Hana Yori Dango

A romance that is not romantic at all Hana Yori Dango was one of my worst anime experiences, mainly because it tricked me in the first 20 episodes. In the beginning, the anime offers an interesting plot, especially with the protagonist. However, to my surprise, everything broke down relatively quickly, here are, in my view, the main problems of the work: -The "triangle": The love triangle of this anime does not make any sense, because simply, one of the 2 parts of the triangle is not interested in the protagonist, in fact, all the moments that this person directs in a more "loving" way with protagonist seemedto me out of pity, or for him to console himself from another novel. (It is a triangle because the protagonist is indecisive about which boy she likes) -The characters: The protagonist at the beginning is very interesting, strong and courageous, but in the last 2/3 of the work she becomes petty, false and liar, unpalatable. The men in this anime are even worse, one of them is a bully who, believe me, RAPES the protagonist, well, if you consider that the other only used the protagonist when she was fragile, it is also rape ... It is worth mentioning that because of the bully she suffers at least 4 times physical aggression, I just don't understand what the author had in mind. -She didn't love him: I won't say who she stays with, but for me she didn't love him at all, just looked at the other, she didn't even say once that she loved him in 51 episodes! Not in appearance either, whenever she was with him she seemed in a bad mood. So, the main point of the anime, romance, for me, didn't exist. -The manga Vs the anime: When I finished the anime I was so nervous, and I found out that the ending in the manga was different, so I read the last chapters and damn it! It's totally different from the anime, the chemistry between the characters was absurdly better, I don't know what happened to make these changes in the anime, in short, do you want to know the story? Read the manga. -Visual and audio waste: I really like the anime songs (minus the opening) but the violin pieces were beautiful, the visual was beautiful too, the design of the characters was exactly the style I liked, unfortunately, wasted in a horrible story. A story with a lot of potential, but that the immaturity of practically all the characters of the work, spoils it.

Considering that this anime aired about 10 years ago, the animation and sound are not as great as the shows you'd see nowadays, but that's no reason to shy away from this great series. The characters are fully developed and you really start to put yourself in their shoes once you get to know them better. While some of the storylines can be a bit farfetched, there's just enough balance of drama, romance, and comedy to draw you in. The storylines have so many twists that you'll never be bored while watching this series. Bottom line: If you're looking for an anime packed with drama, romance,comedy, and interesting plots and characters, this is the anime for you. If you are more concerned with pretty animation and good OSTs, you should look elsewhere.

The Story Hana Yori Dango is a school-life anime surrounding the exploits of Tsukushi Makino, a new student at Eitoku Academy who happens to be of lesser means. Desiring nothing more than a low-profile existence among the upper-crust of society Tsukushi’s world is turned upside down when she encounters an elite clique of popular men known as the F4. From here, she begins a chaotic, fish out of water story where the boys are constantly involved. In the midst of this, she manages to fall for two of the Flowers Four creating a romantic triangle with two distinct flavors. The first relationship is your standard aloof loveinterest angle with Rui Hanazawa. I like the quiet, kind, artist, nature of the character and his dynamic when opposite Tsukushi elegantly done despite the lack of dialogue between them However, this ceases to be when their growing relationship is subvert by his returning flame, Shizuka Toudou. While Shizuka was a welcomed addition providing exposition on the F4’s history, a humanizing character for the group as a whole, and a sort of guide for Tsukushi she felt more like a protagonist in her own right rather than a supporting character. But, by far, the worst thing the writers of the anime could have done was use the sympathetic character to remove Rui as the love interest for the secondary alternative. The secondary Romance begins with the leader of the F4. Tskasa Domyouji. To say that I despise this character is a gross understatement. His personality shifts between childishly lording his status over characters to picking on Tsukushi to being uncharacteristically nice to her. Worse yet he seems to have an almost incestuous fixation with his sister who happens to look like our main heroine. As if to feed into the creep factor he holds her down and nearly RAPES her in an early episode. While he does mature throughout the series the and eventually becomes worthy of the love interest role the aforementioned moments irredeemably corrupted the character to such a degree that I cannot stand his on-screen prescience. Even after he redeems himself by softening up I still detest the character I am supposed to root for. In short I found him to be a pretty face with little more than a base understanding of social functions that was easily overshadowed by almost every other character. bof screen 1 screen 3 this brings me to the side-characters which can be summed up in the phrase as bland as white bread. In fact, the only two character’s whose names I remember without consulting MyAnimeList ar Soujirou and Akira and their main functions were to act as the F4’s exposition and voices of reason. Otherwise, every other character in the series is a direct embodiment of their trope. The childhood friend is a cookie-cutter childhood friend. Tsukushi’s family seems to be the cliché poor family composed of the overbearing mother, the pathetic father, and the annoying little brother. After that every other character just blends into the background until they decide to cause trouble or just randomly speaks up. To remind Tsukushi of her place. The focus on the pauper-versus-prince wealth disparity that persists throughout the series is a glaring weakness in storytelling. While this is a universal plot element that transcends its medium it actually weakens the relationship building aspect of the show. Combine this with the night-and day dynamic between Tsukushi and Tsukasa and the viewer gets a dysfunctional relationship that feels forced and unrealistic. Sure, one might see it as a clear case of opposites attract but, Boys Over Flowers executes this poorly. Thus I come to the shows worst flaw of this entire narrative. its execution If the story of an independent woman finding herself in a high-society prep school featuring a cast of bishounen men is familiar to you have likely seen a reverse-harem anime in the last 20 years. While the show’s formula is well-trotted ground for many anime fans at this point the story’s progression is painfully slow providing the viewer with very little pay-off. For any romantic plot steady character growth and interaction is key. Hana Youri Dango’s characters grow at a snail’s pace making its run a slog to get through. Style: screen 2 screen 4 screen 5 Alongside the painfully weak story Hana Yori Dango suffers from an eye-ruining animation style that seems to be a halfhearted attempt to simply colorize the cells of the original manga. While the muted colors and stark background would have translated well to the manga format the same cannot be said for animation. In fact. I found the lack of vibrancy and life in some scenes to be somewhat distracting at times. Aside from that character movements seem a bit stiff which forces some of the dialogue-heavy moments feel more like poorly animated GIFs rather than properly animated sequences. But, discounting my nitpicking, I feel that character and background designs are beautiful when assessed separately as portraiture. Sound Design: Much to my delight, Hana Yori Dango scores highest in the category of sound design. Unfortunately, this applies to the series’ soundtrack rather than its vocal performances. While they can be taken separately, I feel the two are inexorably linked and aides the viewer in suspending their disbelief. For their time, the talent did a passable job of bringing the characters to life. But, it is important to remember that the 90s were an awkward time for anime dubs and this anime suffers greatly from the growing pains of the time. Thankfully the music does a great job of distracting us from the flawed delivery. For the most part, the music of Hana Yori Dango does quite a bit to amplify the high-society feel of the show. The opening and ending themes are light and airy J-pop pieces that connotes a relaxed and energetic tone. This does a great job of setting the tone as a slice of life piece. Intermittent pieces like Tomaso Abononi’s Symphony No. 5 adds depth to the upper-class feel of Eitoku Academy. Together, classical and popular styles fill the gap created by poor voice acting. Sadly, it isn’t enough. I watched the series in its English dub as distributed by Viz Media as instructed by the one who requested this review. While it was nice to hear popular 90s era voice actors like Micheal Adamthwaite and Stephen Park in the roles of Tsukasa Domyouji and Rui Hanazawa I feel that Kelly Sherodin was completely miscast as Tsukushi. This led to my great dismay as her pronunciations of the name Rui as Luis grated on my ears. Alongside this, some dialog was stiff and stilted leading to an overall flat delivery. The lack of compelling delivery forces me to dislike the dub but only slightly. Recommendations: I do not usually give my recommendations separate from my conclusion but since the following are TV dramas rather than anime I feel obligated to break form and inform you as to the existence of two great shows. If you wish to see this concept done properly I point you to the Taiwanese Drama Meteor Garden as I believe the acters Vic Zhou and Jerry Yan provide the best characterizations of the two male leads. While the Karean variant has its merits, I find it slightly less appealing. Still, feel free to check both out for yorself as this is a matter of preference to me. Final Thoughts: In conclusion I feel that Hana Yori Dango suffers from a lack of proper execution. But, it is still a salvageable piece. In many ways it is the progenitor to great series in its genre and I encourage fans of pieces like Ouran High School Host Club to check this out, The dub is currently licensed by Viz Media and is available at Rightstufanime. Please feel free to enjoy Boys Over Flowers and stay tuned here for more reviews.

I really want to write a review for this anime I don't think it will be as long as the others however, this is my first review. This anime, while old with older art, was amazing for me. I had been feeling like I hadn't seen a good romance in a while and what brought my attention to it was a review that had said it "restored their faith in the romance genre" The main characters while childish and obnoxious at the start slowly seem to develop into mature-ish young adults. Starting with Makino, throughout the anime she is rather stubborn, naive and headstrong. She is astrong female character that faces many emotional trials, while struggling with her life she manages to overcome everything relatively well. Her character has been constructed in a way that places you in her position, withering away in fear when she does or feeling happy when she does. The F4 boys that she stands up against also go through changes as well, making you cringe and want to pull your hair out. There are many things that could be said about the things they do wrong and right, however, overall they are young boys going through school with emotions and things that a normal person could not understand. The story was captivating and by the first episode I wanted to know more and see more. It was an anime with life and has many lessons in it. It addresses bullying and other themes that high school comes with, and was easy to relate to. I enjoyed Hana Yori Dango a lot more than I thought I would and I managed to watch it in two days, days off work spent well in my opinion. I felt extremely satisfied with it and the way it ended. There were times were I couldn't help but laugh along with the characters. The anime came alive to me, it became a real thing and I wanted to give Makino a good slap every now and then. There was not one moment I wanted to give up on it and not one moment I wasn't entertained. I give it an overall score of 9/10