Anime: Hana yori Dango

Tsukushi Makino is the only poor girl attending the school for Japan's Elite; Eitoku. Her parent's goal; to get her married to someone rich, who can then pull them out of poverty. Tsukushi's goal; to make it through highschool while being as inconspicuous as possible. Of course, this doesn't happen and she manages to catch the attention of the F4, Eitoku's and Japan's four richest and most eligible bachelors.

Story: The story's basic. A rich guy, Tsukasa Doumyouji, falls in love with a poor girl, Tsukushi Makino. His world rebels against him loving someone whose so poor, while her family is more than ecstatic. The girl herself at first despises the guy and falls in love with his best friend, Hanazawa Rui, instead. Throw in some drama like kidnapping, evil mothers, playboy friends and some other cliches and you have the Hana Yori Dango story.

That isn't to say there are some moments that leave you surprised and that they story itself isn't interesting and flows quite well, but there are the typical triangles and love rivals.

There are some new elements I didn't see before Hana Yori Dango. The F4 show their power through indirect bullying. If anyone at Eitoku annoys a member of the F4, they get a red tag and the whole school bullies them until they quit. This I found to be a new way of showing life simply because very rarely do you seem people who have enough power to get a whole school to bully someone. It's also the catalyst for the rest of the story and I kinda wish the red tagging continued for more of the plot.

I find the story quite realistic though some moments made me cringe.


An interesting side note, it's said that Hana Yori Dango was based of Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. Doumyouji represents Mr. Darcy and Tsukushi reprensents Elizabeth Bennet.

Characters: There are quite a few characters, but the main ones consist of Tsukasa and Tsukushi (and arguably, Rui).

Tsukasa is the heir to the Doumyouji Corporation and is the richest man in Japan. This of course all goes to his head and so he's shocked when Tsukushi starts to fight back against him and then refuses his love confession. I have to admit, he can be annoying at times and there are moments were you wish you could reach into your screen and choke him. However, he does grow on you and I found myself looking forward to his blunders (especially in speaking Japanese) and his way of showing his love to Tsukushi in less then conventional ways.

Tsukushi is the poor girl that somehow manages to scrap enough money together to pay for Eitoku. She originally hates Tsukasa and is head over heel for Rui Hanazawa after hearing him play the violin. After fighting back against Tsukasa, she catches the attention of the F4 and eventually becomes a good friend of theirs. I like her character. She is the typical strong, tough girl that refuses to back down or let anything stop her. She's very headstrong and I find myself rooting for her quite often. However, sometimes her indecisiveness between Rui and Tsukasa can be annoying and you wish she would just choose someone.

Rui is the best friend of Tsukasa and the first love of Tsukushi. He's in love with Shizuka and for a little while develops feelings for Tsukushi. He's quiet, talented at playing the violin and sometimes comes off as cold. Throughout the show, we can see Rui slowly open up to Tsukushi. Because he's such a quiet character it's often hard to read him but I find he grows quite a bit on you.

Soujiroh and Akira are the other two members of the F4. They are the playboys and are often seen teasing Tsukushi and Tsukasa. They mainly provide comedy relief and while sometimes frustrating, I really enjoy how much entertainment they give.

There are many other side characters that also contribute to the plot. While many simply come and go, I find they tend to have some influence on you and your view of the main characters. Each person plays an important role.

Sound: I didn't really like the opening or ending theme. In fact, I've pretty much forgotten them. However, they didn't ruin the story and they were decent. I just never really clicked with it.

Animation: The anime was produced in the 1990's so compared to current day animation, it's pretty old. However, that's not to say it's terrible. The movements are fluid and while there is little animation occurring at any given time, it seems to add instead of take away.

The colours are all soft pastel earth shades; from the uniforms to the backgrounds. It almost seems as if the backgrounds were done in watercolours. Everything is muted, but it also allows the characters themselves to stand out all the more. I find the simple backgrounds nice and help you focus on what's occurring.

Value:While certainly interesting, I probably wouldn' t rewatch the show anytime soon. The plot is a bit too easy to remember in order to have any value. If I were to rewatch, it would probably be for the comedic value or to simply watch my favourite character in action.

However, I find the plot interesting enough to watch the more recent spin off versions since they switch things around enough to keep you interested in what they changed. The spin offs include a movie, two Japanese drama adaptations and a Taiwanese drama adaptation).

Enjoyment: I found the show to be very enjoyable and I rarely had a dull moment (they did occur of course). I had to skip over a few parts as they made me feel a bit awkward There were also moments that I found somewhat dull. However, overall the show as fun to watch and I enjoyed it. If you're a fan of Pride and Prejudice, you may just enjoy this.

Synopsis
The story focuses on a headstrong girl who believes in standing up for the small man and face down all the opposition; as she does this, she incurrs the wrath of her high school's elite. This ends up with her falling in love with one of them.

Story
The story is at its heart a standard love triangle drama - but with alot of twists. It is all very well directed and I can't remember a better executed comedy drama. There is basically only one complaint that can be made about the story (unless one happens to hate love triangles), and that is that they really toy with you. A lot. I have known some people to be unable to bear it to the point of calling it Satan's second greatest work. (Convincing everyone he doesn't exist being his greatest). I am glad to say that my own heart was able to bear it, and boy am I glad it did - because thanks to that I could really enjoy all its good points. Of which it has alot.
The plot is involving and relatively deep; it being a love comedy would usually spur expectations of shallowness, but the fact that it is all of 51 episodes makes the depth necessary. It simply wouldn't be able to hold together without depth.

Characters
The cast of characters are varied; some of them are however rather stereo-typical, but only some. The 3 main characters (I mentioned it was a triangle) are far from that; they are very original and very compelling. Sometimes however you can't help but feel that some of them are the worst idiots ever born. These moments are thankfully rare, but oftentimes necessary for the plot, and I do feel the need to warn about them.
The main characters develop quite alot in this series - though sadly not the stereo-typical sidekicks, but the main characters make up for them. If you compare the main characters at the end of the anime to how they were at the beginning you will hardly believe they are the same people; they have really grown alot, though their growth kindof sits deep within them, it needs to be pried out of them with a crowbar (another reason why it has been referred to as Satan's second greatest work).

Animation
The animation is bad. If you look at today's standards it seems like it was done by a noname studio for under USD $1000. Thankfully for this anime, the animation is not important. At all. As long as you can tell which character is who (which you can), it really is of no importance. Looking at the fact that it was done in the late 90s I must say that animation has really come a long way in such a short time, though there are alot of better examples that were made before this one (look at any studio ghibli production, and you will see what I'm talking about).
There aren't really that many repeated shots that I noticed - though I didn't specifically look for them, but as the eyecandy isn't what this anime focuses on, that's neither good nor bad.
Unfortunately there were alot of pan shots, and they were as well made as the rest of the animation - not good.

Sound
The sound isn't anything remarkable - the seiyuus do a very good job, but the quality of the sound isn't anything special, and let's not even talk about SFX - if there are any, I missed them.
I am one of those who always watches the OP/ED on almost every episode except where I abhor them - and in the beginning the OP/ED wasn't very good, however as the series progresses the mood gets to you and the OP/ED starts to fit in perfectly with the show, so if it was only for this, I would give it a 9, but the rest of the sound pulls the grade down abit.
The background music during the show did exactly what it should - it stayed unnoticed in the background. However it didn't really add much to the experience and as such it doesn't deserve a perfect grade either.

Value/Enjoyment
If you like a love triangle with alot of evil humour, you'll enjoy this immensely; when I say evil, I do mean evil. It will most likely rot your brain. You have been warned.
Disclaimer: Personally I really enjoyed the evil humour, but my sense of humour is extremely twisted. If you have a twisted sense of humour, you will likely love it, if you do not, stay atleast two blocks away from this anime at all times. Do not attempt to approach and for god's sake, do not touch with anything shorter than a 10m (30ft) pole!

This is a series not everyone will love but for sure lot of people will like. Even while being somehow old (it's from the 90s) it aged quite well.

Animation
Not being top notch I consider it quite passable, with the use of simple face expressions and a lot of stills you would say that you wouldn't bear with it. Well, what is important is the rest (story/characters) and even while this might be a drawback it goes quite well with the story. I wouldn't like for sure a new style animation with this kind of story, because this style for sure helped with the development. There are some nice sets and I loved the school design and common places.

Sound
Opening theme is quite catchy but the music throughout the entire series isn't that good IMO. Sometimes it gets annoying... that violin playing in the background in some scenes, aahhhh! But it's a minor issue IMO and most people won't even pay attention to it too much.
Voices are really good besides a couple of characters that after some time get annoying. The acting is as well really good and they managed to express the feelings through all the series.

Story
You would say just another school romance story, and I would say not. Why? Because this story has some interesting elements besides the classic girl falls in love with boy at school. The set is really wonderful and the pacing in the story is well done. Nothing seems rushed and most ties quite well. I even missed to predict the end of the series, that lately is not something you can say from most series.

Character
As this anime is long it has enough time for good development, but anyway I think it surpassed my expectations. Most characters are lovable and even while there are a couple that remain undeveloped most of them have a nice exposition during the series. There are some stereotypes of course, but they fit quite well in the story. As I said with animation character design is simple but nothing that will annoy you.

Value
I think that in some time I will do a re-watch (most probably after completing a good quality release), because I think I will enjoy the series a lot as the first time. There was only another series that I enjoyed more than once and that was Onegai Teacher.

Enjoyment
I enjoyed this series a lot. Just after a couple of episodes I didn't know what to do and seek some commentaries by people I know. Most of them warned me about this being a little 'girlish'. Well, I'm glad I kept watching it.