her was that the rejection happened in front of so many students, before you knew it what happneded had spread like wildfire through the school.

 That was their first introduction but before their second something drastic happened in Kotoko's life. Her family was just her father and herself as her mother had passed away many years before, her father owned his own restaurant which must have been somewhat successful as he's finally saved enough money to buy his first house. Sadly he didn't own it for too long as tragedy struck on the day him and Kotoko were moving in. Supposedly the odds were a million to one to this happening but to this family bad luck often happened and what happened a small meteorite fell from the sky and went through their roof, the whole house collapsed right after that. Luckily everyone was still outside the house so no one was injured but the house was destroyed but it may have actually been a lucky break as the meteorite was only 3 cm in width and the main cause of the house collapsing was the shoddy work done on it so it could have fallen down at any time and they could have been in it.
 But now what's going to happen to Kotoko and her father, they have no savings left as it all went towards the house and the insurance wouldn't cover the damages. Out of nowhere though an old school chum of his named Irie saw what happened to his old friend on the news and offered to let him and Kotoko live in his house. Irie was a very successful businessman who owned his own company and lived in quite a large house so there was plenty of room for two more people.

 So now Kotoko end up moving in the with Irie's, she never put 2 and 2 together and didn't realize it was Naoki's family she was moving in with until the first day. To say she was surprised and embarrassed would be an understatement, he wasn't happy about her living with his family nor was his younger brother, who was also a genius, as he had to give up his room to Kotoko. And with that surprising event the the first episode concludes.
 Think that was a short enough recap yet still had just every major detail that happened in this episode, as I mentioned above there seems to be a lot of reviews or things like that out there for this drama so because of that I'm going to try to keep these shorter than usual. There's a total of 16 episodes in this series and the shows are 50 minutes long, been a while since I've seen one this long, even though there are a lot of other reviews out there doubt if any have recaps like this for all the episodes. Just hope that amount of episodes isn't too many, seems like quite a few for a drama like this is but it's started out well so keeping my fingers crossed it doesn't drag too much in the middle episodes. Right below this post is a mega amount of screenshots from this episode, and beloew that one is a recap of the second show.

Miki Honoka: "Itazura na Kiss ~ Love in Tokyo" drama episode 1 screenshots

 I've watched 4 episodes right now and just can't believe how many screenshots I've taken for each show, close to 50 for each episode it seems. This is the first drama I've seen Miki in, have heard of her but she hasn't been in any of the shows or movies I've watched. So far her character is what you'd expect, bit of an airhead yet so sweet and she's a person who never gives up though she doesn't really have any talent in doing anything. Also have screenshots here of all the main characters to help you follow the story better, so far so good as the saying goes for this show.

Miki Honoka: "Itazura na Kiss ~ Love in Tokyo" drama episode 2 recap and screenhsots

 Air Dates: March 29 to July 19, 2013.... Fridays at midnight on Fuji TV TWO

Main Cast:

Miki Honoka as Kotoko Aihara

Yuki Furukawa as Naoki Irie

Yuki Yamada as Kinnosuke Ikezawa

Nanami Fujimoto as Jinko Komori

Kasumi Yamaya as Satomi Ishikawa

Yoji Tanaka as Shigeki Aihara

Tomomi Nishimura as Noriko Irie

Kakaricho Imoaraizaka as Shigeo Irie

Yuga Aizawa as Yuki Irie

Satoshi Tanaka as Odawara

  Once again I'll try to keep this recap short so I don't bore everyone, writing is not one my stronger talents. Though it's a bit of a fluffy show a lot does happen and often it's serious yet done in a lighthearted way. The main story this time was about the final high school exams coming up, Kotoko is determined to make on the list of 100 scorers on the test even though it's never happened in the history of Class F. Naoki has no worries, he's the top student in school and hardly needs to study, he says once he sees or hears anything he remembers it so he doesn't need to study.
 Kotoko appears to be a lost cause though, there really is no hope for her to make into the top 100 as she doesn't know how to study and tends to give up too easy. But luckily for her a trump card gets dealt to her and that card is an old photo of Naoki given to Kotoko by his mother. When he was born his mother felt as she was going to have a girl and just bought female clothes so when he was born the family was poor so for his first few years he wore girl's clothes. Kotoko threatens to show other students the photo unless he tutors her for the next week, caught in a corner like that Naoki agrees to help her study for the final exams.

 He doesn't show it on the outside but it seems Naoki is starting to grow a bit fond of Kotoko, he wants her to do well as it will also make him look good though they keep it a secret from all the students at school. Forgot about until now but no one at the school knows about Kotoko and her father moving in with Naoki's family, she's been hush-hush about where she's living but that secret comes out in the next episode.
 Naoki proves to be an excellent tutor and really works Kotoko hard but it begins to pay off as she's really learning and at a rapid pace too as there was only a week until the exams. Finally the exam period arrives and on the test she seems very confident but will they translate into a good score, not just a good one but a top 100 score? Of course Naoki does terrific as he ends up being #1 again in the school, that's always expected of him, I don't know how many students are at the school, it's never been mentioned yet so don't know if Kotoko getting in the top 100 is really an achievement or not, regard;ess on the amount of students no one from Class F had ever made the top 100.
 Of course being this kind of drama Kotoko had to make the top 100 and she did with no room to spare as she ended up being #100 on all the test takers in the school. Her jubilation was short lived as unknown to her and Naoki his mother had secretly taken some pictures of them when they were studying, at the time they were both dozing off. Naoki's mother had put them in an envelope for Kotoko and told her to open it after her exams. Well Kotoko forgot all about the envelope, she had no idea what was in it, but it happened to fall out of her school bag and was opened by one of her friends. Those pics caused quite an uproar between everyone but were sworn to secrecy by Kotoko to never tell anyone about them.
 That secret lasted all of 5 minutes as her friends made copies of the pics and put them on the main bulletin board, now everyone in school thinks they may have something going on between them, the whole school already knew about Kotoko's crush on Naoki. He was furious when he saw the pics and told Kotoko to leave him alone for ever, Kotoko is just devastated by the turn of events as they went from her best moment ever with making the top 100 list to having Naoki wanting to reject her forever.

 That brings us to the end of the episode, few more things happened but those are the major details, really haven't been discussing their friends or families too much yet but will start doing that in the upcoming recaps. Will be looking at two episodes at a time and will have the next batch ready in another day or so, have jsut watched the third episode which was another solid view. Do have to admit I wasn't expecting much from this drama, don't know if it will remain a enjoyable watch but through 3 episodes I'm pleasantly surprised at how good this show is. Next recaps may be a bit longer as more things happen, really this show was only about the exams plus I was a bit short on time but really wanted to get these first two episodes reviewed and posted. Next post as usual has a huge amount of screenshots from this episode, so many it may be easier to view them instead of reading through this mini recap.