| Koizora: Setsunai Koi Monogatari | |
|---|---|
| Author(s) | Mika [1] |
| Original title | Koizora: Setsunai Koi Monogatari (恋空―切ナイ恋物語) |
| Country | Japan |
| Language | Japanese |
| Genre(s) | romance, tragedy |
| Publisher | Starts Publications |
| Publication date | 2005 (online), October 2006 (print) |
| Media type | Paperback) |
| Pages | 347 (book 1), 363 (book 2) |
| ISBN | ISBN 978-4883810451 (book 1), ISBN 978-4883810468 (book 2) |
Koizora: Setsunai Koi Monogatari (恋空―切ナイ恋物語 Koizora: Setsunai Koi Monogatari, lit. "Love Sky: A Sad Love Story"), or Koizora (恋空) for short, is a 2005 best-selling[2] Japanese coming of age and romance novel written by Mika.[1] Originally posted on the cell phone website "Mahō no iLand",[3] where chapters would be released exclusively for mobile reading, Koizora received a hard print publication from Starts Publications in October 2006, with the story being separated into two volumes.[4]
Koizora is claimed to be a biographical account of Mika, or at least, based on first-hand accounts.[5] It boomed in popularity and became a mass cultural phenomenon,[4] spawning a theatrical film,[3][6] a television drama adaptation,[7] and a manga adaptation.
Contents |
Mika Tahara has just started high school and yearns to fall in love. However, to her dismay, a gal-like boy in her grade, Nozomu, acquires her cell phone number and begins to make frequent calls. When summer vacation starts, one day, Nozomu drunkenly phones her, but Hiro confiscates the phone and converses with her instead. Although Mika does not know who Hiro is, she feels at ease at the sound of his voice and the two befriend each other.
Mika and Hiro agree to meet each other when school starts, and to Mika's shock, Hiro turns out to be the delinquent boy she is afraid of. However, as she understands how gentle he is, they began to fall in love with each other and face a multitude of challenges threatening their relationship, such as Hiro's ex-girlfriend Saki hiring a group of men to rape Mika and continuing to harass her over the phone. Despite these events, Hiro vows to protect Mika, and she begins to compare him to the sky. An unplanned pregnancy occurs when Mika and Hiro consummate in the school library, and although they are determined to start a family together, a miscarriage brings tragedy to them both.
Shortly afterwards, Hiro discovers that his health is deteriorating due to cancer and makes the painful decision to break up with Mika to keep his condition from causing her pain, but secretly continues to follow her whereabouts through his high school friend, Nozumu. Mika eventually forgets Hiro with the help of Yū, her new boyfriend. Hiro's condition is revealed to Mika and she makes a difficult decision to leave Yū to go to his bedside. Having Mika back, Hiro is determined to fight his disease and begins to improve. During a routine checkup, Hiro's condition makes a turn for the worse and he exchanges his last goodbyes.
Mika is distraught and attempts suicide by jumping off a bridge, but is stopped when two white doves fly towards the sky. She drops Hiro's diary which was given to her after his death and discovers a letter he wrote to her before he died. She learns that he had anticipated his death and was happy with the time he had spent with her. She decides to carry on with life, not just for herself, but for Hiro's share and sake as well. She is later on seen placing a pair of blue mittens for Hiro next to the smaller, pink ones that were meant for her baby and praying for both their happiness.
Approximately 20 million people subscribed to Koizora.[1] The novel later received a hard print publication in October 2006 by Starts Publications and was published into two volumes. The books sold more than two million copies and became a mass cultural phenomenon in Japan.[4] Joanna Mauermann of Reading Worldwide attributes the popularity of Koizora to the sensation of realism in that "they are modelled on the readers' own situation" and "[t]he strong presence of the characters, presented in dialogues and (inward) monologues, address the reader directly, and the emotional state of the main character is experienced immediately." [4]
In addition to the empathy readers, the anonymity of the author attributes to the appeal of the Koizora. Much like the anonymous Densha Otoko, readers are more likely to tolerate exaggerated writing, first-hand accounts or not, due to how Mika's anonymity makes Koizora seem more "real" and "personal." [5]
Despite its popularity, Koizora has been attacked for having sexual and violent material available to young readers. A grade school teacher criticized the novel for supporting the misconception in young girls that rape leads to love.[8]
Koizora was adapted into a manga series drawn by Ibuki Haneda and overseen by Mika herself. The manga was published by Futabasha Publishers under the "Comic Mahou no iRando" label and lasted for eight volumes, the first volume releasing on June 21, 2007[9] and the last on February 21, 2009.[10]
Koizora: Setsunai Koi Monogatari was loosely adapted into a theatrical film under the mononymous title Koizora. It was directed by Natsuki Imai [6] and starred Yui Aragaki as Mika and Haruma Miura as Hiro.[3] The film adaptation was released on November 3, 2007, with a gross revenue of 3.9 billion yen and 3.14 million people attending the theater.[7] It debuted at #3 on the box office.[5] The DVD was released on April 25, 2008.[11]
Koizora was also adapted into a TV drama series, which aired from August 2, 2008, until September of the same year, with a total of six episodes. From March until June 2008, auditions were held to choose the actor and actress for the two starring roles.[7] Erena Mizusawa was chosen to play Mika, and Koji Seto as Hiro; there were a total of more than a thousand applicants.[12] TBS broadcast the serial drama in prime-time, and the first audience rating was 5.6%.
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