[Categories: Anime Reviews]
Honey and Clover I episode 1: … I just saw the moment when a person falls in love for the first time. Oh boy…
Since I’ve heard so much about the hugely popular Honey and Clover II I decided to do what I should have done months ago and check out the first series. By its very nature Honey and Clover isn’t exactly action-packed but it made me laugh more than I have done in days.
It achieves the crucial thing of taking ordinary daily events - be it an impromptu dinner party featuring cut-price croquettes, oversleeping on a school day or sharing stories at college - and makes them charming, compelling and laugh-out-loud funny. Sure, not a great deal happens in the great scheme of things but ep #1 makes a neat job of introducing the main characters and by the end of this instalment alone I had a decent grasp on their respective personalities and ways of behaving.
What makes Honey and Clover work more than anything is that we’ve (almost) all been there and met these people: who hasn’t arrived late for a lecture in the wrong room? Who has waited for payday just to get dinner? Who knows someone who flunked last year’s course because they overslept? The most mundane and down-to-earth situation onscreen can be touching, tense or hilarious because the viewer can relate to it. It’s a simple idea but this is one of the finest examples of how such a straightforward concept makes for such great entertainment.
So, what’s not to like about this series? My main concern is that I might take a dislike to Hagumi’s character because of my loli aversion but like the rather grating op theme I’m not going to split hairs when the overall production is so impressive. The music is pleasant, the artwork’s great and the script moves effortlessly from thoughtful to slapstick and back again. No wonder the fansub community is making so much of a fuss over it!
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