In the second volume of Itazura na Kiss (イタズラなKiss/Mischievous Kiss), college life is upon our wayward couple Kotoko and Naoki, who find themselves attending the same college through a set of extraordinary circumstances - along with several members of Class F, including the culinary-inclined Kin-chan, who is still convinced he can sway Kotoko's affections away from the cool but arrogant Naoki. That's gonna be hard, since Kotoko finds herself drawn more and more to Naoki, especially after he kisses her! What is Naoki trying to do with Kotoko's heart? Does he really care about her? As if college life isn't hard enough with competing with other women for Naoki's attention and surviving brutal tennis training matches, Kotoko finds out she might not be living under the same roof as Naoki anymore! It might take some intervention of a womanly order to keep Kotoko and Naoki together - and Mrs. Irie just may be the person to do it.

I'm still a little astonished at the speed this series has taken in transitioning from high school to college life, having its main cast of teenagers graduate and enter higher education in the span of only 400 pages - most shoujo series never show their cast beyond senior year. As if realizing it was progressing a little too fast, Itazura na Kiss is taking it nice and easy with Kotoko's freshman year in uni, highlighting her highs and lows in both her curricular activities and her attempts at sparking some kind of relationship between herself and Naoki. Plus, we finally get to see some rivalry for Naoki's attention - between Kotoko and the snobby intelligent Yuko Matsumoto, who initially seems like a better fit for Naoki than Kotoko. Or is she? Then there is Kin, who has managed to weasel his way into the uni by way of becoming campus cook, which means daily interactions with Kotoko (who still has zero romantic interest in him, poor guy).

There's a lot of tennis action in this volume as Kotoko accidentally follows Naoki into joining the college's tennis club, despite her only experience with tennis being a fan of the classic manga Aim For The Ace! and reenacting scenes from it with her racket. She has no chance of being even a mildly decent tennis player - until Naoki is forced to play a doubles match with Kotoko as his partner, and in his irritation has to train her to become better. If you thought Kotoko's school trainer was crazy, Naoki is much much tougher! The scenes between Kotoko and Naoki during their training lessons are pretty interesting, as are the ones where they manage to take class together. Despite being in uni, it seems that most of Class F has reunited in the Japanese Lit class, which has been labeled by the general student body as "the college version of Class F" - ouch! It's a good idea by Tada to keep most of the core cast and move them from high school to college - it keeps readers' interest in the characters they know already while minimizing the risk when new characters are introduced as they always are when the setting goes through a major shift - characers like Sudo-sempai and Yuko.

These series of mix-ups and changes in Kotoko's already hectic life makes the series interesting - and makes me root for Kotoko/Naoki even more. Even if they aren't the same level of intelligence, who cares? It shouldn't even matter if Kotoko is from Class F or Class A; love is about two people, not two people's intellects. Naoki and Kotoko may spend a good deal of time arguing but they also work well together and have personalities that mix and match very well. As their relationship progresses, the series just gets better. If you aren't excited about Itazura na Kiss, get excited! This just might be the must have shoujo release of 2010.
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