HANA YORI DANGO

this review will most definitely contain spoilers but i'll do my best to make sure i can hide most of the bigger plot points, but read at your own discretion
lapslock incoming
first off, i wanted to list off some potential biases i may have going into this, just so you don't expect anything from me.

biases: i like romance anime/manga. it is probably one of my most favoured genres. i'm not a person who shies away from romance so certain tropes and plot points may be weird and annoying to you, they are not for me. i like them a lot. i also have watched about half of the kdrama from 2009 so there may be a BIT of nostalgia (very unlikely since i hated the kdrama lol)

hana yori dango is a manga from the 1990s to 2000s that has largely impacted a lot of romance manga and anime. it was incredibly popular in its time and a lot, and i mean, a lot of tropes come from this manga. not only was there an anime adaption and a "season 2" (basically just a whole new set of characters but for the 2010s, which i have not yet read) but there were various "live action" dramas from not just japan) but korea), taiwan, china), and thailand (which has yet to come out, isn't that crazy?).

but, i shouldn't go over too much about it's crazy influence over the romance genre.

basically, hana yori dango, or, boys over flowers, is about a girl by the name of tsukushi makino who gets accepted into the prestigious academy of eitoku. she is a pretty poor girl that comes from a poor family, so her family has her go there for her to get a good education and, well, marry a rich man. she learns about the famous group within the school by the name of "f4", lead by tsukasa domyouji, heir to the incredibly rich domyouji enterprises. they do this thing where if you upset them or get in their way by any means, they "red tag" your locker, which opens up for students to bully you and even teachers to turn a blind eye and pick on you so that you end up leaving the school within a month (even teachers aren't immune to this red tagging). everyone is scared of the f4 but also totally at their feet. one day, makino's friend ends up falling on tsukasa. he is about to throw a fit but makino jumps in and yells at him to save her friend instead. she ends up getting bullied but through her strong might, she stays at the school and endures it.

if you haven't noticed, tsukasa is her love interest. the two start out as enemies, rivals, but through someway and somehow, they fall for each other. but do you think it ends there? of course not! this is a 244 chapter long manga, after all (yes it is actually that long).

so, how do i feel about this series?

things i really liked about this series.

it was SO entertaining. as i said above i hated the kdrama and i think the reason why is because i find the love interest, tsukasa, to be much more likeable than his kdrama counterpart, junpyo. the kdrama took itself WAY too seriously at times, while the manga was super fun and had a lot of funny and slapstick moments that live action cannot do properly. tsukasa wasn't perfect in the sense that his flaws included being mean, no, he was quite "stupid" at times and it made for some good laughs. not just tsukasa was entertaining though, all the side characters were fun to follow. i also found makino to be way stronger and again, more likeable than her kdrama counterpart, jandi.

for a lot of this manga i was on the edge of my seat, eager to just keep reading. i stayed up incredibly late some nights just reading and reading because i couldn't get enough of this dumb story.

here are some more iffy things about this story.

considering this manga is from the 1990s, it's no secret that there will be some issues regarding misogyny. not to say the artist is by any means sexist, but... it does show its age, a lot.

if you look on my profile, you'll see that i have both this series and the love interest in my favourites list. but, i cannot condone what tsukasa did to makino.

Spoiler, click to viewclick to hide

in the first arc, he sends men after her. i don't remember exactly if it was for the intention to assault her, but they definitely did that, and i think he even commented that he may have or had the intention for them to do that. and it's not even just that, but he knows what red tagging does to someone. there's no way we can let him go when he made her go through that much just because she yelled at him to stop being a privileged prick? and if you know anything about teenage japanese bullying, you would know she went through a lot. and of course, his "reasoning" is he had a sad past and whatnot.

but why do i forgive him personally? to say i forgive him is a bit of a stretch.

i don't forgive him in the sense that i think what he did was justified, but i do think he "redeemed himself", in a sense. he did apologize and makino did seem to forgive him, so the only reason why i would not like him is because i don't want people to think what he did was okay.

the side characters didn't seem the matter all that much. this isn't a "everyone grows up together and we see how their friendship strengthens and evolves" sort of romance story, rather, it's primary focus is the main couple. they do explore a few side characters and a few side relationships but it's very far into the story and in the case of rui, it's related to makino.

if you want something that's stupid but enjoyable, i would really recommend this. it's not GREAT even though i love it. it's quite bad, it shows it's age a lot. not only are the plots bizarre and a never-ending loop of "will they won't they" and even when they DO (i won't count that as spoilers since... i feel like it's obvious they do get together) there's a 15 foot tall leap in order to continue. it can get quite hard, being so bizarre and unrealistic, it's not a feel-good romance that you read when you want to feel happy. makino gets abused, tsukasa nearly gets killed, there's betrayal, bullying, all of that.

to add to the "tsukasa nearly gets killed" is probably the craziest plot this entire manga pulled out. to be frank, i feel like the author was just pulling things out of her butt just to squeeze out 10-20 more chapters. if you aren't aware of this "tsukasa nearly gets killed" it's the dumbest plot but i found it so funny. this happens near the end of the series so if you haven't read that far, please ignore the spoilers.

Spoiler, click to viewclick to hide

basically, makino and tsukasa are forbidden to be together and after a few run-ins with his mother, who wants to marry him to a rich girl. i don't remember the events exactly but the paparazzi end up at the scene when the two come back from an "island trip" that their friends put them on to get them back together at the end of the trip. while in the crowd of paparazzi, tsukasa ends up getting stabbed in the back by someone.

once brought to icu, he survives and... well, okay, lmao. because he thought of makino so much while in surgery, because he told himself to survive for her, he ends up forgetting her and only her after the surgery. yeah, an amnesia plot. but in the weirdest way possible. this just shows how crazy some of the plots are (this is one of the crazier ones) and how unrealistic they can be, in the name of story! romance! and whatever.

i still love this manga. i like it a lot but i can see a lot of other people not really liking it. i am definitely going to be watching the anime adaption before the end of this year, and while i doubt it'll be any better than the manga, i still really like this story and i hope to like it's adaptions.