Honey and Clover 4
Posted: November 13, 2008 Filed under: Honey and Clover 8 Comments »Continuing the parade of girly series I like, here’s the newest volume of Honey and Clover.
While I don’t like the illustration style in general, sometimes certain things about the art will strike me just right. There’s a man-faced dog that the characters have around with them often that cracks me up everytime I see it because it’s face is just so… horrible-looking. Umino also uses it in a sidebar illustration where she says something about not wearing any makeup. The two go together so well. There’s also an excellent panel of three boys eating Yamada’s cooking that made me laugh out loud. Her cooking is, of course, horrible, but the boys don’t want her to know that it’s inedible. They are making the absolute most perfect faces while they force it down.
The humor in general continues to be pretty top-notch. My favorites this volume were Hanamoto-sensei and Mayama, who trade bad jokes back and forth a couple times. The writing and translation is such that these come across as intentionally bad jokes, which impressed me because I imagine it being sort of difficult to keep jokes like that from falling flat.
Much of the focus this volume is on Mayama and his relationship to Yamada. I like Yamada a lot, and it makes me feel bad that she’s got this unrequieted love… but I also like watching her dote on Mayama, too. Mayama takes up some sort of father figure role here, where he tries to protect her from potential suitors. Part of me likes this side of him, and the other part of me wants him to realize that he can’t let her go and have some sort of huge, overblown climax and romantic dénouement. But then again, there’s always a part of me that roots for the latter.
Lots of time is spent learning about Mayama’s job, too, and he and Yamada wind up working together a lot as a result. I like seeing the character’s skills put to use a lot too, since what people do is not often a focus in series like this. Here, it’s one of the main focuses. Poor forgotten Takemoto is still trying to find out what he wants to do himself, and in the meantime he winds up staying the summer in Mayama’s room, which makes for a few pretty funny scenes throughout the volume.
My favorite chapter was one where Yamada and Hagu spend a lot of time getting dressed up in kimonos and meet the boys at a summer festival. The kimono-fitting parts are really good themselves, but at the festival itself is the beginnings of Mayama’s fatherly side. Afterwards, Yamada reflects on the evening and sort of sums up her feelings in two very beautiful ways.
I just don’t know what I like best about this series. It’s got fantastic writing, great characters, a wonderful sense of humor, and… well, it does almost everything right. I never know what to expect next, so reading it is sort of good in that way since I’m not constantly looking and guessing ahead. I enjoy it immensely.
This was a review copy provided by Viz.
mayama is always the type of guy i fell for. i so totally feel for Yamada. sincerely, those two characters and their other relationships are the main reason i love this series.
Yeah, after this volume I’m kind of rooting for the two of them. I’m still torn on the whole Hagu/Takemoto/Morita relationship thing since I’m not entirely sure who I want to win… plus, there wasn’t a lot said about it this time. I’m very much looking forward to Morita’s return.
i’m not! Morita is a pain! he will never love Hagu as much as takemoto does! he may actually care for Hagu, but he’s too shady of a guy. i know he’s great comedic relief. but takemoto would do anything for Hagu, his quiet support, endless paitence, the way he respects her and her boundries. he’s just such a better choice for hagu. i hope the movie was filmed while the series was still in progress…have u seen the live action film? i can’t wait for them to bring the anime over. i’ve only watched the first episode..but it was very funny. i’m dying for the NANA anime now as well too. i watched the frist live-action film. it even got my husband into NANA. and he’s not really at all into shojo. he’s more the lonewolf and cub/monster/drifting classroom type.
Haha, I’ve been trying to get my roommate to read Nana forever. He read Paradise Kiss and liked it, but even when he asked me for a good girls series, he turned me down when I tried to give him Nana. He read Venus in Love instead. I was so disappointed.
I haven’t seen any of the live action movies or anime for Honey and Clover. I’m interested in both, but I kind of want to wait until I finish the manga now for fear of either of them spoiling the rest of it for me. I kind of like it because I literally cannot tell where it is going next, and having some idea might ruin the fun.
WOW. Venus in Love, is like, Lame, compared to NANA. i mean, i have volume 1 and was intrigued by the love triangle, that i did not see coming. but still. wow.
yeah…i would say more but, i don’t want to ruin anything. the movie, was nowhere near as good as the anime, or the manga though.
Was your friend happy with his choice?
Haha, no, I think he barely got through the first volume. He’s not used to reading shoujo manga though, so most of his complaints were about how he couldn’t tell where the characters were supposed to be or how much time had passed between scenes, things I think you either learn to read or pass over the more shoujo manga you read.
I haven’t given up on getting him to read Nana, though. I just read the newest volume, so now my drive has been renewed.
Honey and Clover is so awesome that start I crying every few dialogues. It’s funny how I think Morita’s perfect for Hagu everytime Takemota thinks about them? I just wish Morita didn’t disappear so much. It’s so hard explaining to my friends why Morita does the things he does. They think he is a jerk.
Haha, that’s what I love about Morita the most. He does things that are kind of crazy and seem selfish, but always turn out to be for someone else. It is kind of hard to explain why he’s so great to people who haven’t read the series, though.