Honey and Clover

Honey and Clover Volume 1 by Chica Umino (amazon)

I remember seeing plenty of buzz when it was announced that Honey and Clover was going to be added to the Shojo Beat line, and after reading it, I think the hype is mostly justified. I was intrigued by this title because although it runs in Shojo Beat here, in Japan it ran in a josei magazine. I’m always on the lookout for titles that skew a little older.
This manga details the trials of a group of Tokyo art school students. Takamoto lives in an apartment with some of his fellow students – senior Mayama who studies architecture and the mysterious Morita who has a habit of disappearing for several days at a time with no explanation. The boys are joined by their Professor Hanamoto’s cousin Hagu who starts at school as a freshman sculptor. Takamoto falls in love with Hagu at first sight, but he doesn’t do anything dramatic to act on his feelings. Morita also develops a crush on Hagu, but his way of expressing his feelings is to stalk her with a camera, forcing her to pose holding giant leaves and sit on a toadstool. He later sets up a web site featuring her as a koropokkur which earns him a tidy sum of money. The loose character-focused style of narrative reminded me a little bit of another josei title, Nodame Cantible.
I was surprised to see in a manga targeted towards women that there were so few female characters, and the main point of view in the story is Takamoto’s. The main female character Hagu remains a bit of a cipher. She’s presented as almost painfully cute, but the reactions of the male characters to her is what’s focused on instead of her own thoughts about attending art school for the first time. We see a little more about her in later chapters. Her talent seems to set her apart from other students, leaving her with few friends other than the ones she gains from her relative Professor Hanamoto. She does seem to like shoes an awful lot, which naturally marks her as a women of great understanding. I enjoyed the introduction of another girl, Yamada aka Ironman (she runs with her dog to school), but was a little disappointed that we only see her pining over Mayama while he has a crush on an older, unattainable woman.
The students struggle with finding proper nutrition and attending classes, but they still manage to find the time to work on art projects, set off fireworks in the summer, and get horribly drunk at a Christmas party. I enjoyed the slightly scratchy art style and the meandering narrative of Honey and Clover, so I’ll be checking out the next few volumes of this manga.