Title: Hana Yori Dango aka Boys Over Flowers
Genre: Comedy
Director: Ishii Yasuharu, Yamamuro Daisuke, Katayama Osamu
Format: 9 episodes
Dates: 21 Oct 2005 - 16 Dec 2005

Synopsis: Makino Tsukushi, the daughter of a poor family, attends Eitoku High School, which is a highly prestigious school attended entirely by wealthy children. All Tsukushi wants is to keep her head down, stay out of the snobby rich kids’ way, and survive to graduation. Unfortunately, she runs afoul of Doumyouji Tsukasa. Tsukasa is the cruel leader of F4, a group of the four most powerful boys who run the school with an iron fist. Instantly, they declare war on each other… and things will never again be the same for either of them.

The Highlights
Characters: Complex and interesting.
Pacing: Every minute is an important contribution.
Music: Beautiful and touching.
Plot: A little bit predictable, but for the most part believable as far as J-drama go.

The manga series on which Hana Yori Dango is based is 37 volumes long; in contrast, the drama is a mere nine episodes. In a lesser series, this could turn out to be a huge mistake, with each episode being in such a rush to cram in each important event from the manga that character development is nil. Luckily, in Hana Yori Dango, the writers and directors use every second of the short series to not only show what events they can, they also dedicate the time to show how the events affect the characters. As a result, there is a huge amount of character development crunched into each episode, but none of the episodes feel rushed. Each action and each conversation is important to the plot. The pacing is energetic all the way until the end, moving seamless between comedy to drama.

The characters are all very well developed. Tsukushi is one of the strongest and most well-rounded female leads I’ve seen; she makes mistakes, but she is honest and fights for what she believes in. Inoue Mao was excellent in the role, bringing humanity and humor to Tsukushi’s character. Tsukasa, on the other hand, is an interesting and complex character. Matsumoto Jun did an awesome job of showing Tsukasa’s quirkiness and violence, while still being able to portray a fragility within Tsukasa and a vulnerability behind the arrogance. Oguri Shun’s performance as Rui was kind of flat throughout, but that suited Rui’s rather distant and unflappable personality. Abe Tsuyoshi and Matsuda Shouta, as Akira and Soujiroh respectively, were perfect, completing the entertaining F4 gang.

The background music deserves special attention. Each piece is very beautiful; compositions for comedic moments are quirky and enjoyable, and the melodies for the dramatic moments are heartrendingly gorgeous. Each piece of music is used well, with the natural crescendoes falling on the most touching moments and enhancing the emotion of the scene perfectly. The insert song (”Planetarium” by Otsuka Ai) fits well into the bittersweet mood of the series.

However, all of that praise doesn’t mean that this drama is without flaws. In a sense, there is too much character development. There is a very short amount of time for the characters to develop feelings for each other or to change opinions about other characters, so when these feelings develop or these changes take place, it can feel like it comes from nowhere, even when it is explained through events or dialogue.

Luckily, this isn’t too noticeable, and the script is very good at making the feelings believable when it does happen. Overall, this is one of the best-produced and most entertaining shoujo series I’ve seen recently.

The Rating: 8

Reviewed by: dheu