is a romance shōjo manga by Karuho Shiina (Shīna Karuho). It has been published by Shueisha in Bessatsu Margaret since 2006 and collected in 12 tankōbon volumes as of September 2010. In 2008 it won the Best Shōjo Manga award in the 32nd Annual Kodansha Manga Award. The series was also nominated for the first Manga Taisho awards in 2008. An anime adaptation of Kimi ni Todoke aired in Japan, produced by Production I.G. A second season of the anime has been announced and scheduled for January 2011. A live action film adaptation was released in 2010.
Sawako Kuronuma, called Sadako by her classmates for her resemblance to the character from Ring, has always been feared and misunderstood because of her appearance. There are rumors that Sawako can see ghosts and curse people. However, despite her appearances, she is a sweet and timid girl who longs to be able to make friends with everyone and be liked by everyone else. When her idol, popular boy Kazehaya, begins talking with her, everything changes. She finds herself in a new world, trying to make friends and talking to different people and she can’t thank Kazehaya enough for giving her these opportunities. Slowly, but surely, a sweet love is blossoming between the two as they will overtake any circumstance or clear obstacles in their way.
Sadako Kuronuma
Sawako is a shy yet honest girl who is in search of friendship, but her resemblance to horror film character Sadako and Sawako’s modesty and her tendency to shy away from correcting people of misconceptions prevent her from doing so, to the point most of the school believed her name was in fact Sadako. Thanks to Kazehaya’s kind and open nature, she is able to gradually open up to her classmates, and talk to different people. Her modesty towards friends is so strong that Yoshida has to tell her point-blank, that “Did you know? Without realizing it … we were already friends!” With help from Kazehaya, Yano and Yoshida she gradually begins to make friends. She is grateful (and at first, worships) Kazehaya for giving her the opportunities to make close friends, which come to include Yano, Yoshida, Kazehaya and Ryu. Yano and Yoshida admit that Sawako’s ‘like’ to Kazehaya might be even more than Yano and Yoshida themselves. She is rather short, in part because her father is as well (he is only 160 cm tall) and is surprisingly fast (to the point some people believe she is teleporting) which is revealed during a soccer match at the school’s sports festival. A running gag is that she seems to take what people say seriously as well as over-analyze a situation, which tends to scare the people around her when she is deep in thought. When Kazehaya practically confessed right in front of her that he likes her, but she believes it was a misunderstanding and that he was just saying he doesn’t hate her. However, after having everything cleared up, they officially start dating, though this only brings up rumors that she somehow used black magic to get him.
Shota Kazehaya Kazehaya is Sawako’s outgoing and friendly classmate, and is Sawako’s idol. He is so popular that during middle school, so many girls liked him that they formed a “Kazehaya is Everyone’s” alliance in order to maintain some level of peace among his admirers and more than half of these girls now attend the same high school. Kazehaya has held a long standing interest in Sawako and admits (though not to Sawako) that he likes her (he gets jealous easily), unaware that she feels the same for him.
During their second year of high school, he begins to wonder if she actually likes him after she does not give him chocolates on Valentine’s Day, not knowing that she had been too nervous to give him any. He seemingly becomes calmer and shows a depressed and expressionless face more often. However, after being confronted by Ryu (influenced by Chizuru) and Pin, Kazehaya goes to Sawako as his friends jokingly remark that he likes Sawako; however, Kazehaya takes the remark seriously and agrees, subsequently confessing directly to Sawako. However, after Sawako’s misunderstanding of his confession, he believes she rejected him. However, as of chapter 41 was finally able to confess his feelings to Sawako and are officially dating.
The first season of the Kimi ni Todoke anime adaptation aired between October 2009 and March 2010. A second season was announced in the November 2010 issue of Betsuma magazine; the second season is to start airing on NTV in January 2011 Kimi Ni Todoke Manga D\L [Eng-Sub]Chapter 23 – Chapter 50
