SPOILER WARNING: DO NOT READ IF YOU STILL PLAN ON WATCHING THIS SERIES OR HAVEN’T FINISHED IT YET!!

Hana Nochi Hare
(花のち晴れ / Hana Nochi Hare)
MyDramaList rating: 7.0/10

Hello~!
It hasn’t been that long since my last review (which took me a long time to finish), but I just couldn’t wait to finish this as soon as I started it. After a short break after the first two episodes I pretty much binged the rest in a couple of days. It’s been a while for me since I watched a Japanese drama but this brought back all the reasons why I used to like them so much.

Anyhow! I guess it won’t be much of a surprise when I say that this was on my list because of Hana Yori Dango. I did have some doubts at first because I really wasn’t sure whether it would be just some lame remake of the original, but actually from episode 1 on it brought back all these old HYD feels and I just loved it. The cheesiness, the dorky romance, the anime-based characters… I didn’t realize how much I missed those. Japanese dramas have a completely different vibe from Korean dramas, and I realized that I want to start watching more Japanese dramas again. There’s a couple more on my list after this one, so I will stick to them for a while.

So, this story is a sequal to the classic Hana Yori Dango from 2005/6, it takes place quite a while after the F4 has graduated and the main setting is the same academy, Eitoku Gakuen. Ruling the school now is a 5-member group that calls themselves C5 (Correct5), whose members have devoted themselves to keep order and respect at the school and keep it the way it’s meant to be – for rich elite kids only. Whenever a student is found out of actually being poor, there is a tradition of ‘peasant-hunting’ in which the C5 comes after you and forces you to quit Eitoku. This also involves public bullying from the other students (the same way as it used to go in the F4 times).
The leader of this group is Kakuragi Haruto (played by Hirano Sho), the only son of a nation-wide conglomerate. His father has always treated him very harshly, always saying that he’s not worthy and he has no use for him if he’s not ‘perfect’, so Haruto has always been trying to gain his father’s approval.
The other members of the group are Maya Airi (played by Imada Mio), Taira Kaito (played by Hamada Tatsuomi), Narumiya Issa (played by Suzuki Jin) and Eibi Sugimaru (played by Nakata Keisuke).
On the other hand, we have Edogawa Oto (played by Sugisaki Hana), a girl from a formerly rich family whose father’s company went bankrupt and has caused them to lose all their wealth. Her father is now out on the sea trying to make some money while she and her mother live in a small house in a scrappy neighborhood. She’s trying hard to remain out of trouble at school, and not just because she doesn’t want to be peasant-hunted.
When she was still rich, she was betrothed to her childhood friend Hase Tenma (played by Nakagawa Taishi). Their mothers were best friends and before Tenma’s mother passed away, she made Oto promise to stay with her son forever and remain at Eitoku until she was 18 before they would get married.
So now Oto’s goal is to make it through her Eitoku days until she turns 18. But of course things don’t always turn out as you plan them and she gets involuntarily involved with Haruto as they both discover something about each other that can reveal something really big if made public. They decide to make a pact, but Haruto falls for Oto quite fast.
Also, while Haruto is the leader of Eitoku Gakuen, Tenma is the leader of rivaling school Momonozono so there is already enough rivalry between the two guys. With her feelings growing for both guys, who will Oto eventually choose? Will she go for the ‘hana’ or the ‘hare’?

I discovered something interesting about the titles of both HYD and HNH. I was looking for an English translation of ‘Hana Nochi Hare’, but it’s quite different from Hana Yori Dango, which is an actual expression in Japanese (although used as a wordpun for the series).
In Hana Yori Dango, the ‘hana’ is a direct reference to Hanazawa Rui, the second male lead in the series. The way ‘dango’ is written, in some indirect way leads to Domyouji, so the series is basically ‘rather Domyouji than Hanazawa’. In the case of Hana Nochi Hare, this exact same logic is used, where ‘hana’ is an indirect indication to ‘Hase’ and ‘hare’ refers to ‘Haruto’ – causing the series to be titled ‘From Hase to Haruto’.
The symbolic meaning of the original expression is ‘rather something you can eat (eg. dumplings) than something you can look at (such as a flower)’.
It’s clever that they came up with this expression and start to apply it to people: both Hanazawa Rui and Hase Tenma are the female lead’s first love interests because of how they look and the vibe/appearance they give off. They seem beautiful and gentle. And then there Domyouji/Kakuragi that bring all these extra things into their relationship and make her go for what’s inside rather than what’s on the outside.
Maybe this is old news for some, but it keeps amusing me. I think it’s really clever.

Anyways, although the premise of this story is a little different from Hana Yori Dango, the relationship between Haruto and Oto is almost a direct parallel to Domyouji and Makino’s. But with the little differences that made it not identical to the original, it remained interesting to watch. All the characters, no matter how much of a caricature they were, had a real and sympathetic side to them. Even though Airi was a complete psychopath in the first three episodes (and honestly I didn’t buy it for a second when she suddenly started acting nice), she turned things around for herself.
Same goes for Tenma’s stepmother Rie (played by Takaoka Saki), whom I was sure was going to turn out to be the evil bitch trying to break Oto and Tenma up, suddenly became nice as well, confessing that she did it all because she was jealous of Tenma’s deceased biological mother etc.
In these two cases, it came a bit unnatural to me because they depicted them as such bad characters in the beginning and then just dropped it.
Anyhow, I’m glad they did it with Airi because after that she became this great supportive friend to Oto.

I also liked the complexity of Oto’s feelings. Because it wasn’t just that she started liking the one more than the other – her feelings for Tenma were real until the end and she was willing to suppress whatever she felt for Haruto to be with him. When Tenma told her to go to Haruto at the end she actually cried because it hurt her so much to hurt him.
Despite these kind of feelings, it did bother me how much Oto took on herself and with that I mostly mean her habit of apologizing. I mean, it’s okay to apologize. But come on, she seemed to be turning every single thing that happened into something that might have been her fault. There were a lot of things in there that didn’t have anything to do with her and still she found a way to blame herself for it. I know this is very Japanese, but at a certain point it went too far. Sometimes you just need to think, ‘wait, no, this is actually not by fault/responsibility, I don’t need to apologize for it’.
And Tenma just had to keep repeating himself with, ‘why are you apologizing? I wish you wouldn’t apologize all the time’. I think it was actually pretty exhausting for him to keep repeating the same thing again and again but he still did it because he loved her so much. He loved her so much and he still looked out for her the most, he still considered her feelings above his own. He still told her he wouldn’t keep her by his side because he saw how much she liked Haruto.
Tenma was a really good character. Besides being portrayed as the knight in shining armor, he was just so incredibly sweet and way too considerate.
The sad thing in Asian dramas is that the second male lead is always the one who waits for the girl to settle her feelings and therefore always misses out in the end. It surprised me that Oto was so bend on staying with Tenma until the end and chose to suppress her feelings for Haruto (because why?).

Haruto was just like Domyouji, this clumsy but determined bean who has a talent for pushing through when he focusses on one thing at a time. I think they used that double date at the batting center as a great example to show this quality of his, he kept trying the hit the ball all day and at the end he managed to hit a homerun through pure determination, even though he couldn’t even hit a ball a few hours earlier.
They did a good job of showing both Oto and us viewers these sides to him, because these sides are what make us fall in love with the character. And the way he looked at Oto was just so heartwarming, whenever she smiled he would be like ‘heck yes she smiled, score!’
And I also liked how Haruto and Tenma also didn’t seem to genuinely hate each other. They were ‘forced to’ because of the rivarly between their schools, but Haruto was constantly looking up to how great Tenma was and Tenma was insecure of losing Oto to Haruto as well because he saw how straightforward he was about his feelings for her. I don’t know, there was a lot of humanity to be found in both their characters.

And can I also say that Haruto’s father was the biggest jerk that ever called himself a father in a drama ever? Honestly, the way he talks to his son as if he’s some sort of puppet or robot who just has to perform well or else he’s of no use to him – do you seriously consider yourself a father? I’m just sad Haruto’s mother wasn’t around, because now he grew up with this monster and it never even occurred to him that he didn’t need to be treated this way. He always just accepted the criticism and kept trying to prove him wrong. But that is no way to talk to your child. Your child needs to make mistakes in order to grow, you can’t walk up to your 8-year old after he got so nervous at a recital that he threw up and say ‘you’ve disappointed me, I don’t need you if you’re not a 100% perfect’. What the freck? That was so wrong.

I want to say something about the other C5 members apart from Airi, because I’ve already discussed her. I wish we could have seen some more personal development from the remaining members as well. Just as with Sojiro and Akira in the original series (although they had a second season for more background story), Kaito, Issa and Sugimaru kind of remained blandly in the background. They were sort of constant characters but they didn’t really contribute a lot. I think initially this had to do with the fact that it was explained that the C5 weren’t really ‘friends’ as much as they were ‘comrades’. Kaito was this guy stuck-up with the rules who initially cared more for the reputation of Eitoku Gakuen than for the fact that Haruto had feelings for someone. Issa (whose face strangely reminded me of Min Ho from SHINee?) was this typical flirty guy and Sugimaru was the athletic guy whose lines only consisted of quotes from famous athletes. Fun fact: you only ever see him lift weights and do push-ups, I don’t actually remember him doing any sports to prove that he’s an athlete, except perhaps for when his character is introduced. While Issa was a pretty direct reference to Sojiro (with the traditional ikebana thing and such), I’d actually thought that Sugimaru would’ve been the one helping out the most when it came to the sports match Haruto had to face against Tenma. Although, now I do remember him helping out in the judo department, my bad. But still, these characters are introduced as a stereotype in a specific field, but it never becomes more than the stereotype. I would’ve liked to see some more depth in these characters.

Another thing that I loved: the cameo appearances of the original HYD actors. I mean, I was already excited when Tama and the butler guy showed up, imagine my reaction when Rui and Sojiro appeared! I really liked how they brought back the whole nostalgic feel of the HYD universe by directly tying it to the original series. Of course it would’ve been the best to see Domyouji and Makino in it, but hey, you can’t have everything, I guess and this much already made me happy enough.

So, to talk a bit about the casting.
I’ve seen Sugisaki Hana in a few others dramas (although I don’t remember much in detail), but I think this was the first time I’ve seen her play this really sweet kind-natured girl. I remember her in Gakkou no Kaidan where she was a part of this C5 kind of group and was kind of a bitch (lol). And I know she’s been doing some voice acting (I still have to watch Mary and the Witch’s flower). Anyways, apart from her hairstyle in the series I don’t have a lot to comment on (I mean, come on, it looked like nothing). I think she had great chemistry with both her male co-stars, that’s why I was lowkey shipping both couples, lol.
I haven’t seen anything of Hirano Sho but I just found out he’s a member of an idol group and hasn’t actually done a lot of dramas. But I think he pulled off this part really well.
The last thing I’ve seen of Nakagawa Taishi is Minami-kun no Koibito, which I didn’t like so much. Even so he was one of the best actors in that series and I’m really glad to have seen him in this too, because his performance restored some more faith in me. I was able to reconfirm that he’s a pretty good actor and he showed some different sides as well. His character had more layers than in the other series, he wasn’t just the kind second male lead but he really struggled with everything that was going on, even though he didn’t want Oto to notice.

Someone I haven’t mentioned yet is the character of Nishidome Megumi, nicknamed ‘Megurin’ (played by Iitoyo Marie). She’s this super popular idol who falls for Haruto because he reminds her of this prince-like character in a otome game she’s hooked on – she does fall for him genuinely later. She was definitely a parallel to the character of Shigeru in the original series, this eccentric girl who also comes from a rich family who falls for Haruto and is strung into an engagement with him but eventually takes it upon herself to end their relationship because she sees how much he’s in love with Oto. I liked how likeable they made her character, even though everyone was annoyed with her in the beginning. But she was really precious, even when Haruto stumbled upon Oto and Tenma agreeing to go out with each other, she was actually crying because she felt so sorry for Haruto.

Oto’s mother (played by Kikuchi Momoko) was also a bean. She was this rich lady who was suddenly forced to live and earn money on her own and I felt really sorry for her because she was so unfamiliar with everything and she just wanted the best for her daughter. When she was reunited with Oto’s father in the end she was so happy – she was still this young girl inside. Not really a very mature mother figure, I would think, but she was really sweet.

Another nice side character was Konno-san, Oto’s colleague from the convenience store. Konno Arisa (played by Kinami Haruka) was this constant figure of familiarity for Oto. She was goofy and kind of an airhead, but she was the big sister she needed to fall back on whenever she didn’t know what to do anymore. I really liked her, even though I’m not sure if it was the writers’ intention to give her character such a meaning (maybe it’s just me, lol).

Lastly, my heart really went out to Kobayashi (played by Shiga Kotaro), Haruto’s elderly butler. He was such a precious man! They made him go through so many errands even though he was so old and frail and they made him proof-eat Megumi’s terrible food and everything and I was like ‘Why you do this to an old man??’ But he refused to throw away all of Haruto’s precious superstitious artefacts, and how he hid them all in his jacket was just precious. Also how he made him do the jigsaw puzzle with him and how he was like the father (or grandfather) Haruto never had… Loved him.

And I also loved Washington (lol). They are without a doubt selling this as merchandise somewhere. The little golden pig with the big belly who could suck away all your bad luck. He did a lot of good.

In the end, I think it was a really nice sequal, it tied together perfectly the original series and the next generation, therefore the sub-title ‘HanaDan Next Generation’ is well chosen. I think it also serves as a good series to re-introduce the new generation to the feeling and the story of the original Hana Yori Dango series (which will always be a classic in dramaland).
I realized that this story also didn’t have the focus on the difference in social class – whereas in HYD it was constantly about Makino being poor and Domyouji being rich and that being the reason they weren’t allowed to be together – this story stopped caring about that halfway through and just focussed on the relationships between all the people.
It was interesting to see how the story was moved to a more modern period. The whole bullying tradition at Eitoku seemed even more cruel because in this time and day it just seems barbaric and unreal to gang up on one person with the whole school. I mean, to see those guys actually hit a girl with no restraint and laughing it off – I was disgusted all the more because it was set in modern-day times. Ways of bullying also extended to the use of social media and non-stop spamming on Line – they even followed her home and filmed her mother to make fun of her for being poor – that’s just not human behavior. So that went a bit far.
But it didn’t go as far as it did in the original series, because Haruto was confronted with how crazy their approach was with the whole ‘peasant-hunt’ thing and he came clean about it and forbade it from happening again. The change in their behavior, where they learned from their silly actions, was very natural.
Even though it was only 11 episodes long, it didn’t feel rushed. They didn’t take too many plotlines on their plate and they wrapped everything up nicely. However, I really REALLY wanted to see a kiss between Oto and Haruto at the end. I mean, their chemistry was sizzling throughout the entire series and I was really looking forward to when they would finally both face their feelings for each other – but then all we got was this cheesy illusion in which Haruto sang a super corny song and the frame froze just before their lips touched. Oto had a wonderful kiss with Tenma, but they couldn’t show her and Haruto in their final romantic confrontation?
That was a bit of a bummer.
But I liked the series overall, it made me very happy and it made me realize that, when it comes to these kind of series, I really do miss Japanese dramas sometimes.

So prepare for some more Japanese drama reviews coming up!
I hope you liked my review, I’ll keep them coming 🙂

Bye-bye~!