Title: Honey And Clover
Or: Hachimitsu to Clover
Anime
comedy, drama, romance, slice of life, Fine Arts
Eps: 24+2 specials;
Directed by: Ken’ichi Kasai;
Character Design: Shuichi Shimamura
Studio: J.C.Staff;
Year: 2005;
Watched: 2011;
Subs: eng;
MAL: 9 (great);
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Manga: Chica Umino (2000-6);
Anime: Honey And Clover II (2006);
Live-Action: Honey And Clover (2006);
TV Drama: Honey And Clover (2008);
TV Drama: 蜂蜜幸運草 (2008);
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Main characters:
- Hagumi Hanamoto – Hagu, small, shy blond girl;
- Yūta Takemoto – also a bit shy gray hair boy;
- Shinobu Morita – black hair guy, who always messes around;
- Takumi Mayama – serious guy with glasses;
- Ayumi Yamada – nice bigger girl;
This is one of more famous anime, that left a big footprint in anime history. Though it is simple, realistic and mmm… cute, but also very deep and greatly analyzes human heart, emotions and how they express them. I couldn’t say I fell for this anime, but it definitely grew on me. I believe that the best way to tell the story is to divide it by love (or relationship) stories it held inside.
First one would be Takemoto and Hagu. The feelings more or less are one sided, because Takemoto actually falls in love with Hagu from the first time he sees her, but her emotions are not showed. She is shy and at first looks like a bit slow to think, she is like a small child that is extremely talented. (all anime is about art students). Eventually her feelings grow for another person, so Takemoto is left alone to straggle with his feelings. Well their relationship is more like friendship to her. She feels free with him and can do what she wants. Main point here is that he is too afraid to tell her about his feelings and he runs away from it. He gives up even before fight. So he goes to the trip to find himself and eventually grows up during that into a braver person and confesses to her. Hagu on the other hand straggles in a lot of pressure outside world puts on her. She is weak in body and shy in soul, but she has a huge ability to see world from other side, see it with more color, more expressed, see it different and to represent it through her own imagination.
Second would be Yamada and Mayama. Also one sided love. Yamada is deeply in love with the guy, but as he has different woman in his heart she is left alone. Mayama acts with her as nice and protective friend. He is serious and busy, but doesn’t want to be left out so participates in most of all the activities and parties others does. She on the other hand is active and popular. She attracts a lot of attention of other boys but is not interested in them. She thinks as usually girls that are in her situation think: “Why it can’t be me?”, but heart is not something you can order to do things.. Mayama tells her a bit hard phrase “Why me? No matter how mad you get at me, I probably won’t change. It’s probably faster if you find another guy. Stop looking at me.” Its something really hard to hear for loving person from the one (s)he loves… when you don’t have a chance and have to face it. So she tries to do that in most of the anime. She analyzes herself and him, her feelings and tries to grow up. One of the most developed characters in my opinion.
Third would be Hagu and Morita. Its strange. Morita is a person that acts like a total dumb-ass but actually saves his friends numerous times. He sees everything around and knows everything, just pretends to be a bit stupid. He is really active and full of life. Though she was afraid of him, because his expression of love was really strange and as she is really shy it was hard for her to put up with it. But eventually I suppose she did, because it looks like it is both sided feeling. They both are full artists with big talents and their emotions are expressed differently. Sometimes Morita is a bit too concerned about money, but I think that is a way to hide his true emotions.
Fourth would be Rika and Mayama (she is a employer of him). And the love story suppose to be only from his side, though sometimes you wonder about that. Rika lost her husband in a car accident, she was driving – so she feels guilty about it and puts a lot on her shoulders. She became disabled because of that accident and need help to handle things, so she employs Mayama. He fell for her. But she doesn’t want to use him, because she still loves her dead husband and she doesn’t want to forget that. To avoid hurting, she fires him. He on the other hand still tries to be with her and do everything for her.
Fifth one would be Hagu and Shuu-chan. As she is his cousin’s hid he takes care of her. He is a teacher in the university. It is not a love story, but they are connected by strong bound. She is like a small kid and he like overprotective father. Also he thinks of her as very cute so sometimes its a bit strange from his side. He tries to protect her from all world and specially from boys, though he understand that she and Morita have something in between.
And the last one that I’ll mention is friendship between Yamada and Morita. It is strange relationship, because Morita knows how Yamada feels about Mayama and tries to do everything to make her feel better and even to make Mayama to feel guilty about all this. He also tries to protect Mayama from outrageous angry of Yamada sometimes. But I love how he can make everything look so simple.
^ she is crying… ^ (btw fuzzy water? why is it fuzzy?)
^she actually tries to hit him…
There are more relationships like between Yamada and a colleague of Mayama, who
tries to get her attention. Also friendship between Rika and Shuu-chan.. Its a bit strange, but they were friends in university. Actually three of them were – her husband being the third.
Didn’t like specials very much.. Somehow they didn’t fit to the story. its more about some other guy that even wasn’t in the rest of the story. And some jokes about other characters are made..
Its funny, cute and heartwarming anime, also tough because tells a lot about relationships, specially about our selfishness in them. “if you truly love person, you should be happy for his happiness even if he is more happy without you..” but do we truly believe in that? and how many of us could say they reached this kind of love?
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AMV:
op:”Dramatic” by YUKI [lyrics] love the pictures..
ed1: “Waltz” by SuneoHair [lyrics]
ed2: “Mistake” by THE BAND HAS NO NAME [lyrics]
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Links:
Wikipedia
Anime News Networks
My Anime List
AnimeNfo
AniDB
The Nihon Review
Anime-Planet
Absolute Anime
TV Troops
The Full Wiki
IMDb
Characters DB
Review: Star Crossed Anime Blog
Pictures: Zerochan
Review: T.H.E.M.
Mentions: ChartDriver
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