Love Me, My Knight

Love Me, My Knight[1] (愛してナイト, Aishite Naito) is a shōjo manga created in the early 1980s by Kaoru Tada.

A live action adaptation titled Love me Licia was also produced in Italy in 1986 (followed by three more series).

[3] "Ai Shite Knight" is set in Osaka and tells the story of Yaeko "Yakko" Mitamura, an 18-year-old girl working in her father's Okonomiyaki restaurant.

When Yakko meets Go and his friend and "Bee Hive" member Satomi Okawa, an unexpected series of events and a tangled romance unfold.

The main narrative of "Ai Shite Knight" is essentially a love story, but has interesting and innovative elements introduced to it by Kaoru Tada, most notably the portrayal of the Japanese music scene in the early '80s.

Isao Sasaki was the voice of Go, Katsuji Mori of Satomi, Takeshi Aono of Shige-San, and Yūko Mita of Hashizo.

Mitsuko Horie also sang "Koi wa Totsuzen" ("Love is sudden"), the song featured in the opening credits of each episode.

"Wedding Bells for Go" (January 24, 1984) The main reason why the anime version of "Ai Shite Knight" is particularly famous is because it features, for the first time ever, original songs within the episodes, a plot device which will be very successful in subsequent anime series such as Mahou no Tenshi Creamy Mami and – more recently – Nana.

The songs were performed by "Bee Hive" and the rival band "Kiss Relish" and they popular enough to be released in a companion album.

The original songs featured in the anime are: Performed by "Bee Hive" Performed by "Kiss Relish" A collection of all the original songs are featured in an album called Debut-Bee Hive, which was produced in Japan immediately after the end of the anime series.

Subsequently, a tribute album titled Aishite Night - Hit Kyoku Shu "Yakko, I Love You" was also released, and it included the opening and closing songs of the series, as well as tribute songs for the various characters arranged on some of the background music used throughout the anime.

Cristina D'Avena, who performed the Italian theme song to the anime series, played Licia (Yakko) in the live-action version.

Versions of the songs in several languages also exist because of the popularity of "Ai Shite Knight" outside Japan.

In Italy, Switzerland, Malta and Slovenia, "Bee Hive" became teenagers' idols, especially when the live action sequels to "Ai Shite Knight" were aired and featured new songs performed by the band, which were awarded even gold and platinum status.

The "Bee Hive" members in the live action series were: Manuel De Peppe, Marco Bellavia and Giovanni Colombo left for the third season, so three new characters were introduced: Marco Bellavia returned for the fourth and final season.