DVD Review: A Complicated Bundle of Love

If anyone is struggling to find a decent romance anime, there's one show that they absolutely have to watch.

Season one of "Honey and Clover" is a powerful love story that is guaranteed to keep everyone emotionally attached until the very end.

It starts off as a simple slice-of-life about a group of art college friends: three guys and two girls. The guys consist of a first-year student named Takemoto, a sixth-year slacker named Morita and a fourth-year senior named Mayama. The girls consist of a young prodigy named Hagumi and a beautiful third-year pottery student named Ayumi Yamada.

At first, the story becomes a simple snapshot of daily life for these college students. As they grow older, they become more and more romantically attached. Yet, they all have a tough time confessing their feelings for each other, because they don't want their group of friends to break apart.

Although the plot is as simple as a light romance could get, the dialogue is remarkably rich with pent-up emotion. Viewers will immediately get hooked into heartbreaking relationship between Yamada and Mayama. Yamada can't help falling in love with Mayama, even when he starts to live in the apartment of another close friend named Rika.

The dialogue may seem innocent in the first few episodes. By episode 18, though, Yamada's emotions get the best of her when she runs away in tears. The entire series is filled with many difficult situations of unrequited love. These characters must wallow through these flooding emotions, struggling to find a new meaning to their lives.

To tell the truth, I can't believe this group of buddies could ever manage to stay together for two seasons. Thankfully, they never don't really take these pressing relationships too seriously. The director, Kenichi Kasai, has an incredible knack for making every comedy sequence as epic as possible.


For example, episode eight includes an especially agonizing Twister game. It starts out as an easy game. Near the end, though, all the characters are goofily breaking their bones from playing the game. The animators execute everything in this sequence with quick slapstick timing. They manage to make everything as ridiculously painful as possible, without ever crossing the line of extreme violence.

It's a bizarre series of wacky humor with unbearable waves of moving emotion. "Honey and Clover" is probably one of the best and most realistic anime love stories ever made. The protagonists are charming. The warm visuals are soothing. The dialogue hits people where it hurts.

As painful as it is to watch, this show is more about the characters' journeys rather than their relationships. "Honey and Clover" proves that sometimes it takes a little tough love for people to grow into mature adults.

Watch the series at hulu.com.

Images courtesy of photobucket.com

DVD Review - Art students learn about love and life

The first part of "Honey and Clover" is a touching slice-of-life series contemplating on the changing relationships of art students in Japan.

The story of this anime centers around the relationships between five college artists--three young men and two young women. The main men of the series include the gray-haired sophomore Yuta Takemoto, the vivacious money-maker Shinobu Morita and the philosophical senior Takumi Mayama. They often hang out with the tall, pony-tailed girl Ayumi Yamada and their professor's little niece, Hagumi Hanamoto.

Although the series literally holds back the main story until the sixth episode, the true heart of the series is focused on the changing lives of the protagonists as they graduate or move away. Two story arcs develop with more than enough lovesick passion to make anyone cry.

The first spotlight of the show is the conflicting relationship between Ayumi Yamada and Takumi Mayama. Ayumi Yamada always loves talking to Mayama, who is already in love with the person he works for, Rika Harada.

Of course, you could easily write this off as a love that will never last, but this series persistently pulls on your heartstrings. The two friends somehow pull off a balancing act of emotional confessions, without ever breaking off their relationship. Somehow, Yamada can't stop loving Mayama.

The second story arc takes place near the halfway point of the series. At a certain point, Morita and Takemoto struggle with their strong feelings for Hagumi Hanamoto. All the pent-up emotion builds up to a heartbreaking end as Hagumi suffers an emotional breakdown and Morita looks for other jobs to make more money.

Despite the melancholy tone in the third disc of this box set, the soundtrack of acoustic guitars and pianos fills the anime with an unforgettable pop culture vibe, with music from Suga Shikao and the rock group SPITZ. The best song is the ending theme by Suneohair, "Waltz," which fills the gaps between episodes with soothing vocals and a folk rock edge.

Plenty of riotous comedy sequences also lighten the tone of the story. Morita often dresses up little Hagu so he can photograph her like a paparazzi.

The fan-favorite joke, however, involves two of the students twisting themselves almost to death while playing Twister. The spectacle is littered with comical, bone-crunching sounds and grimacing faces.

"Honey and Clover" is one of the few pieces of animation that captures life as an experience of joy and sadness. This is one of the few shows that reaches above and beyond all expectations to portray the warm nostalgia of youth and the complications involved in long-distance relationships.

Dubs and special features

"Honey and Clover" features one of the best English voice-overs I've ever heard. The American dub somehow retains all the gentle romance and the hyper, comedic energy of the series without sounding awkward.

The box set also features a fascinating documentary on the series' opening, by director Nagi Noto. In case you haven't seen it, the intro sequence is a playful montage of plates with food sculptures and cute stop-motion animation. This special features covers everything from camera positioning to tasty food choreography.

Image courtesy of photobucket.com