- 47th Television Drama Academy Awards: Best Drama
- 47th Television Drama Academy Awards: Best Actor: Kamenashi Kazuya
- 47th Television Drama Academy Awards: Best Supporting Actress: Horikita Maki
- 47th Television Drama Academy Awards: Best Director
- 47th Television Drama Academy Awards: Best Script
- 47th Television Drama Academy Awards: Best Music
- 9th Nikkan Sports Drama Grand Prix (2005-06): Best Actor: Yamashita Tomohisa
... Shuji Kiritani (Kazuya Kamenashi) is a very popular high school boy who is close to Mariko Uehara (Erika Toda), the most popular girl in school, but whom he does not actually love. Akira Kusano (Tomohisa Yamashita), his classmate, does not really have any friends - something that is attributed to the fact that he cannot read the atmosphere well. One day, a very shy girl, Nobuko Kotani (Maki Horikita) transfers to their school and is instantly picked on by a group of girls for her shyness. As a testimony to their youth, Shuji and Akira team up and decide to "produce" her, to make her popular. They nickname her "Nobuta"
The various episodes deal with the pair's attempts at making Kotani popular by making her more appealing. Amidst this, a mysterious person insidiously attempts to waylay all of Kiritani and Kusano's efforts. Fortunately, the trio always manages pulls through with ingenuity.
Kiritani has to cope with his loss of popularity after he is caught out lying about Uehara and does not assist when a classmate is beaten up. Despite this, with the knowledge that his two true friends, Kusano and Kotani, will always be there for him, Kiritani gets over it. There is also the revelation of Aoi, Kotani's first friend besides Shuji and Akira, as the mysterious antagonist of the story. In the final episode, Kiritani discovers that he and his family must move out of Tokyo because of his father's job. Kusano follows Kiritani to his new hometown and surprises him by showing up at his new school. Kotani is left alone in Tokyo, but she has overcome her shyness, and is finally able to smile. She also becomes popular among the other students, and is no longer bullied. The end of the drama sees all three characters being able to "live wherever [they] are", having learned the meaning of friendship and love.
This is a story about friendship, based on a book. There is something about this drama that made me attached to it from the beginning. Maybe because of a slower story line or maybe i just like the story the way it is. The guy who played Kiritani Shuuji in the drama was Kamenashi Kazuya from a Japanese boy band KAT-TUN. I started liking this boy since Gokusen 2. I am just a bit annoyed by the Kusano Akira character played by actor Yamashita Tomohisa. But I cannot blame him since he purposely has to portray as an annoying person for that drama and it worked on me. They became real friend at the end and I loved it.
