Hana Yori Dango (2005)

Story: It’s a really interesting story. Despite having many remakes in many other countries, Taiwan, China, Korea and even Indonesia, they all seem unique. While many people claim that the series, no matter which country, particularly this one, is overrated, I don’t feel that way. It doesn’t matter how popular the show is, it’s popular for a reason. That reason, in my opinion, is because of the very funny and romantic plot. I love watching Tsukushi and Tsukasa’s relationship develop and watching them fight.

I’ve watched the first season many times over, just to watch her fall in love with him. It’s a good drama, literally full of drama, but also a lot of laughs.

Music: An amazing OST. Of course, Ai Otsuka has a song on the sountrack. But the theme is sung by Arashi, Matsu Jun being a part of the group it’s obvious why.

Cast/Acting: Mao is a really spunky actress and I think she was perfect for the role. The same with Matsu Jun, he has a lot of energy which was perfect. Everyone seemed sincere in their acting.

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Story: If you have read the manga, then you know there are a lot of mismatches from the actual storyline of the manga to the storyline of this drama. Changes were done and I understand they were necessary, after all, it was hard to turn 36 volumes (241 chapters) of manga and not leave anything behind. However, I think they made a good storyline, even if in a different order than the original.

Acting/Cast. I mostly loved everyone's acting and the casting choices. I think that Matsumoto Jun was an amazing Domyouji (although no one will ever master that hairstyle as he does) and Inoue was good too. I have only one complaint in this department and that is of the way Yuki and Nishikado are portrayed. If you read the manga, you can see that Nishikado is always polite and nice to Yuki (despite all the complications between them) and you also see that Yuki isn't the clingy, desesperate girl that you see on the final episodes of this drama. Besides those two characters, I like the acting and the casting choice.

Music: I normally don't pay much attention to the songs, but I noticed that in this particular drama they helped enhance the feelings of each scene.

Rewatch value: I don't like rewatching things unless they are just..... yeah. So I couldn't give it more than a 5, and that's me loving this story very much. I think I will rewatch this if I feel like I'm really missing Tsukushi and Domyouji (but I'll probably read the manga then watch the drama).

Overall: Good adaptation, although they could have not changed the sequence of order of the scenes like they did. I loved it, truth be told, but nothing can beat the manga.

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lovely story

I don't know why it took me so long to watch this drama but I am glad I finally gave it a try. I really love the male lead despite his flaws.He was arrogant, confident,sily,funny,violent,sensitive but all these made him so endearing.I liked that Makino was strong and did not let her circumstances bring her down.I didn't like the unnecessary misunderstanding and his mother was really evil, the witch name is an accurate name for her but I am glad that were able to overcome the obstacles.I loved the F4 gang and I really enjoyed the whole premise of the story.This is my first official adaptation of this story I watched ,I dropped boys over flower because it was too draggy but I was able to finish this and I loved it.
Also I loved the OST, flavor of love, it made me really feel their love and kept singing along to it. it had its flaws but it was such a lovely watch.

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I have only on thing to say: This is the best drama I have ever watched, that includes every kdrama, cdrama and jdrama., and Trust me I have watched ALOT of dramas.
Thank you.
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All time favourite boys over flowers adaptation

I think of all the BOF adaptations, a majority of the community will fall into either the Taiwanese adaptation or the Japanese one. I consider both of them the OG's, before being really popularized by the Korean adaptation.

I will preface, there are some heinous things that were done in the series (the extreme bullying, SA, blackmail etc...), and if this were to come out today, I'd bet my money it would have has some pretty bad backlash. A impoverished student falling for her abuser? No thanks. But, I do give it leeway given it is an adaptation from a manga from 1992.

Despite all of these remakes over the years, (I've watched all of them), I always find myself comparing it to this Japanese version, and also find myself coming back to it time and time again. This one will always hold an incredibly special place in my heart. I found that the casting was perfect, and the acting was incredible. Mao Inoue and Jun Matsumoto are literally living forms of the manga, and their facial expressions are legendary.

It's so easy to fall in love with the leads here, and the chemistry they have on screen is palpable. They make you laugh, they make you cry, and they stay with you forever.

To tie everything together, the OST contains 2 of my all time favourite songs. Legends Ai Otsuka singing Planetarium and Hikaru Utada singing flavour of life which are absolutely beautiful and gut punching songs that continue to remind me of this drama every time I hear them.

Even as we continue to introduce future adaptations to BOF, and as video quality gets better, I think I will still always come back to this version, and live out the love story between them here. At the end of the day, it's a timeless classic, and I don't think that will ever change.

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Ahhh, what to say? My second ever drama. The most amazing one as well.. I wish I could un-see it so that I could watch it again with the very same excitement as the first time. The best part with this drama is the cast, OH MY GOD! The cast is absolutely amazing especially the girl playing Makino. It's funny, lovable and at times heart breaking. I've both seen the anime and read the manga and strongly approve of this live action adaptation. Sure they left out some of the brutal stuff, but to be honest I didn't miss it at all. Enjoy one of the best dramas of all time!!!

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This review is for part 1 and 2 of the Japanese adaptation of their own series based upon mangaka Yoko Kamio’s “Hana Yori Dango”. These dramas are two of the about 13 adaptations for “Hana Yori Dango”. Although it is a nice adaptation, the characters are presented in a somewhat comical and satirical form with slightly exaggerated facial expressions and voice intonations. This is a lighthearted version and the chemistry among the leading couple was just lukewarm. There are some dramatic moments and some sweet moments in which the leading actors performed quiet well but, the breaking up cliché got really tiring, to say the least. For both dramas, the ending is nice and sweet.

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Why is this so popular?

I have read so many reviews of this show and I know that there are MANY remakes of it. In fact, I watched more then half of the Chinese remake of the remake of this drama and I still don't understand the hype. I actually didn't realise I was watching the original drama Meteor Garden was based on until after I started this drama.

Many people like this drama because of the female lead. I liked the FL, she is the kind of person everyone would want as a friend because she is so loyal. Her loyalty to her friends and family, is to me, her best characteristic. I just didn't like how she treated the ML.

The male lead is my favourite character in this drama. Yes, he starts of as a bully, I mean a really bad bully. But his personality makes a complete 180 within 2 episodes. By episode 3 I loved his charecter. And the acting was amazing, even when his character is being mean, his eyes are so expressive and honestly reminded me of a lost puppy. His eyes always seem to hold back tears. He was also so much more loyal than the FL. He does put his friends through some shit, but no matter what, he always sided with those he loved; he trusted them and was always loyal to them. That is unless they broke his trust. But even then, he can't hold back.

I loved the character development of all the F4 members, especially the ML. The SML didn't really have a character development at all.

Since the FL already started off as a loyal and strong character, she didn't really have much character development. I didn't like her any more at the end than I did in the begining. I just hated her treatment of the ML who obviously did so much for her, and I really dislike the fact that it took until the last episode of season 1 for the FL to realise she may actually like the ML. Her treatment of the ML compared to her treatment of one of the actual 'villains' is so backwards:
- You have this loyal, adorably dumb (yet really smart) BF who goes out of his comfort zone to make you happy, and yet the FL immediately breaks up with him due to a misunderstanding that is not the ML's fault.
- Then you have a backstabbing 'friend' who used you and lied to you throughout your entire relationship, and yet the FL was able to forgive her almost immediately without the 'friend' having to do anything to regain the FL's trust.

The FL really annoyed me throughout this drama and litterally had me thinking "who tf does the fl think she is?". She just goes overboard and into things she has no business going into. Her charecters, if anything, was very lucky. Lucky that she has powerful friends.

The comedy aspect was really good. Again, this is all thanks to the ML who brought in ALL the comedy. His charecter was the reason I finished this season off. I really want to see more of the smart side of his character because it is so surprising how bad he is at Japanese considering the fact that it's his native language and that he must have gown up with really good education.

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BOF vs HYD

I started watching this straight after Boys over flowers. I mentioned this in my review for BOF and I also believe that it applies to this show a little, the story is a outdated. Obviously. It is based on the manga which started around 1992, wow that's 30 years ago.
What's good about this version is that, even though some scenes are still too old fashioned to be believable, they are better than the Korean version because they kept it simple. The majority of the plots just happened naturally, and quicker. It was interesting to see the production decisions to make a scene happen in a certain part of the season rather than later or overcomplicated.
I felt that Domyouji was meaner than Gu Jun Pyo; Makino wasn't as whiny and came accross as a much stronger female character, that I could see as a potential role model; Hanazawa Rui wasn't as prince charming as Jihoo was in the beginning, but he started to show his own charms as the story unravelled. F4 was still F3 for a while but not as much as in the Kdrama version. I didn't feel a stronger connection for Sojiro in here as I did for So Yi Jung, maybe because his side story doesn't take so much screen time. Something in Akira made me like him a lot more than Woobin, I mean they were both meant to be the mediators of the group and did that just fine, maybe the fact that we saw his mother and twin sisters, or that he had a crush on the dango owner shop? Those details made him stand out more.

Unfortunately I spend so much time comparing the adaptations, that I can't give an unbiased opinion, and while I feel like some of the friendship elements weren't as strong in the Jdrama, the romance build up was more satisfying, to the point that I actually started cheering up for the main couple, which I could never in its Kdrama version. Jihoo will always be the best one for Jandi, but Domyoji and Makino simply belong together.

Ok now onto season 2!

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