Takuya Mizoguchi stars in "Kimi to Shitashi Kiss wa Forever" (Kimi Kiss), currently airing on ABC TV's "Drama L" slot. The drama is an original story set in a lakeside hotel that has been fully renovated from a closed elementary school, and is a series of ephemeral, precious, and beautiful short stories that weave together various forms of love with loved ones. Mizoguchi, who plays the main role alongside Masahiro Ota in episode 7, spoke about his challenges and what to look forward to in the series.
◇What Director Ishibashi Yuho told me
In addition to Mizoguchi and Ota, "Kimi Kiss" also stars members of Amuse's "Team Handsome!" cast, including Hosoda Kaito, Kanata Hosoda Junsei Motojima, Kenta Izuka, Aoyagi Ruito, Fukuzaki Nayuta, Koseki Yuta, and Matsuoka Kodai. Mizoguchi plays Akira Shioiri, one of the five childhood friends.
Akira, like Kuga Keita (played by Ota), continues to live in his hometown after graduating from elementary school. Although he always has a girlfriend, he is not the type to stay in a relationship for long. In fact, he is not proactive when it comes to romance, and seems to want to cherish the time he spends with his friends and childhood friends.
About a month before filming began, Mizoguchi had a script read with Director Ishibashi Yuho, who directed Episode 7, and Ota, who played Keita, and Director Ishibashi told him, "I don't want you to express your emotions so much." Mizoguchi revealed, "I've been acting on stage a lot recently, so I think that without realizing it, my intonation and speech had become, in a word, 'over the top.'"
"I felt it was difficult because I had to suppress that to the utmost extent, and I still remember how I struggled at first with how to express Akira's lines. Director Ishibashi also told me, 'It's okay if an outsider sees him as a cold person,' and I thought that was fine."
Director Ishibashi said that his intention was to "use the atmosphere and pauses to make it seem like, 'Actually, it's not like that,'" and reflected, "What I prepared and was conscious of for this film was that the more crazy things that were going on inside my mind, the harder I tried to hide them."
◇What are the highlights of the main episode, Episode 7?
In episode 7, there is a scene where Akira, played by Mizoguchi, is told his feelings by Keita, played by Ota, and he revealed that he "understood" what director Ishibashi was trying to say at that moment.
"There's a scene where Akira and Keita are standing next to each other at a bus stop, talking. They get caught in a sudden rain shower and take shelter at the bus stop, where Keita pours out his feelings. I want to respond in various ways to what the other person has said, but the atmosphere is created by him holding back. If this were in the hustle and bustle of the city, I think he would be urged by the surrounding "noise" and would say the words that came out, but this time the location was extremely quiet, and all you could hear were the birds singing and the wind, so I really felt that the feelings that Akira had received from Keita were amplified in his heart by that silence."
The scene where Keita confesses his feelings to Akira was one that Mizoguchi was prepared for, and he revealed that he was "nervous" about it.
And so Episode 7 was completed. Mizoguchi said, "Although it's completely from the perspective of the other character, I hope to convey how cute Keita (played by Ota) is."
"The expression of affection here has nothing to do with gender, it's an expression of affection towards a person, something that makes you think they're beautiful or cute. The bus stop scene is by no means portrayed in that way, but I hope the love I felt there can be conveyed to the viewers."
