Hana Yori Dango
Oct. 30th, 2005 08:23 amMy favorite character of any series is always the main character, and my favorite pairing is always the main pairing if there is one, and yesterday when I finished Hana Yori Dango (manga) instead of my midterm essay (*helpless sob*) I relized why. It's because if I don't like them, I don't read the series.
It's that simple! I don't like the main characters, I walk! Hana Yori Dango makes the first exception (I will blame this on extreme stress and work-avoidance, otherwise I probably would not have finished it) -- I did like Domyoji by the end, but only at the end, ie volume 34 (of 36) by which point he had become a different person.
( Spoilers and me taking things too seriously )
My number one beef with shoujo manga is the idea that total dependence is a good thing(*). Numbers two and three are that the heroine always ends up with the first guy she shares a panel with and that all love interests must be childhood friends, even when one of them doesn't realize it. Hana Yori Dango sidsteps these two very neatly.
I feel like I'm writing both too much and not enough about this manga, which I *did* like no matter what it sounds like. But here's something that happened while I was reading: volumes 32 and 33 were missing, which meant there was a sudden jump from Domyoji in the hospital to a totally different Domyoji and Tsukukushi happily out on a date. I blinked, blinked some more, thought about it for a little while and concluded that this was what had happened in the missing two volumes:
( Cut for length )
(*)Exceptions: Kodomo no Omocha (that's not why Sana likes him), Kare Kano (that's not why Miyazawa likes him plus Arima hides it really well), Please Save My Earth (...LOVE THIS SERIES. Hey![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
memlu and falxumbra, if you are really anxious to read it there is a full-series bittorent here. And then after you've read the scans you should BUY THE OFFICIAL TRANSLATION, because it's one of those rare ones that gets all of the jokes and all of the references, and has notes about the meanings of flowers at the end.)
It's that simple! I don't like the main characters, I walk! Hana Yori Dango makes the first exception (I will blame this on extreme stress and work-avoidance, otherwise I probably would not have finished it) -- I did like Domyoji by the end, but only at the end, ie volume 34 (of 36) by which point he had become a different person.
( Spoilers and me taking things too seriously )
My number one beef with shoujo manga is the idea that total dependence is a good thing(*). Numbers two and three are that the heroine always ends up with the first guy she shares a panel with and that all love interests must be childhood friends, even when one of them doesn't realize it. Hana Yori Dango sidsteps these two very neatly.
I feel like I'm writing both too much and not enough about this manga, which I *did* like no matter what it sounds like. But here's something that happened while I was reading: volumes 32 and 33 were missing, which meant there was a sudden jump from Domyoji in the hospital to a totally different Domyoji and Tsukukushi happily out on a date. I blinked, blinked some more, thought about it for a little while and concluded that this was what had happened in the missing two volumes:
( Cut for length )
(*)Exceptions: Kodomo no Omocha (that's not why Sana likes him), Kare Kano (that's not why Miyazawa likes him plus Arima hides it really well), Please Save My Earth (...LOVE THIS SERIES. Hey
memlu and falxumbra, if you are really anxious to read it there is a full-series bittorent here. And then after you've read the scans you should BUY THE OFFICIAL TRANSLATION, because it's one of those rare ones that gets all of the jokes and all of the references, and has notes about the meanings of flowers at the end.)