Publisher: Viz Media (USA)Format: Region 1 DVD, NTSC, Japanese Dialogue with optional English dub and English Subtitles
Length: 38 Episodes x 23 minutes
Production Date: 2005 – 2006
Currently in Print (as of writing): Yes
Anime aimed at the female market is rare as hen’s teeth. Even more obscure is material from the josei genre. There are so very few anime titles in this genre released commercially in English. Believe it or not, Viz has released two of them. Kind of hilarious as hardly anything gets released by Viz now days. Initially the story centres on three young men who are students at an art college in Tokyo and board together in a rundown apartment complex. The three soon meet Hagumi Hanamoto, or Hagu as she is known. Despite being a genius artist, she is a very shy young woman and also very short and young looking for her age. Two of the boys, Yuta and Shinobu, soon develop feelings for her. Shinobu is more hyper of the two and can only seem to express himself by scaring and harassing her (like dressing her up as various cute characters and photographing her and posting the results on a website). Yuta is the more reflective and caring of the two and hides his feelings for her. However putting a wedge between her and the two boys is Shuji Hanamoto, a professor at the college and cousin of Hagu. He is highly protective of her.
The other member of the apartment, Takumi Mayama, is in his final year of college and is initially helping out Rika Harada, a widowed friend of Professor Hanamoto, at her architecture firm. He falls in love with Rika, but a fellow student, Ayumi Yamada (and master at pottery) is in love him. Unfortunately he only sees her as a friend. The show follows the trials and tribulations of the students as they fall in and out of love, graduate from college, find employment and find themselves.
Actually that last sentence makes it sound a lot drippier than it actually is. This series is based on the josei manga by Chika Umino, whom most anime fans would have seen her work via her character designs for “Eden of the East”. For the majority of its length “Honey and Clover” plays out like a comedy. And it’s truly genuine humour too, not the hokey, obvious, painful stuff you see in a lot of anime. I laughed out loud quite a lot with this show, which is surprising as most so called anime comedies fail to do that with me. What helps a lot though is this show is aimed at young adults, rather than 14 year olds or otaku like most anime comedies. The five main characters (the students) play off well against each other and are quite believable. The only exception is Shinobu who is a little over the top and unbelievable. However mostly his personality and behaviour makes a lot of the comedy work. The supporting cast, especially Professor Hanamoto and the workmates of Takumi’s second workplace really add to the show.
What I found unusual is that initially the focus of the show was on the three boys rather than the two main female characters. Also the men in the show seem to be a lot more stable than their female counterparts. I initially found Hagu to be a very strange and not very likable character. I really prefer strong female characters and she was definitely the opposite. However gradually the audience is allowed to get closer to her and inside her mind and by the end I found her to be a very sympathetic and likable character. I really enjoyed the journey the character took. The last third of the show (essentially from the last couple of episodes of the first season, and practically all of the second season) heads into drama territory big time, but it doesn’t seem forced or schmaltzy at all. It felt like a really natural progression. I have to applaud that, especially after suffering through the utter bollocks and ham fisted “drama” of “Air”, “Kanon” and the like.
There were a few problems with the show. Occasionally some elements were way over the top or just plain silly, like the cross dressing owners of the architectural design studio or the surprise at the Academy Awards ceremony, however the majority of the time it’s quite a believable show. If I was a bit nasty, I would make the comment that at times the show plays like some sort of middle class fantasy. Make that a fantasy of middle class Japanese woman. Ah, that’s bit horrible. I mean how is that any worse than the latest escapist moe crap that anime fans harp on about like it’s a Kubrick film? At the very least “Honey and Clover” is infinitely better written, better plotted and more realistic than that other pap. I must make note of the opening for the first half of the first series. Seriously, what the fuck were they thinking? What does it have to do with the show? The “making of” segment reveals that it was made in the hope of getting the attention of non-anime fans. Well I guess since this show was the very first show to screen in Fuji TV’s noitaminA block, maybe they had a point, but does anyone other than anime fans watch these shows? I mean if you’re going to play them after midnight, then what do you expect? In conclusion, this is one of the best shows I’ve seen in quite a while. It’s really funny, well written for the most part and drama isn’t too melodramatic or forced. I kind of wished some of the over the top elements were toned down and things had worked out a bit differently for the main characters (hey, call me a hopeless romantic), but then again real life isn’t like that. 8 out of 10.
Remaining Backlog: 26 months (it's much easier this way than listing the number of discs).
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