Watching Lovely Complex 12 Years Later
It’s winter of 2008, I’m 12 years old. I walk up the steps and open the front door of the Adams Library in Central Falls, Rhode Island, after a grueling 20-minute walk through crunchy snow and having a few fall-on-my-bum slips. I rush over to the YA section of the library, have my sight locked onto the shelves of manga, and frantically look for Fruits Basket #17, hoping to God I can get home before curfew. I can’t find it, I’m devastated, and not in the mood to read anything else. So, knowing I was probably going to get home past curfew, I went to the DVD section to take out some movies, hoping that would ease the trouble I’d get into with my mom. Flipping through the selection I found some bangers to take home; Hellboy (2004), The NeverEnding Story, Mission Impossible III. I knew I’d be able to get on my mom’s good side.
Then, I saw a really vibrant blue case with bubbly letters that read “Love Com: The Movie.” I decided to take it home since it called to me in some way. Who knew my cold night back home, ignoring my Geography project and watching this Love Com movie instead would live in my head rent-free for over a decade.
Lovely Complex is a manga written in 2001 by Aya Nakahara, about a tall girl, Risa Koizumi, and a short boy, Atsushi Ōtani, struggling to find love in high school because of their height, they team up and work together to find each other the perfect partner. But, after Rise takes wind on how much they have in common, and is accepting her attraction to him, she falls in love with Ōtani, and tries her best to fight the feeling as they are constantly made fun of for their heights.
While most anime/manga live-action movies follow the pattern of manga, then anime adaptation, then a live-action movie like Full Metal Alchemist and Mob Psycho 100, Love Com had a super rare case of the manga series being followed by a live-action instead of an anime.
Love Com: The Movie is a 2006 film directed by Kitaji Ishikawa, with Ema Fujisawa as Rise Koizumi and Teppei Koike as Atsushi Ōtani. Watching back in 2008, I was immediately pulled in by the cute story, corny attitude, and really bright candy-colored backgrounds. I convinced my best friend, Kayle, to watch it that same week and she got super into it as well! Kayle and I, 7th graders on the internet, made a club after being super infatuated with Koike, called TKC: Teppei Koike Club. This movie sort of pushed our interest in manga and anime, and for me, more into corny live-action adaptions. Now, in 2020, Kayle and I use the TKC club name as an ongoing joke; we use it as the name of our Discord Server, a reference when going back to our times in school together, or even giving each other current updates on Kioke when we come across them. During the middle of the pandemic, we watched the movie again together to think back on good ol’ times, and return to something we really cherished as kids. Once the end credits started rolling, I found that I still love Love Com as much as I did 12 years ago.
The fashion trends complemented its young and innocent story of the romantic high schoolers.
Embracing the mixing of patterns and textures, Ōtani’s neon green jacket with the VERY 2000’s wallet chain taking me back. Rise’s capris and high heel combos gave me Paris Hilton vibes. Love Com brought out visor caps shifted to the side, layering long sleeves with graphic t-shirts, flip phones with charms, dyed hair with lowlights, basically anything that was deemed cool in 2006, and I LOVED that. It made me feel so nostalgic, and made me miss wearing those chunky foam platform sandals I loved at that time.
Love Com’s message, though executed in a very corny and light way, taught me a pretty impactful lesson. Relating to Rise, and being able to go back to my own old insecurity and worry of being too tall as a 12-year-old, was validated in this really silly movie, and while actually kinda jarring, it was a nice distraction from pandemic burnout. I got to thinking about how hyper-aware I was of my height back then, how much people liked reminding me that 5’7” body was giant compared to the still-growing kids around me as if it was something I should be ashamed of and change. Watching it now, I realized Love Com showed me yes, people bullying about height is definitely real, but god, it’s so stupid and really shouldn’t matter. It’s been a while since entering the headspace of “girls being taller than a man is bad,” but I believe that the movie helped enforce that maybe people bringing up height was the least of my issues as a preteen, where looks were so important.
It was really nice watching this movie again with my best friend who loved it as well. We shared how much we’ve grown since first watching Love Com, the things that changed since middle school, things that stayed the same, and how we still follow Teppei Kioke’s Instagram and are just so happy about him being a recent dad. Maybe I’ll start revisiting more movies I really liked as a kid, and see if I like them as much as this one.
