Boys Over Flowers

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|} Boys Over Flowers (In Japanese known as Hana Yori Dango 花より男子) is a Japanese manga series written by Yoko Kamio.

It was serialized in the bi-weekly anthology magazine, Margaret, which is aimed at high-school-age girls. The manga series ran continuously from October 1992 to September 2003, and has been collected into 36 volumes. Recently, the series has started to be released in a deluxe edition (larger pages and with all the color artwork from the magazine reproduced).

As of this writing, the story has been adapted in Japan into an anime TV series, a live-action television drama, an animated one-shot OVA, and a live-action movie. It has also served as the basis for a live-action drama TV series from Taiwan called Meteor Garden, which has spawned off an idol-singer group, F4. Also, an all-new Japanese live-action drama series premiered on October 2005 on TBS. The live-action drama ended in December 2005, spanning 9 forty-minute episodes (with an hour-long final episode special).

As of Summer 2003, both the manga and anime TV series are available in English in the United States and Canada from VIZ Media under the title, Boys Over Flowers.

Contents

1 Story
2 Setting
3 Characters
4 References
5 External links

Story

Tsukushi Makino (牧野つくし Makino Tsukushi), a working-class girl, attends an elite elevator school called Eitoku Academy, populated by children from rich, high-society families. She is the "weed" of the school surrounded by all the rich kids including the "Flower" Four (F4). The F4 leader and son of the wealthiest, most powerful family in Japan, Tsukasa Domyoji (道明寺　司 Dōmyōji Tsukasa), takes an interest in Tsukushi, because she is the only girl at Eitoku who doesn't fawn over him. However, his hot-headed nature and bullying ways are originally a major turn-off for Tsukushi, who has her sights set on someone else.

The violinist Rui Hanazawa, Tsukasa's best friend, becomes Tsukushi's first serious romantic interest. He is a quiet and cold guy, but he has a soft spot for his close friend and Tsukushi's idol, the model Shizuka Todou, whom he harbored feelings for since childhood. His character is a bit complex, and always has changing feelings for Tsukushi, but above all cares about her in a friendly way.

Over the course of the series, however, Tsukushi's feelings evolve, and she begins to appreciate the degree of change that occurred in Tsukasa once he fell in love with her. He becomes fiercely loyal to Tsukushi and believes in her beyond all doubt, and slowly gets her to see him in a different light. The physical obstacles and emotional challenges of their rocky high-school courtship form the basis of the story. Other themes include Tsukushi's attempt to fit in at the school, the problems of her family's lifestyle and income, and the decadent lifestyle of upper-class Japanese girls.

The OVA episode, known as Hana Yori Dango: The Movie, changes things considerably by recasting all of the characters in new roles and is effectively set in an alternate universe. The movie, which is only slightly longer than the average anime episode, casts Tsukushi as an aspiring dancer that lives in a small trailer attempting to win a role in a large stage production. The other characters take on similar roles such as performers and stage crew. The film is reminicent of the American film Flashdance which similarly features a blue-collar woman attempting to work her way into an upscale dancing school.

Setting

Modern-day Tokyo, Japan is the main setting, with a focus on its current social flaws and economic problems. Atami, Japan; Paris, France; New York, New York, United States; and Canada are also featured in the story. All of the characters are normal humans, and most of the main cast are high-school students in the 10th to 12th grades (ages 16 to 18).

Characters

References

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen has been cited by fans as a possible inspiration because of the similar central story of two headstrong people in love separated by class differences and clashing personalities.

The series' title, Hana Yori Dango (literally "Boys before Flowers"), is a pun on a Japanese saying, "Food before Flowers" (花より団子, more exactly "dumplings rather than flowers"). "Food before Flowers" refers to the fact that food, being more practical and more necessary to survival than flowers, a pretty trifle, is the real reason most people today attend Hanami. The author furthers the pun by changing the kanji of the title to mean "Boys over Flowers", implying that boys, like food, maybe are a necessity to life rather than a luxury like flowers. However, it is up to Tsukushi to decide whether she needs the boys of the F4 (F referring to flowers, part of the pun) or not.

External links

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