Hachimitsu to Clover – Final: Meh.

Well, I just finished watching the final episode of the Honey and Clover dorama and boy was it….uh….okay….I guess.Really, in the end it turned out to be just okay. With some of the pieces they had in place for this series, they could have done a bang up job but there were a few things that kept this series from being really good. Unfortunately, they mostly have to do with Morita.

I do like Narimiya Hiroki , but he just did not pull off Morita’s character. I think it was alright that they changed the story around a little, but all of the characters remained fairly true to their original version with the exception of Morita. That is one of the things I really liked about the series…the rest of the cast. I didn’t think this live action version was the least bit funny – just arrogant, selfish, and annoying. I wonder if the producers felt like they couldn’t find someone that could pull off the character well enough so decided to change it. I could see the character really going to the dumps (even more) with an actor that tried to hard and just couldn’t do it.

In addition to the poor casting of the character, they ignored his story. With as much emphasis as they placed on his back-story in the second season of the anime, I am surprised that they left it out of the dorama. Perhaps if they didn’t try to tie in elements from the movie (which, by the way, I thought was horrible), they would have had more time to develop that part of the story. I suppose that with the change in the character, it was easier to just leave it out. After all, the back-story helped to explain his personality – which was totally different in the live version.

Aside from Morita, the rest of the cast was really excellent. They not only fit the characters in appearance, but also their unique personalities.  I read another review expressing a bit of disappointment with Harada Natsuki’s casting as Ayumi Yamada, but I really thought she pulled off the character well.

I’m not usually a big fan of the teeny-bopper idol types, so it’s probably no surprise that I especially liked Seto Asaka performance as Rika Harada.  I did find it odd that they changed the story from her losing her husband in a car crash and blaming herself and ending up with permanent disfigurement to her losing her husband in a freak plane accident and having a burn scar from hot water….yeah….hot water.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure it would hurt, but her frailty and lack of mobility is much easier to explain when she’s moving around with a crutch.  The live version just made it look like she didn’t like carrying heavy things.  I know it’s a little thing, but just seemed odd to me.

All in all, the series wasn’t great, but wasn’t terrible either.   If you are a hardcore fan of the anime like me, you’ll probably end up a bit disappointed.  It is still worth watching, if not just to make up for the bad taste left from the movie.  I just noticed that there is a Chinese version of Honey and Clover scheduled to start this month.  I’m not a big fan of C-Dramas, so I’ll probably pass on it (unless I get really bored).