i don’t know why i keep talking about these things lately. anyway, i was having a conversation with a girl from my japanese class the other day and she started talking about how the taiwanese hanakimi drama was actually good and the japanese adaptation of the manga was actually pretty bad. and then we got into this whole conversation about how i really don’t like both sanos – especially the taiwanese guy (i wasn’t fond of oguri shun to begin with), because the first picture i ever saw of him was him flexing his muscles in speedos or something and i was very very traumatized. even if that wasn’t the case, i would never willingly watch either drama, no matter how good people claim they are, or how many naked boys show up throughout, or how much i actually secretly like horikita maki even after she annoyed the hell outta me in kurosagi (but that was her role’s fault, not hers).
i think hanakimi is pretty much my favorite manga of all time (even if it isn’t, it’s the best shoujo i’ve read ever). i love how it can actually make me laugh, how it’s a love story that somehow doesn’t go overboard (though volume 21 comes really close), how it’s fun and has just the right amount of angst and drama to be able to carry all the different subplots. i also love the art, not only the really really pretty boys (XD), but also the way nakajo draws her characters. (the only other artist whose art i adore as much is yazawa ai, but… my issues with NANA is another topic for another time.) and then i love the characters themselves – all of them, even mizuki, because while they’re all really idealistic, they’re also in a way believable (or maybe it’s just what i want to believe). i even have a small secret obsession with himejima, who is way too egotistic and strange to be considered normal, but i digress.
the point of this is, i honestly don’t think any adaptation is needed when the manga is this good. that’s why i never had the urge to watch either version: i would expect too much from the drama and end up with too little, and no amount of naked boys will make the prospect of watching it good enough. besides, it’s impossible for anyone real to be able to portray all these characters in hanakimi – horikita maki does a nice job with mizuki, but i don’t think there’s anyone who can be as hot as sano is supposed to be. i also happen to think nanba is really hot, and the people they got in both dramas to play him just make me cringe. (the same goes for. well, the rest of the cast. especially umeda, who’s supposed to be hot and pretty and gay and a grumpy bitter old man at the same time. and himejima, but he’s the most impossible to portray, so i understand that.) both nakatsus were done pretty well though, to tell the truth, but honestly, he’s the sort of comical character that could pretty easily be portrayed by the right people. i also have a beef with how the japanese-drama-hara-akiha is female. seriously. where the hell did that come from?
the other problem i have with hanakimi is that there is no fandom. i don’t understand. it’s a popular manga, even more so now that the tv stuff came out, but there’s NO FANDOM. WHY.
