Is Itazura na Kiss Worth Reading?

Overview

Kotoko Aihara works up the nerve to confess her feelings to Naoki Irie, the brilliant, icy top student at her school -- and gets rejected without hesitation. Then an earthquake destroys her family's home, forcing Kotoko and her father to move in with the Irie family, putting her directly under the same roof as the boy who just turned her down. Itazura na Kiss follows Kotoko's determined, often humiliating campaign to win Naoki over, one awkward near-miss at a time.

Kaoru Tada serialized the manga in Shueisha's Bessatsu Margaret from 1990 to 1999, and it became one of the most influential shoujo romances of its era -- the clear ancestor of a long line of later series built around a persistent, average heroine chasing an aloof genius love interest.

What it does well

The central odd-couple dynamic is what makes the series work. Kotoko's relentless, often cringe-inducing optimism bouncing off Naoki's flat indifference generates a steady stream of genuinely funny moments, and Tada commits fully to the embarrassment of Kotoko's repeated failed attempts rather than softening them for the reader's comfort.

The supporting cast also does a lot to keep the story varied -- classmates, family members, and a rotating set of side romances give Tada room to break up the central will-they-won't-they with other comedic and dramatic beats, which keeps the long story from feeling like a single repeated joke.

Where it falls short

Naoki's shift from genuine indifference to affection takes an extremely long time, and for large stretches of the story, Kotoko's feelings read as considerably more one-sided than the eventual romance suggests they should be -- a real test of patience for readers who want more reciprocity earlier.

The manga's unfinished state is also a real drawback. Tada's unexpected death in 1999 left the story without a proper authored conclusion, and while later adaptations each supply their own ending, none of them carry the same authority as what Tada might have written herself.

Verdict

Itazura na Kiss earns its place as a foundational shoujo classic through Kotoko and Naoki's genuinely entertaining odd-couple chemistry, even though the romance takes a very long road to get anywhere and the manga itself never reaches a true ending. For readers interested in where a huge swath of later shoujo romance got its blueprint, it's still worth the read -- just go in knowing you'll need another adaptation for closure.