Honey and Clover Mini Review (manga/anime)
January 29th, 2008 by Lianne
PG-13/16 for sexuality and language, I guess; official series website (manga) and Wikipedia for everything else
I have no idea why this series is so popular. It does almost everything wrong.
I’m going to get into genre labeling for a minute, but it’s only a piece of my argument, so bear with me. First of all, this series is a josei, which means its target audience is women in the 18-25 range. The only things josei about it are the fact that it’s about college students and the fact that the plot is based around the relationships within and related to this group of college students. The two lead women, however, are underdeveloped, obnoxious, and fetishy enough to be pulled right out of a seinen - yet this series doesn’t have the heavier plot or broader insights into the human condition that seinen is good for. Honey and Clover also features the emotional immaturity and touchy-feeliness of shoujo, which reeks to high heaven with such old characters, not to mention the fact that Honey and Clover’s character development is much more stunted because josei tends to have its characters slow down their own development with their pride and/or shame. Oh, but wait - THESE CHARACTERS ACT LIKE GIANT CHILDREN, so instead of having an older woman learn her lessons the hard way or something we have a bunch of IMMATURE IDIOTS who communicate through squeaking at each other and rolling around like toddlers going through slowed development, which means we have to sit through their should-be-too-old-for-this crap for even longer than we should. And the icing on the cake - the anime (and to the lesser extent, the manga) likes to throw in its development in giant chunks, where a character who usually acts immature suddenly has a long, insightful monologue about exactly how s/he feels about certain people/situations/whatever and why.
NO! ARGH!
I like mangaka who aren’t constricted by his/her genres as much as the next girl - who doesn’t like a story that rises above its genre conventions enough to appeal to everyone? But Honey and Clover isn’t rising above anything, and it’s not even combining genres right (which can definitely be done, ala Tokyo Crazy Paradise). Honey and Clover is pulling the garbage out of seinen and shoujo and putting it into the barest shell of a josei, which means we have 1.) conventions that don’t work well together, resulting in a barely-coherent mush of ideas, 2.) no clearly defined audience (in a bad way - who the hell is supposed to relate to these childish nutcases?), and 3.) more clichés/crappiness than we usually have to sit through in something constrained by one genre. Now we get the crap of josei, seinen, AND shoujo? Thank you for showing me something few series dare, Honey and Clover.
The story is also told very poorly. It’s basically one long session of crazy people dicking around broken up by the occasional flash of out-of-place insight. In the anime, the jokes aren’t even funny. The manga is a bit funnier (the strong translation/adaptation by Akemi Wegmuller and the edit by Panch Diaz definitely help) and SLIGHTLY more coherent because of all the attempts to flesh out the crazy crap that’s going on, but it still suffers from all the problems mentioned above. Oh, and the art is sketchy and ugly. At least the anime was gorgeous, clearly wasting a budget that could have been used to animate a better-written manga. And the opening song includes claymation food structures that have nothing to do with the show and are totally awesome. Okay, so at least Honey and Clover gave me that much.
To support my argument: in chapter 11 of the manga, a heavy-fisted, lovelorn female lead says this little gem: “To have the person I love the most love me more than anyone else. That’s all I want. It’s not that much to ask.” On what PLANET does a manga think that’s not a big deal? Especially one written for females?! What does the mangaka think 75% of manga leads put as their main, heavy-work-deserving goal?! AND THE CHARACTER IS IN COLLEGE. I don’t know about you, but the only college kids I know who would actually utter a statement like that in seriousness live on a different plane of reality and have no idea how relationships actually work. Having a female lead of that age mutter that sadly in a woe-is-me situation we’re supposed to sympathize with is just…just…God, this series doesn’t know what the hell it’s doing.
Honey and Clover tied with Tramps Like Us for the Kodansha manga award in the “shoujo” category (neither are shoujo, but I assume the category includes josei). Although Tramps Like Us is definitely flawed, it’s a million times more insightful, clever, and meaningful than this mish-mash. And yet Tramps Like Us has a drama series, and Honey and Clover has TWO high-budget anime series, a live-action movie, and a drama series. I just don’t get it.
Initial impression: My impression is still initial, since I couldn’t sit through more than 5 episodes of the anime and a volume or two of the manga. If it changes drastically (and from what I’ve heard, it doesn’t), somebody tell me, because otherwise there’s no reason for me to bear with this confused, barely-entertaining, vastly overrated series any longer than I already have. (Lianne)
i think i am starting to agree with your review. i have read through volume two and i was feeling as if i wasn’t “getting it”, so i decided to check out some reviews about the series…i guess you felt the same…
I’m a fan, so I’m going to say that it’s definitely worth it. The series is slice of life, so it might seem like it starts in the middle, and moves along rather slowly without much development. But it’s subtle, just like how it would be in real life. There’s no real epiphany, just gradual development. As for why it’s so popular, maybe you should try reading others’ reviews of the anime/manga? There are tons out there, and many of them written more eloquently and with much deeper thoughts than I can muster at the moment. What it did for me personally, however, is gave me comfort. I’m in college, and I relate completely to these characters. I’m not sure how old you are, but from my experience, relationships have always been confusing and hard, regardless of age. I admit that line is corny though. H&C offers a tender look at the confusion alot of people (including me) experience when they’re in college. The task of rushing towards an ambiguous ‘future’ and figuring out your life goals/values in 4 measly years is a heavy load, especially when you feel inadequate and inexperienced like the child you always thought you were. Until now that is. And no, this is not a ‘cliche’, the feeling exists for many, and it’s quite taxing. The series explore this feeling in a personal and poignant manner, and the characters are all very real. I’m sure you’re shaking your head in disbelief. lol
Well, it’s alright to hate it, but I just feel a bit alarmed when you said that this is just an ‘initial reaction’, even when such strong decisive opinions are made. I think, to be fair, using such words like “garbage” and “cliches/crappiness” to describe the whole series, only after reading the first two volumes and watching 5 episodes is a bit too strong. Oh yea, the claymation intro is supposed to be representative of the type of food that Yamada and Hagu cooks. That’s later on, and you’d have to watch more to find out right?
Well that’s just my 2 cents. You can take or leave it, but if you’re willing, I hope you can give it another chance.
All three of this website’s founders — Lianne, Badjew and myself — have finished at least our undergrad degrees. Lianne herself is only a few months shy of completing a masters, so yes, we know what it’s like to be college students. We’ve all had our setbacks and problems, dealt with complex relationships, been undecided about our life goals and all that. I would have loved to see that reflected in Honey and Clover, but I didn’t.
Now, I haven’t read any of the Honey and Clover manga, so my opinions are based entirely on the beginning of the anime. And during those five episodes or so, I didn’t find a single character interesting or relatable in any way. The main guy’s (can’t remember his name, sorry) character development was pretty much non-existant — it seemed like the mangaka was trying to write a character who was as ordinary as possible. I don’t know if this was an attempt to make him relatable to the largest number of people or something, but I found him really boring. Hagu is creepy as hell with the lolita thing she has going — adult women finally have a genre that’s supposed to cater to their perspective, and this creepy woman-child is the best the mangaka could come up with? And the men in this show are sexually attracted to her? Ew. I didn’t realize the other girl was supposed to be a main character until episode 5 or so, which just goes to show how much of an impression she left. And that weird, cartoonish guy with the mysterious backstory? I guess I kind of wondered what his deal was, in a vague, maybe-someday-I’ll-look-up-the-end-on-wikipedia kind of way, but I didn’t find his personality very compelling. My sister is a student at an art college, and all of her friends are creative, interesting people. Many of them have pretty extreme personalities, and all of them hold really strong opinions about a lot of things. The characters in Honey and Clover either seem so conventional that they’re totally uninteresting, or like they actually have serious psychological problems that aren’t explained in a way that makes any sense. I can hardly believe them as people, let alone creative, talented people.
I know my opinions and Lianne’s aren’t based on that much of the story, but we both saw so little to like in the beginning, and have heard from sources we trust that the rest of the series has the same problems we saw initially, that we had no desire to see more. It’s a storyteller’s responsibility to introduce his or her characters in a way that gives the audience something concrete to hold on to, some way to understand what kind of people they are. Honey and Clover hardly gave us anything, and for that we have no qualms about giving it harsh reviews.
Your judging a series based on what? 5 episodes?
Well, your certainly in the vast, vast minority of people i.e. people who don’t like this series.
“I would have loved to see that reflected in Honey and Clover, but I didn’t.”
“like they actually have serious psychological problems that aren’t explained in a way that makes any sense”
Again, you didn’t even watch the series so how could you possibly make such a statement?
Psychological problems make them unintersting?
The characters are boring you say? maybe. Are most people in real life boring? yes most times. Are you yourself and the founders of this blog boring? I dare say yes…
“I don’t know about you, but the only college kids I know who would actually utter a statement like that in seriousness live on a different plane of reality and have no idea how relationships actually work.”
Hmmm…okay. Just take a breath and really think about what you just said. Anime characters not thinking/talking/acting like characters in real life…..how absurd!!! Honey and Clover is more realistic than most of your psychological seinen series but is by no means 100% true to life.
I honestly cannot comprehend this post. You openly state that all three founders have/ are completing university degrees, yet this post is so unreasonable, almost juvenile in it’s logic that this blog simply loses credibility.
Wow, an anonymous troll! Does that mean this site is actually popular? I’m so excited! And look - s/he called me boring! But not so boring that I don’t piss people off, apparently.