lesbiassparrow

Okay, so well the lead male is a complete bastard at the begining of the series. And yes there is no excuse for how he behaves, because I would back my car over him. But then there is a scene where he begins to regret all of his actions and is horrifically beaten up for the girl he loves and the evil false friend of girl he loves is asking why he doesn't fight back and it's all so dark and guh and it is all so trying and deeply moving.

Right, then. If you like screwed up love, you'll love this, because everyone loves the wrong person. At least they do at the moment.

ETA: Also the school uniform is a bit like mine, Except we had a better tie. And I may be misremembering the quality of talent around in my my youth, but the boys' boarding school which was near ours also had very hot boys. In uniform.

ETA 2: Evil mum goes and tries to bribe heroine's family. But her mum tells her to piss off and pours food over her head and fakes a fit where she insists that the heroine marry the rich guy but then makes fun of it and it is a great scene, and you realise how the heroine's family is all about hanging together no matter what and it is great. Really, I am sucker for family mockery of outsiders scenes.

ETA 3: And heroine works in sushi shop with completely mad boss lady who is great and has endless stories of men she was in love with. I love boss lady.

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From:

dangermousie.livejournal.com

Eeeeee. Hana Yori Dango shall assimilate the world. Really. Every one is powerless before it :P

But yes, that scene with the Mum, where she fakes a dying fit and does the whole 'you totally have to marry him now' is utterly hilarious (and is such a parody of way too many scenes I've seen like that). I really like her family. They are wacky and bizarre but so fun. Considering I'v seen 4 versions of HYD, I am not sure if it's in this one or another one, but I really like when Domyouji tells her he likes her wacky family. I do like how they contrast the Domyouji family dinner: all really cold and silent and two people on opposite sides of the table with Mum taking time out to call cook in, in the middle of dinner and fire him and the Makino family dinner which is way way fun.

Mmmmmm. The beat-down scene. Whatever else they change, they always leave that one in, which is all right with me because it's my favorite scene in the whole thing. They need it, too, because obviously one of the points of the story is that bastard or not, Domyouji is willing to sacrifice everything for her, so maybe he is someone who should be dated, and he can feel for others. I also like the idea that the reason he is so off is because he's ever had anyone teach him how to interact with people normally before (not like he'd get any help that way from his icicle family) or express himself, and while normally this would have gotten knocked into him a lot sooner even without the family stuff, but here his family status just isolated him from consequences or having to learn to function in society.

As to his mother,

katranna (who is the one who hooked me on HYD in the first place) came over the other day, and we were watching this, and she commented to me that she couldn't imagine how the mother possibly consented to get pregnant twice and then actually carry lumps inside her body for 9 months.

The sushi boss lady is hilarious. I want to work for her.

From:

lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com

I was up to 4.30 watching this! So any coherent reply will have to wait till later, but I must say I am really looking forward to the follow up as they did leave themselves plenty of room.

From:

dangermousie.livejournal.com

Wow. That IS late. Btw, it's not a sushi shop, it's a dumplings shop, which is clever play on the title. HYD literally means 'boys over flowers' (which is a play on 'dumplings over flowers' which is pronounced the same but spelled differently and is a Japanese saying).

From:

lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com

Well I didn't have to go to work today - all I did was go over to a friends and sit by the pool and proof-read.

And I realised later that it wasn't a sushi shop, but I am too lazy to change my post :p.

This one was addictive, though.

The mum is one cold lady; I suspect the charity act at the end was only because she'd won and the boy was on his way to the states.

From:

dangermousie.livejournal.com

Yeah, the mother is prettu scary. Interestingly, this is pretty close to how the manga ends: true love and all that but he has to go away for a set time (though the reason is different).

she'd won and the boy was on his way to the states

Also, even Kaede wouldn't want to be stuck in a small plane with a pissed off Domyouji for 14 hours :P

From:

lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com

You know you are obsessed when, even though you don't like anime, you are hunting for it. I must be mad....

From:

dangermousie.livejournal.com

I honestly don't know if I can recommend the anime. I love it and it's one of my favorites, but I do so despite the artstyle which it took me a while to get used to. The style is rather idiosyncratic. It looks like slightly faded pastels or watercolors. My cousin who got me hooked on anime loves it, me not so much. It's one of those 'strong reaction' styles.

It doesn't look like any other anime I've seen, which since you don't care for anime, might be a good thing (or turn you off even more). Also, they use only classical music for soundtrack, no modern pop. Once again, good or bad.

I do love to bits though and it has great voicework and stuff that is not either in MG or the jdorama versions. The manga has art that is a bit more conventional so might be worth checking out in the bookstore :P

Here are some scans from the anime and some posters so you can see for yourself whether it's your thing or not:

http://dangermousie.livejournal.com/316073.html

From:

lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com

I looked at it a bit on youtube and it seemed a bit more to my liking than Peach Girl - and the voices don't grate on me (I really hated whoever was doing the voice for the lead girl in Peach Girl). So there may or may not have been ahemming. I am going to Borders tomorrow for other things, so I might have a look for the Mangas there, only I can't really imagine buying anything in that quantity - especially if I didn't do it for Mars. (This is mainly because I have no more space on book shelves and am now creeping on to floor space and will never be able to move ever again if this continues).

From:

dangermousie.livejournal.com

only I can't really imagine buying anything in that quantity - especially if I didn't do it for Mars

Yeah, especially since this thing is 36 volumes, only 19 of which have been published stateside.

If you like the look of the anime, then by all means you should get it, as it's very very good. I've bought mine on ebay. Just be careful to get the series and not the movie (even though my series DVDs have movie pics on the cover and I almost died from the horror as the movie is an AU set in a ballet school. Yes, really). I really really love it (usually, artwork is a make or break it thing for me, in anime, and the fact that I ended up marathonning this despite never getting into the artwork is a huge thing for me).

I do remember, since this was the first version of HYD I came across, how horrified I was in the beginning that the heroine, whom I really liked, was going to end up with Domyouji :P

From:

lesbiassparrow.livejournal.com

And thanks for the pictures!

Actually this is a bit off the topic of your comment but you had talked about it in another comment. I think one of the elements I like about this is the off-kilter way it looks and is written. It's got a sense of humour about itself - even though it has angst as well- which is very appealling. This I feel is one of Tokyo Juliet's problems; silly Sui is always deadly serious about her angst and they can't ever show any commentary on the inherent silliness of the plot.

From:

dangermousie.livejournal.com

It's got a sense of humour about itself - even though it has angst as well- which is very appealling.

True. I like the self-mocking stuff. But then of course neither Domyouji nor Tsukushi are typical star-crossed angsty protagonists (a la TJ). They are both bull-headed and immature and the show both mocks them and loves them and I like that too. It's not all "ohhhh, Romeo and Juliet redux," but more realizing the silliness or flaws.