The romantic relationships in Honey and Clover are every bit as messy as real life. And the most common complaint about the series is that there are too many stories. Most of the characters just don't get enough time or pages to bring their stories to satisfactory conclusions. Ultimately the author focuses on our leads, Takemoto and Hagu, who meet at the art institute and become fast friends, supported by older students like Yamamoto and Mayama, and their big brother of a professor, Hanamoto Shuuji. By the end of our journey, most of our friends have found love, and the rest are confident that it is better to have loved and lost...
Like young people falling in love, our mangaka doesn't get everything right. There are awkward subplots, and one or two plots too many. Like life itself, most of the story lines don't have neat and tidy endings. There will be tears and maybe outright sobbing at the end of the tale, and complaints that we did not have enough time with our friends. But there is the anime, and the live action drama, and there is always this manga, worth returning to whenever we need a little reunion party with our dear Hagu, and Takemoto, and Yamada, Nomiya, Leader... I miss you all.
