Hana Yori Dango is a gripping shoujo drama about the lives and relationships of the F4, four privileged boys who have grown up with the arrogance, wealth and power to do anything that they wish - and one girl, poor and accustomed to a life of lacking, who decides to stand up to them.
The story begins with Makino Tsukushi, a poor girl who feels alienated at Eitoku, a high school mainly for the wealthy. She longs for the time when she will finally be gone from this place, which is mostly filled with materialistic people with whom she has nothing in common. She has made only one friend she can consider sincere, and they both hope to survive their school years peacefully without attracting any attention. They've seen firsthand what happens when an ignorant student draws the attention of the F4 - who have the power to mark that single student as the "hazing target" of the entire student population by leaving a simple red tag in that person's locker.
Unfortunately, Makino's hope for invisibility is shattered when her friend accidentally crosses paths with Doumyouji Tsukasa, powerful leader of the F4 - with the most unrelenting personality and hottest temper. He is not known for compassion or forgiveness, and thinks nothing of using his status to terrorize students to pass the time. And so, when Makino watches him begin to unleash his temper on her friend for something that was not her fault, she decides she's had enough.
Faced, for the first time, with a girl who won't accept wealth as proof of superiority or power as an attractive asset, Doumyouji slowly realizes that Makino isn't a hazing target like any of her predecessors. And so his feelings for her also change with this realization, which also reflect the impact Makino's strength and actions have upon him. While it seems that the F4 are entirely led on a leash by Doumyouji, there is Hanazawa Rui, who gives Makino compassion when she needs it desperately...an action she comes to treasure.
The red tag in Makino's locker, the humiliation of the hazing that ensues, and her battle to grow stronger alone as a "weed among flowers" can, is only the beginning and certainly not everything. The show moves rapidly as Makino becomes more than a meaningless target to the F4, their lives becoming complicatedly involved. All the characters suffer and change, so if you're longing to smack Doumyouji into the stratosphere, you don't have to wait too long to see him endure the equivalent.
While the character design and animation may not be to everyone's taste, as it is rather atypical, the classic background music (mostly consisting of the piano) fits the scenes perfectly. With a remarkable group of characters who have an intense chemistry together and an intense, gripping storyline, there is little lacking in Hana Yori Dango, if anything at all.
Hana Yori Dango makes you realize how great a story can be without the aid of magical lockets, unrealistically large mecha, or those extraordinarily beautiful characters with shampoo commercial-worthy hair. While it takes the audience on a roller coaster, this series is surely worth the ride.
(Note: The Hana Yori Dango television series follows the manga exactly up to the episodes in the mid-forties, after which it diverts and wraps up the plot completely (and weirdly) at episode fifty-one. Currently (and amazingly) the manga is still going strong, so if you thirst for more Hana Yori Dango, there's plenty more.)
[ Movie ]
The Hana Yori Dango animated movie is a thirty-minute retelling of the basic Hana Yori Dango plot with the characters placed in an alternate storyline. Makino is a poor girl who does cleaning work and odd jobs in a theater production company, where she is also a student. However, she doesn't have a chance to be in the spotlight, since she's just a lowly trainee. It's Sakurako who has the leading role in the next production, along with Doumyouji, who is the egotistical star of the production.
Starting to see parallels? Makino accidentally sends a load of laundry flying and a pair of panties lands on Doumyouji's head, infuriating him, but she's not going to stand for that. She continues to practice her dancing on the side, and the secretive Hanazawa Rui ends up helping her, playing music in the background. When Sakurako gets injured, will it be Makino who takes her place?
The movie's greatest failing is that it is far too short, and everything happens far too quickly. Events are crammed closely together and while the plot attempts to emulate parts of the early plot of the series, it's simply not effective here. The alternate setting of the movie is also quite different from what one would expect, however this story was meant to be a re-telling, and not an addition to the original series. Overall, it's rather too rushed and too busy for my taste, lacking the varied reflections by Makino that made the series remarkable to watch.
While the time factor limits the movie's effectiveness severely, it is enjoyable to see the different, parallel roles that the original Hana Yori Dango characters have in the world of theater, as well as the different plotline which retains some essence of the original. However, the special moments between characters are all too brief and fleeting, yet they do exist, even if they are somewhat unsatisfying. The movie also explains, in its own way, the origin behind the New York Broadway style opening of the television series. In addition, Makino's song in the movie, Someday, was the highlight of the movie for me. If you enjoyed the Hana Yori Dango series, the movie might be worth your time to watch, since it's not very much time at all.
