Hana Yori Dango (anime)

To me the best thing about Hana Yori Dango is the love story. There is a great chemistry between Makino and Doumyoji (Tsukasa) and their personalities seem to mesh well. But I didn't fully like any of the major characters.

My biggest problem with shojou genre is the lack of strong female leads, but Makino showed great promise at the beginning. She is not needy, winy and clingy like many of the other shojou girls. She is strong, she fights back the bullies and stands up to the F4. But as the story progresses she shows a different side of her personality. I found her to be generally flaky and ungrateful. Even though she acknowledges everything that Tsukasa has done for her, she doesn't seem to ever appreciate it. She continues chasing after Rui for half of the show, and leading Tsukasa on. It only takes the entire series for her to finally realize whom she is in love with, and she doesn't even confess it at the end. Her reasoning is immature for the most part and it's really unclear why she would not accept her feelings for Tsukasa, even though it is pretty obvious that she is in love with him. It seems like the writers needed a reason to keep them apart, which made their actions seem forced.

I don't really know why Rui and Tsukasa ever became friends. They are absolutely different and the writers never really gave them any balance. Rui is too cold and emotionally detached. His mind always wanders and I cannot think of one reason why Makino would ever like him. Tsukasa is too easily excitable, violent and boorish. But I like Tsukasa. He is the only one who matured in the series. Even though he starts out as a jerk, he learns love and acts genuine and generous towards Makino. Later on he changes from a jerk to literally a life savior.

My biggest problem with the show is the continuous violence against women. Girls at school constantly get slapped for every little thing. When Tsukasa's older sister slaps him around it looks funny, but when Tsukasa does the same to girls, it looks ugly. The writers overdid it to such an extent that it just became disgusting.