Hachimitsu to Clover

Yuuta Takemoto, a sophomore at an arts college, shares a cheap apartment with two seniors—the eccentric Shinobu Morita, who keeps failing to graduate due to his absenteeism, and the sensible Takumi Mayama, who acts as a proper senior to Takemoto, often looking out for him.

Takemoto had not given much thought to his future until one fine spring day, when he meets the endearing Hagumi Hanamoto and falls in love at first sight. Incredibly gifted in the arts, Hagumi enrolls in Takemoto's university and soon befriends the popular pottery student Ayumi Yamada. Ayumi is already well acquainted with the three flatmates and secretly harbors deep feelings for one of them.

Hachimitsu to Clover is a heartwarming tale of youth, love, soul-searching, and self-discovery, intricately woven through the complex relationships between five dear friends.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Morita, Shinobu Main

Ueda, Yuuji Japanese

Takemoto, Yuuta Main

Kamiya, Hiroshi Japanese

Yamada, Ayumi Main

Takahashi, Mikako Japanese

Hanamoto, Hagumi Main

Kudou, Haruka Japanese

Mayama, Takumi Main

Sugita, Tomokazu Japanese

Nomiya, Takumi Supporting

Hamada, Kenji Japanese

Hanamoto, Shuuji Supporting

Fujiwara, Keiji Japanese

Harada, Rika Supporting

Ohara, Sayaka Japanese

Lohmeyer-senpai Supporting

Yamadera, Kouichi Japanese

Leader Supporting

Aono, Takeshi Japanese

Takase, Atsuya Producer

Kasai, Kenichi Director, Episode Director, Storyboard

Aketagawa, Jin Sound Director

Nagai, Tatsuyuki Episode Director

Reviews

May 24, 2008

TheCriticsClub

Recommended

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

Reviewer’s Rating: 9

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Nov 6, 2013

ktulu007

Mixed Feelings

Honey and Clover is a romance series created by manga artist Umino Chica. In 2005 it was adapted into an anime in 2005 by J.C. Staff. The same studio responsible for Nodame Cantabile and Aoi Hana, which is somewhat promising. As well as Shakugan no Shana, which is pretty discouraging. The only way to see whether this stands with their good romances or their creepily codependent rubbish one is to watch it. So let's check it out.

The story opens with our protagonist, Izaya (yes, I do know that's not his name, but the characters in this were so dull I never learned their actual ... names, even over the course of 24 episodes, so I'm going to refer to them by the names of more interesting characters played by the same actors) anyway, Izaya is spending some time at his apartment with a couple seniors from the same art University, the studious Chrono and the held back slacker, Jean Havoc. Reno, their teacher, brings in a young relative of his, Sayu. The story from their focuses on their everyday lives with particular emphasis on the love triangle involving Izaya, Havoc and Sayu or Chrono's unrequited love for the older Ridget while he tries to deal kindly with Amy's unrequited feelings for him. The biggest problem with the series is just that it's mind numbingly dull. It relies on you caring about the mundane lives of the characters, more on why that doesn't work in the next paragraph, although I'm sure you can figure it out. Most of the story focuses on soap operaesque romance elements and not the entertainingly cheesy type of soap opera in which the main character's evil twin has an affair with his mother-in-law and she thinks it was him or some such absurdity. This is the more mundane variety in which the situation is ordinary but over-blown. In addition to that, everything drags. There's a long scene about the characters looking for the interesting plot ideas... I mean a four leaf clover. The scene ultimately has no impact on anything else that happens either.

The characters in this are bland and one-dimensional. You'd think that a series with a clear character focus would take some time to flesh its characters out and develop them, but Honey and Clover has no time for such things. Instead, it picks a focus trait for each character, whether they're childish, uncertain, slackers or whatever and it never lets them grow or deviate from that. The biggest example is Havoc who gets an easy opening towards the end for some mild development only to elect to remain within the status quo because... developing slightly would interfere with his one character trait.

The art in this is... okay. The faces are drawn kind of oddly. They always look like their mouths are open. The scenery is fine. One thing that is odd is that Sayu's supposedly brilliant art is just incredibly mediocre. It could be a deliberate statement on how mediocrity frequently does get praised as “brilliant” for inexplicable reasons, but its more likely that they were trying to make art that looked brilliant and that's what they came up with.

The voice acting is passable. The actors certainly don't give their best performances, but they also don't have much to work with. They still all manage to do their jobs adequately. The music tends toward the soft and peaceful. It functions for the show's aesthetic.

The ho-yay factor is a 2/10. Havoc gets some homo-erotic scenes and there's one rather disturbing scene involving two brothers. The strangest part of that scene is that it has absolutely no purpose nor is it mentioned again. They could've left it out and lost nothing. So... they deliberately hinted at incest for no reason.

Honey and Clover is not a bad anime. It's just boring and, mostly, inoffensive. It feels like a creative writing project from a student who's about to graduate and doesn't care anymore. I can really only recommend it if you really like watching dull people go about their lives or you're suffering from insomnia. It may very well bore you to sleep. Final rating, 5/10. Next week, Bokusatsu Tenshi Dokuro Chan. I know, it's not the first thing in the queue, but everything else is too long to finish in one week.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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Jul 17, 2016

kdbernie

Not Recommended

Funny

Honestly I only came here because I have only written positive reviews so I felt like ranting about an anime that I thought sucked that apparently every other person on the planet loved.

Honey to goddamn Clover...fuck. Just typing the name irritates me. This review will be short and contain LOADS OF SPOILERS, so stop reading if you do not want that.

Anyway, this whole anime for me was one giant what the fuck.

So I love romance anime, but I kind of only want the romance anime to go well, which may not be a great trait to have but oh well I'm a sap ... for happy endings. OF WHICH THIS ANIME HAS NONE!

So you got this guy Takemoto, immediately falls for this 8 year old girl who, surprise is actually like 20-something and an art prodigy attending his college. My dude Takemoto is the nicest guy in the fuckin world! And he gets NOTHING. NOTHING I TELL YOU!

So he is just being his chill self, helping Hagu, or whatever tf her name is, get accustomed to life and the school and everything and she's like "oh thank you I really appreciate it." And here I am thinking "Okay my boy gettin that 8-year-old-lookin puuuussssss"

But then she sees this guy Shinobu's sculpture or some shit like that and meets him for the first time and BAM, she's in love with him. Shinobu falls in love with her too like instantly and thus the love triangle is established. So what happens next? Shinobu disappears for like 2 months (pretty sure I'm being over dramatic here but it was a long time).THE WHOLE TIME, my bro Takemoto is still being the best fuckin' friend to Hagu, doin' everything for her. Helpin' her when she's down. AND SHE GIVES NO FUCKS ABOUT HIM!

Then Shinbou comes back and Hagu is all about him and they kiss and it's bullshit. Then at the end Takemoto is like "I'm moving because I'm super depressed thanks to you guys, fuck all yall" and they are just like "Who tf is Takemoto again?"

Seriously this dude was so poorly treated. I have never seen someone go from Goku to fuckin' Krillin so quick.

Then there is this other love story between AGAIN this really supportive, amazing girl, and this dude who's in love with his terminally ill boss or something. EVEN THE BOSS IS LIKE "Dude, this chick is amazing and wants you so bad and supports you so much." And he's like eh, fuck her.

I said this would be a rant and I got pretty into it by the end there. Anyway, TL:DR,

The characters treat each other so fuckin shittily and in the end it's one of those "Everyone was happy because they realized how important friendship is and they all got closure" Oh bull-fucking-shit. Takemoto probably offd himself a week later, and everyone else was still probably depressed because nobody ended up with the person that they were in love with.

Oh, except the chick who moved on from the dude in love with the terminally ill chick. THAT GIRL WAS THE ONLY SANE ONE! And she was the only reason I kept watching. Fuckin; hated Hagu man...hated that bitch.

Reviewer’s Rating: 3

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