Honey and Clover 1
April 7, 2008
So I was really very excited about this series and have been dying for the first volume ever since I heard the news it was licensed. I expected it to be Nana-good and very addictive. I think it’s probably more comparable to Sand Chronicles, and the only way I can articulate why is that character development in Nana is very loud and dramatic, whereas character moments in the other two series are quiet and gravitate more to everyday occurrences (for the most part… Sand Chronicles has its share of trauma in the first volume, but I still think it seems “quieter” than Nana). I prefer both Nana and Sand Chronicles to Honey and Clover. It’s very good, but there are some things I dislike about it already.
My biggest problem is with Hagu. Hagu says very little, and does a lot of things which cast her in a very immature light, and yet she is already the romantic interest of two of the boys. This is explained in a “love at first sight” way so that she doesn’t actually have to do anything to make them fall in love with her. The only positive quality that she has been assigned so far is that she is a very talented sculptor, which does help me believe the boys love for her a little more since they respect her talent (or at least one does, I would be willing to believe that the other loves her for her appearance). She also seems like kind of a nice girl, but like I said, she doesn’t speak very often, and when she does, it’s usually to act childish. Some depth of character comes when we find out she gets sick and nervous around people due to the stress of working on her amazing sculptures all the time. That made me feel a little bad until it just made the characters dote on her more.
Aside from Hagu, my only other problem with the series is that it doesn’t have a main character and just kind of drifts from person to person. But part of me likes this a lot, so I wouldn’t consider it a strong mark against it. The only person I can see as a “main” character is Takemoto, a freshman who often is used as a device to explain some of the characters and things at the school. The story has no qualms about shifting between characters and taking focus from him though, and it does it in an extremely smooth manner, so I can’t say that he’s really more or less “main” than the other two major boys. The other two boys are Morita and Mayama, and Morita is left as something of an oddball enigma who appears everywhere and does random things, while Mayama is the one who often explains things. Morita is the other boy who likes Hagu, but most of the romantic tension in this volume belongs to Mayama. He loves an older woman who doesn’t love him back, and he has a classmate who is in love with him and was rejected. Some of the sadder moments in the volume come from “Ironman” Yamada, who has no qualms about beating people up, but has her heart broken by Mayama.
I really like the dynamics between the male characters so far, and I kind of like how they help each other out and are just… very good friends in general. The art school part isn’t quite as big a part of the story as I thought, but by the end of the volume everyone’s emphasis is explained (Hagu, Morita, and Yamada are 3D artists, Mayama is a graphic designer, and Takemoto is an architect). Other than a few small things, Hagu is the only one who seems like she’s totally devoted to succeeding as an artist, though Morita and Mayama are both employed. I was kind of attracted to it because it was a series about art students since I went to an art school, so I’m a bit bummed that art doesn’t figure more prominently into the lives of the characters. I did crack up when I read the tagline on the back cover, “Love triangles – who says you don’t learn math in art school?” since math was actually not offered at my school. Well, maybe there was one or two courses and I don’t remember, but it definitely wasn’t required for any of the degrees.
It is very good though, and the characters are already a lot more connected than they are in a lot of the other series I’m reading at the moment. If more relationships are built up, it’s definitely something I could get into more than, say, Sand Chronicles, and maybe I’ll like Hagu more once she’s developed. I’m still looking forward to the second volume, but I’m a bit sad that it didn’t live up to the hype for me.
April 7, 2008 at 12:26 am
Somehow I got the impression that Mayama was an architect, too. Maybe it was just that he was employed by an architectural firm and then I made the assumption.
April 7, 2008 at 12:53 am
I couldn’t figure out what the company he works for was supposed to be. I thought it was some sort of photography studio actually, but I didn’t catch it if it was stated outright.
April 7, 2008 at 1:41 am
I found the reference, and it turns out it says “design firm.” You’re probably right, because there was that bit about needing a chair for a shoot that never really did get the significance of. Maybe interior design, and they were shooting a room for a cover, and hence his graphics skills came in handy?
April 7, 2008 at 5:55 am
I was always under the impression that Mayama worked for an interior design firm, at least later in the series.
Hagu doesn’t just specialize in sculpture, she draws and paints as well; an all round talented artist.
The story gets much better in later volumes but be sure to keep an eye out for the anime. The anime is far superior than Nana and Sand Chronicles.
April 9, 2008 at 1:48 am
Does it bring up Hagu’s other skills later? It mentioned that she also studies fashion (or fashion illustration, I can’t remember) in the first volume, but it only really focuses on her 3D work so far.
I’ve heard good things about the Honey and Clover anime, but I’ve heard some generally bad reviews of the live action movie. Have you seen that version of it? It would be the version I would go after next if it was comparable to the anime and manga.
April 10, 2008 at 10:42 pm
i hope the movie is good, though i read somewhere that it “didn’t really capture the feel of the manga”. i’ve seen the first episode of the of the anime and it was pretty damn funny.
and don’t worry, she takes her time unfolding it, but the characters all have depth and she shows you.
i really love this manga. love it. deeply. the more i read it, the more i love it.
Hagu can do anything. Silk screening, sculptures..she’s just a friggin genius.
October 1, 2008 at 8:22 am
Being a fan of anime and movie (I really love the movie, I totally recommend it) but not dorama (weak and really bad cast), I had great expectations. Well, the story is a bit shattered at first as new characters are introduced but once it gets settled it’s better and it will be better in later volumes, at least I hope. And I love the art. I also like backgrounds which are sometimes very simplistic but I prefer this over awful photographic-like backgrounds (Nana for example). About Hagu.. I know several people who look very young in their twenties and even thirties. It’s not uncommon that a girl looks 10 years younger than she is. Sure, it’s a bit on the edge here but we’re in manga, we must live with it.. ;-)
October 2, 2008 at 6:15 am
It’s true what you say about it being the world of manga. I’ve gotten pretty used to Hagu as of volume 3, and I don’t even really think of her being particularly young-looking except when they make jokes about it. It helps that she’s matured a lot and is way more outgoing now, and I’ve also gotten used to the two characters being in love with her since now there’s been a lot of focus on other relationships.
I’ve heard alternately that the movie is very bad and very good. I kind of want to watch it now that I’ve read more of the manga and like it so much, I have a feeling that I’ll just see the manga characters in it regardless of how they may be acting, and that would be fine by me.
October 2, 2008 at 12:27 pm
In a movie, I think Hagu-chan is just perfect (that’s why I can’t watch dorama, I can’t imagine another actress as Hagu) and also Takemoto (a guy from Arashi) is surprisingly good and Morita-san is also perfect. I saw anime beforehand and the movie is very different, of course, but I liked it none the less. Painting scenes are beautiful. Also, all the people I know who have seen it liked it. Bur sure, it doesn’t mean you will like it necesarilly.. ;-))
June 25, 2009 at 9:01 pm
Isometric and perspective drawing felt pretty mathematical to me, and I find it hard to imagine that your art school didn’t have a degree which required that.
I felt the same way about the first volume – a bit underwhelmed. Like you, I’ve also attended art school. The fact that you enjoyed the later volumes more gives me hope.
June 26, 2009 at 4:05 am
I’m not entirely sure how it is at other schools, but the only degree offered at the undergraduate level at mine was a BFA. You could also get a BA in Visual and Critical Studies (which took an extra year to complete) and a BIA for Interior Architecture. They had everything like sound, film, painting, sculpture, ceramics, holography, textiles, but all of it fell into the BFA category. It was a conceptual school, so technique and process were ignored in favor of student experimentation, and the classes were designed without a lot of basics so that, in theory, a painting student could take animation classes without having to go through 2+ years learning how to animate before being allowed to take the classes they wanted. The Visual Communication department I was in was the only department that required a portfolio review after the first year in order to advance, and as such, was about the only department that was off-limits to other students at the school. Strangely, there wasn’t an actual drawing department (two or three drawing classes were offered in the painting department), and in instances requiring technical skill as you pointed out, I believe the teachers encouraged the quick solution of finding an example and copying it rather than actually learning how to do it since it was the concept that was important in the end.
The later volumes of Honey and Clover are much better than the first, and things start to improve as early as volume 2. I’m not sure what it is that suddenly makes the characters more likable, but every volume is like spending a little more time with them, and they grow on you more and more.
June 26, 2009 at 10:26 am
Whereas the theme of my arts education was ‘only with good technique is it possible to unleash one’s full artistic potential’. Since I’ve been trained to think that way, I see lacking the technical training as a handicap.
On the other hand, technique does not have to come from a classroom – the ultimate source is practice, practice, practice. Training makes practice more efficient, but I imagine the dedicated students at any kind of art school practice a lot and will get much of the technique they need that way.
June 28, 2009 at 4:15 am
True, and that was one of the nice things about my school, too. The students that wanted to be there did go to the trouble of learning the technique and everything about what it was that they wanted to do. The classes were almost always critiques or open studios, so individual takes on technique incorporated into very different projects were always a pleasure to see. It also made it easy to spot slackers too, since it would be immediately obvious in a critique that they weren’t putting the same amount of effort into the work that others were in order to learn and develop technique. If it was an issue of confusion or not understanding, the critiques always helped immensely since everyone in the class would participate and offer suggestions.