Ranked #70

Honey and Clover

There is always a moment where you pause, reflect, and wonder where exactly your life is heading.

Is it down the street, past your neighbourhood, out of your town, far away from home and the things you are used to? Is it that spot right where your feet are grounded, around places and people you've known longer than you've really known yourself? Sometimes, you can feel like just getting on your bike and pedalling hard until your legs start to burn and you feel like you can't push yourself to go an inch further. Sometimes you don't even know where you're going, but you know deep inside that you just have to go. There are times when we just need to know how far we can really get without ever turning back.

Honey and Clover is a wonderful anime that exudes the very nature of being young, confused and not knowing where exactly life is going to take you or where you are going to carry yourself next.

The story follows the lives of an ensemble cast in art university. Mostly, we are given the narration of Takemoto Yuuta's life. Takemoto lives a nearly impoverished collegiate/starving artist lifestyle in a broken, dilapidated but cosy apartment complex with two other members of his university. Life suddenly changes from the ordinary when a younger girl named Hagumi comes into his life, and Takemoto experiences the wonders, joys and heartbreak of a first love, friendships, and finding himself.

Honey and Clover skilfully weaves through the lives of several people who are related to Takemoto through his school and friends, giving us bits of each of their experiences from the most mundane of activities to the pivotal moments in their lives that cause them to stop or cause their worlds to collapse within them. Watching them simply carry on every day, we are struck by the beauty in simplicity within the storytelling. An ordinary life can be just as important as an extraordinary life. Its significance is measured by the effect that is has on the individual rather than the wider world. Honey and Clover tells us a story of what it is to be a young adult struggling to act, think and feel less like a child and grow into maturity that is farther than a grasp away.

The art for Honey and Clover is interesting. It is soft, filled with a lot of pastel and gentle tones. The watercolours used reflect the gentility of this anime--it isn't robust, or vivid. It exudes a certain amount of calm through each colour. Also, the ways the characters blushed was rather noticeable; they had a healthy, pretty rhubarb colour in their cheeks rather than bright stereotypical pink or garish red. The OP theme song utilises the anime's only instance of claymation and stop motion filming, and it is rather entertaining to look at it. The artwork also has a lot of important recurring images interspersed within the anime. Take for instance, when something important has happened in Takemoto's life. The image of a wheel turning, pedalling forward appears, and he knows and we know that something inevitably, painfully, wonderfully important is about to happen to his life.

Honey and Clover has an incredible score. A lot of the anime has songs incorporated into the scenes. It felt as though it rightly fit there. We're listening to the music of these characters, the songs that best exude them and their youth and the things that matter the most to them. It felt like listening to the soundtrack of their lives at points. There is a strong acoustic score, light, melancholy piano work, and sombre, sweet strings that serve as background music. The OP and ED themes are truly great songs; the ED theme in particular is noteworthy, especially as you hear it playing alongside the image of a ferris wheel in the distance, giving off the effect of something raw, changing and heartfelt against something that moves continually, following a set path, never veering off its course. Again, the images and sound of this anime are a lot more than they initially let on.

Honey and Clover's strongest resource is its cast. Takemoto makes perhaps one of the better protagonists seen in a slice of life anime. He exudes the insecurities that any young person faces, from leaving home, to falling in love, and then figuring out who exactly he is and his purpose in life. Watching his confusion, his shyness, indecisiveness, melancholy, and joy is something to behold. He is a young man coming to terms with reality and the heavy responsibilities of his life. His characterisation is subtle and brilliant. He withholds things, keeps them inside, keeps them even from himself. His love for Hagumi is one of the most bittersweet tales of unrequited love ever seen in anime. And what makes it so much more staggeringly significant than other cases of unrequited love? Takemoto's personality. We know that he's passively suffering, that he wants to express himself, that he has strong feelings for the girl who means more to him than any other girl, but she does not know, other people do not know, and if they do, it is never spoken directly. Such is the beauty of the characterisation in Honey and Clover, that the character themselves subtly act and interact with one another.

The rest of the cast of Honey and Clover is made up of brilliant supporting characters. Hagumi herself is a quiet, artistic girl whose lack of interaction has left her shy and unable to socialise, though this is amended with her friendship with Yamada Ayumi, who is a source of great comedy and also great heartbreak within the anime. She too knows the burn of unrequited love, but unlike Takemoto, who selflessly tries to shut it all in, she is much braver, maybe even a little more selfish, and speaks and acts out about it. Mayama is the older, wiser character who acts as the big brother of the group of friends. He is reliable, trustworthy and kind, but there is something stirring within him that begs him to act a little irresponsibly, especially in the matters concerning the heart and his boss. Then there's Hanamoto, a professor at the university, Hagumi's relative and the friend of several members of the cast. He is level-headed, protective and secure, being the one of the few adults in the anime who is a rock for the younger characters, anchoring them with his stability and personal strength. There's the greatness of characterisation again--each character has their own personality and way of handling and dealing with similar situations.

Honey and Clover's show stealer is none other than Morita. He is eccentric, carefree and easy-going despite him being the eldest out of the younger group of friends. His zaniness often reveals a flaky side to him, and his life as a hedonist crashes to halt when Hagumi appears. Like Takemoto, he is deeply affected by the girl, but his immaturity never lets him understand why. He enjoys dressing her up, teasing her, but there is something he cannot understand about his interest in her. Morita is the most difficult character to get into due to his unpredictable nature and the mysterious lifestyle he leads outside of art school.

An anime series of this calibre is not to missed, especially if you enjoy slice of life, drama and romantic anime. It is filled with glorious moments that truly define what realistic anime about human emotion is all about. The complexities of the characters, their relationships, the humour, the bitterness and the beauty of everyday life is all seen here, and it is done rather magnificently.

Honey and Clover gives us a look into any one of our own lives and reminds us that things cannot go anywhere if we refuse to take that next step and never look back. Time does not stand still, and neither should life. We have to keep pedalling forward. read more

For many of us who watch anime, the medium can become something more than simply animated entertainment. Sometimes, we will find ourselves connecting on a deep emotional level with a character or characters in a show. Sometimes, the story will seem less like a fanciful escape and more like a reflection upon society or our individual lives. These are the kind of shows stick with us. They'll make us laugh, they'll make us cry, and sometimes they'll make us realize something new about ourselves. Honey and Clover is one of those kind of anime.

Based on the manga by Chika Umino, Honey and Clover follows the lives of five fledgling artists and their journey through the exciting and simultaneously terrifying world that we know as college. Through the eyes of these five students and observe them them growing, affected by the years of challenging experiences through which they have gained many cherished friendships and also come to know the agonies of unrequited love.

One of the most noticeable aspects of the series is the animation. The bold, hard lined style you see in most anime will not be found here. Instead, animation studio J.C. Staff takes a wholly different approach by using a faded watercolor palette and soft sketched character designs. The style may not appeal to everyone, but it best reflects the true nature of the characters and their setting. Aside from the color palette, the animation goes through various perspective changes so subtly that it can even make the simple shot of a single character interesting. In essence, it is like art in motion.

Naturally, the audio needs to work hand in hand with the visuals and Honey and Clover has quite a robust soundtrack. Many of the insert selections worked well to heighten and sharpen the on-screen emotions. However, not all of the songs fit each scene like a glove and at times it felt like maybe there might even be too many songs they had tried to fit in. Despite that complaint, the songs themselves were all very good, even the instrumental tracks, and “Waltz” may hands-down be one of the best ending themes of any anime ever.

One aspect that may be universally agreed upon about this series is that the characters definitely make the show. Honey and Clover, like many other slice-of-life series, falls back on the characters to help carry the series and all five of the main characters do so phenomenally. Throughout the series, the perspective changes so that we see, hear, think, and occasionally feel what any given character is going through at that time. Depending on a viewer’s past experiences in college or even just life in general, certain characters will become more appealing and easier to relate to than others. Someone who has never been torn between someone they love and a close friend who loves them will have a hard time relating to a character like Mayama. Also, while a character like Takemoto may be more accessible to the male audience, Ayumi may be a better focal point for women.

The most important thing to realize is that just about anyone who watches this show will find a character who they can directly relate to in some way or another. From Takemoto’s indecisiveness about his own life, Morita’s slacker appeal and almost unfair success, Hagumi’s torn desire between being a success she’s not proud of or a failure she can live with. These are not just character struggles, these are struggles we all go through and we begin to see these characters as our friends and companions as we make our way through our own ordeals.

As said already, Honey and Clover is a slice-of-life series, which means it could take place anywhere at anytime with anyone inside the world as already is. It is a balanced and yet lively blend of romance, drama, and comedy without going too overboard on any single element, much like life itself. The story moves forward very quickly, skipping weeks, even months at a time between episodes. This could be viewed as slightly unrealistic as viewers may believe the characters should change faster than they do. Regardless, the character development is there, and does proceed at a realistic pace relative to the length of the series. Though the ending is inconclusive, those who enjoyed it to the end can take solace in knowing a conclusive second season awaits them to tie up all the loose ends.

Much like how Azumanga Daioh is called “the anime you should watch if you’ve been through high school”, Honey and Clover is the anime to watch if you’ve been through college. Graduates who watch this will probably feel a good amount of nostalgia. At the same time, those of us who haven’t been through college or are still going through it will enjoy a realistic simulation of where we might be going and how we might deal with it. By empathizing with the characters and relating to them, you’ll come to see Honey and Clover as more than an anime; It's a life experience.



This review is the final result of a review team composed of members from the "Critics and Connoisseurs" club. The team members were:

Katsup - Contributed to and edited the review
Splitter - Wrote the review

Here are their individual scorings for the show:
Category - Katsup, Splitter

Story - 9, 9
Art - 10, 9
Sound - 9, 8
Character - 10, 10
Enjoyment - 10, 9
Overall - 10, 9

In the club wide poll held for Honey and Clover it received an average overall rating of 9.00 read more