Note: this is unfinished. I’ll have to edit to add pictures, but I don’t have my other laptop with me.

Many viewers like to point out that LLF (or “KoiTsudu” as it’s called by fans) is similar to “Itazura na Kiss” and I say yes and no.

There’s no doubt that the two doramas use the same tropes because these tropes come pretty standard in mangas. Like, they both use the “opposites attract” trope. The hero is brilliant but cold, and the heroine is clueless but warm-hearted. Also, they both use the “awkward confession” trope to establish that the hero is a jerk from the start because he publicly humiliated the girl.

But that’s where the similarity ends: at the trope-level.

If we look closely at the KoiTsudu, we see that Nanase isn’t at all stupid; she’s just inexperienced.

For example, their first encounter. She had the wits about her to rush to the old woman’s side, and to shout out for help. In fact, Tendo praised her for her quick-thinking. Because she acted, she was able to save the woman’s life.

She gave Tendo the woman’s inhaler, followed his order to call the ambulance, and knew where to look in order to get the woman’s name. She might not have known how to do CPR and chess compressions (ha! Take that Maggot fans), but she isn’t stupid.

By Episode 6, when she rescued the old man, and recited to the EMT a summary of their emergency intervention, Tendo was in awe of her. He realized that she was a far cry from the helpless girl that she once was.

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By Episode 9, she was triage-ing the victims in the crash accident site alongside him while she herself was badly wounded. He insisted that she rested because he feared (and he had a premonition?) for her well-being but she insisted on helping because that was what he had trained her to do: tend to the sick in an emergency.

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She didn’t realize it, but she accomplished her goal of someday being able to support him.

“Someday, I want to be able to support you.”

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Now, I didn’t see this much growth in the heroine of Itazura. She’s a bumbling fool from beginning to end.

Additionally, Tendo isn’t a jerk like the hero in Itazura. The hero in Itazura reminds me of the disease du jour in kdramas: antisocial personality disorder.

His mental condition goes uncensured because the audience was taken by his genius. By and large, viewers excused his antisocial behavior as reasonable. They regarded his cruelty and impatience as warranted because she was foolish. They didn’t consider his misbehavior as symptoms of a superiority complex or antisocial personality disorder.

Despite everything going for him: loving family, financial wealth, social status, and an IQ of 180, he couldn’t bring himself to show her civil kindness. He distanced himself from her because she was ranked second-to-the-last in their class. To parody Elizabeth Bennet’s words of rejection in “Pride and Prejudice,” I had not known the hero more than two episodes before I felt that he was the last man in the world whom the heroine should ever be prevailed on to marry.

lol.

The Itazura male lead’s arrogance and his snobbery wrecked him as a viable hero.

In contrast, Tendo’s longtime colleagues knew that his personality changed only after the death of his ex-girlfriend. Nanase understood this by Episode 3. She told him that he might think that he couldn’t overcome the death of someone precious to him, so he buried himself in work and forgot to be happy. She knew that she could make him smile again.

Happy. Happy. Happy.

See the difference? Both Itazura and KoiTsudu, use the “Love conquers all” trope.

In Itazura, it’s a bit of a stretch to expect the heroine to change the guy into something he never was to begin with. In the end, he still felt superior to her, and it rankles me to no end that that his superiority complex has been just been glossed over by his patronizing attitude. Toxic male alert.

In KoiTsudu, Tendo acknowledged that he changed because of her.

And he knew that she was more than what he deserved.

“She’s always so pure and honest. I’m always surprised by her inner strength. You won’t believe how much she has given me. She’s way too good for me.”

As cheesy as it sounds, that needs be said.

Same trope, different outcome.

Furthermore, the transformation of the hero wasn’t done hurriedly, in the last episode, as if to appease the feminist sensibilities of bitches like me.

I don’t about the manga but in this dorama, the ending of every episode of KoiTsudu shows the hero waking up to his mistake. (Lol! He’s part of the “woke” culture.) In fact, the theme music of KoiTsudu is a signal to the viewers that Tendo is getting his comeuppance and his epiphany.

Whenever this is played in the final minutes, that’s the moment Tendo realizes that Nanase has stumped him. She’s confounded him and forced him to see her in a different light.

Episode 1. He unknowingly revealed that he remembered her from five years ago. Not only could he recall the time and place of the accident, he also distinctly remembered her worried look. That made an impression on him.

Episode 2. Although he thought the concept of “Team Tendo” was silly, he was forced to admit that he actually liked her to be on Team Tendo. He was patting her back, and telling her that they have to move on from death, when the theme song came on.

Tendo: Make sure you eat and sleep. (turns to leave)
Nanase: (curious to know why he’s comforting her) Why? You told me so many times how I was so bad and I was in your way.
Tendo: Because aren’t you on Team Tendo?

Episode 3. He was speechless when she drunkenly told him that she wanted to make him smile. Whether it’s wry smile, a faint smile, or a raucous laughter. She was happy with anything as long as he was happy. The music was playing in the background as he watched her peacefully sleeping on his shoulder. He tried to hide a smile. Normally, he would have found her goofy smile gross, but at that moment, he found her endearing.

Episode 4. The music played when Nanase suddenly remembered his promise to her in the ambulance. He’d promised to take her on dates and to kiss her just as long as she survived. She took off like an excited puppy when she recalled everything, and he couldn’t deny it. The theme song was playing as he called her “Baka.” That was him trying to put up a (weak) fight. He knew he got her good; he couldn’t explain away his fear when he thought she was dying.

Episode 5. “The best date” moment. He knew that she had put him in place (and shamed him) when she guilelessly told him that she was happy to go on post-operation dates with him with nothing more than a chocolate bread. The music came on then. He realized that he’d been wrong to keep their relationship secret. Dr. Koichi mistakenly thought he could date Nanase, and the head nurse also mistakenly thought that Nanase was “boy-crazy” when Nanase was his girlfriend all along. He did a disservice to Nanase when he ruled that they should date in secret.

Episode 6 to 10… Go ahead and check them out yourself. 🙂 (Or wait for my reviews)

Do you see that?

Hence, I said that LLF is different from Itazura. Yes, on the surface, it appears as if KoiTsudu is like Itazura — a static plot and misogynistic story about a girl incurably in love with this brilliant guy. But when we look at the movement of the plot of KoiTsudu, we can see that guy is learning to love somebody so unlike him, but he accepts her as part of his transformation.

Gotta run.