P & JK

A woman wants to be protected by a man. This is true regardless of being a female high school student or being an adult woman. P & JK is a comic that reminds us of this universal principle. The leading character of the comic, Kako Motoya, a 16 year old high school girl attends a goukon with her girlfriend, lying that she is 22 years old. There, she meets Kota Sagano, a 23 year old police officer. Both are attracted to each other, but soon after the goukon, the lie about her age is revealed and Kota tried to distance himself from her. Shortly after that an incident occurs, making Kota realize how much he really cares about Kako. In Japan, there is ordinance called Inko Jorei that prohibits adults from dating youth under 18 years old. In addition, in light of Kota’s duties as a police officer, he thinks it is inappropriate to have a fling with a high school student. Therefore, in order to date Kako, Kota proposes for her marry him. Kako accepts this and their relationship starts.

Kota is always protective of Kako and tries to protect her with his all of his might, even willing to sacrifice his own life. Kota is very proud of his job and he always tries to protect citizens as well as Kako. Kako spends her school life with the loving protection provided to her by Kota.

For high school students, an age difference of one year is a very big thing, and the idea of dating an older partner as well as dating someone who is working in society seems to be something special. This psychology of youths is very well depicted in the comic. The comic may interest adult women, but it must be very interesting to female junior high school and high school students.

The comic was adapted into a live action movie and was released in theaters during March of this year.  There are slight differences in the story between the comic and the movie. One thing is that Kota’s age is 26 in the movie. Kazuya Kamenashi plays Kota and Tao Tsuchiya plays Kako. Before the movie was released, among fans of the comic,  there were opinions that Kamenashi was not suitable to play Kota. In the comic, Kota is very tall, and there is a great difference of height between Kota and Kako. This was the biggest part of what made Kamenashi and Kota different. However, Kamenashi was able to describe Kota’s inner beauty very well in the movie, such as his seriousness in trying to protect Kako and his serious love for her, which may remind Japanese audiences of his performance in the drama series, “Tatta Hitotsu No Koi” (roughly translates to the only one love) in 2006. In “Tatta Hitotsu No Koi”, Kamenashi plays Hiroto Kanzaki, a factory worker. Hiroto falls in love with Tsukioka Nao (played by Haruka Ayase) who is the daughter of the CEO of Star Jewelry. They face a lof difficulties such as their differences in class and the illness of Nao, but he perseveres due to his love for her. In both “P & JK” and “Tatta Hitotsu no Koi”, Kamenashi plays a character who is dedicated to one woman very well.

Tao Tsuchiya expresses the excitement of the beginning of love. You can feel her joy at her early stages in love through her breath, her eyes and smile.

The school uniform in the movie and the comic  are different. The one in the movie is more girly and cuter. The story is set in Hakodate, Hokkaido and the scenery of Hakodate in the movie is beautiful. This scenery includes, the simple streets, trees along a streets, street cars, Kanamori Red Brickwarehouse, and so on. You can see locations that are different from the sightseeing sights in Hakodate that often appear in travel TV shows. In addition, it is quite rare for a love story to be set in Hakodate, but this movie makes you realize that there is great chemistry between love stories and the town of Hakodate. One thing that’s unfortunate is Kako’s parents. There was nothing wrong with their performances, but the actors who played her parents were too young to be her parents. Rie Tomosaka played the mother and Jun Murakami played the father.

There could be a question of whether marrying someone that you don’t know very well can result in a happy marriage.

However, there is one successeful case in real life.

A comedian, Miyuki Oshima married a writer, Osamu Suzuki in 2002 without dating for even a single day in 2002. But they are happily married to this day with their son, so there are cases that this can be successful.

Recommended YouTube Videos 

『PとJK』 映画×コミック×「マリー・ユー」スペシャルコラボムービー

マンガ「PとJK」第一話

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