All the Hana Yori Dangos...

[dangermousie]

Every drama fan (and some long-suffering friends of said fans :D) knows the story of Hana Yori Dango, the most best-selling shoujo manga ever. Strong-willed but poor girl, pigheaded but rich guy, total animosity, then total attempts to win her over.

Now that the Korean Hana Yori Dango is about to hit the air, I thought I'd talk a little about previous adaptations and which one is my favorite.

I have seen 3: the anime; Meteor Garden (the 2001 Taiwanese adaptation), and Hana Yori Dango, the recent jdrama.

My favorite? I know it's not a popular opinion, but it's Meteor Garden hands-down.



Why?

1. Barbie Hsu as Shan Cai, that version's Makino. I thought Inoue Mao did an excellent job as Makino in the jdrama, but Barbie Hsu is my favorite drama actress. I don't mean "Taiwanese drama," I mean "any drama, period." I think she imprinted on me, really, as the first two dramas I have ever watched starred her: Mars and MG. And the characters in the two were polar opposites and yet she was convincing as both. Barbie is a force of nature really, and sorry, much as I like you Mao, you can't compare!

2. The F4 look. There is no doubt that Matsumoto Jun (Domyouji in jdrama) is a miles better actor than Jerry Yan who played the role in MG. However. When I first tried the jdrama, I had to turn it off ten minutes in because "what? This short, hideous troll is Domyouji?" Now, MatsuJun grew on me immensely, but despite it all he is so physically wrong for Domyouji it's kind of surreal. It nearly taxed my disbelief to breaking point to believe he could do serious damage to anybody. I could knock out his scrawny, nail-polish-wearing self, myself. Jerry Yan, OTOH, looks like Domyouji should look: tall and hot and like someone who can punch you out. In general, I find Taiwanese F4 hotter than the Japanese F4, none of whom were appealing in the first season and while some of them got hot in the second season (Matsuda Shota and Oguri Shun) still...Oguri Shun is hot, but can he really be compared to Vic Zhou, to me the most beautiful drama actor in Asia?

3. Longer running time = more gradual development. Especially the first season of jdrama, which was 9 eps of 45 minutes each, seemed sort of too sudden in jumping around. MG was 20+ hours of drama. Domyouji was a total idiot and jerk! He has to work long and hard to even earn Makino's tolerance, let alone love.

4. MG stuck to the manga really faithfully. Since I love the manga, that is a huge plus. They fit so much more stuff in! And don't even get me started on the whole Sakurako/Junpei conflation in the jdrama! I feel cheated there is no hot-springs scene!

5. I liked the Soujiro/Yuki subplot a lot better in MG. For one thing, the actors had more chemistry, but for another because it wasn't entirely one-sided.

6. ANGST. If you have me friended for more than 2 hours, you know my love for fictional angst. The jdrama was a sandwich, the twdrama a three-course meal.

Now, MG has plenty of flaws. The entire budget must have been $10! Also, the F4 boys are learning acting on the job (some of them mastered the art since, and some haven't). But I still prefer it.

As to the anime, it was my intro into the Hanadan world and I do like it a lot, but the artwork is probably the most horrendous I have ever seen in an anime. Bonus points for being the only version where Rui and Shizuka end up together!

Will the Korean version overtake my love for Meteor Garden? I don't know. Koreans are really good about the angst in their dramas, and the cast looks both appropriate and able to act at the same time, but the production company previously did the disaster that is Goong S, and Go Hye Sun might turn out a very good actress (though she still looks too old!) but it would take a miracle to dislodge Barbie Hsu from my heart. We will see!

Comments

[miss-dian.livejournal.com]

Agree with you on all counts :) Btw. This isn't the first time I saw that MG pic, but this time around, wow, to me Barbie just looks too skinny here.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

She is pretty tiny as is, but you are right, she is very skinny there!

[kitsune714.livejournal.com]

Hey, at least someone's defending Meteor Garden, flaws and all -- I'll always have a soft spot for it, but you know, I like both versions for different reasons.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

I like both too, but I wish poor MG got more love...

[hope-fuleigh.livejournal.com]

I generally prefer the Japanese version, but the moments that MG did right, it REALLY did them right. A lot of the Domyouji character grown, which slowly transforms him from the worst person imaginable that you hate, to someone you root for, happens in MG that just isn't in the j-drama (one of my favorite moments was when she was being beaten up by a group of boys, after the pictures when everyone thought she'd "cheated" on him and he comes up and smacks them all down and then scoops her up and is all "I don't care, just tell me you didn't do it and I'll believe you!" - proved to me that he had some redeeming qualities).

Plus, Meteor Garden has ALL the kissing.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

everyone thought she'd "cheated" on him and he comes up and smacks them all down and then scoops her up and is all "I don't care, just tell me you didn't do it and I'll believe you!"

Oh, I really loved that scene!

[boycottbananas.livejournal.com]

I pick the Japanese version over the Taiwanese one just because I haven't watched MG yet. XDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD;;

4. MG stuck to the manga really faithfully. Since I love the manga, that is a huge plus. They fit so much more stuff in!

This is why I loved Hua Yang Shao Nian Shao Nu a lot more than Hana-Kimi: Ikemen's Paradise. x_x

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

I preferred tw-HK too. I got pretty bored with the Japanese version, actually.

[boycottbananas.livejournal.com]

I still wanna go crazy when people say that the Japanese one was better than the Taiwanese one. x_x

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Grrr, Japanese one was just series of skits!

[boycottbananas.livejournal.com]

I never thought of it that way, but it was, wasn't it? x_x I think I probably watch the first 6 or 7 episodes, but from what I remember, there wasn't really a connecting plot to it, was there? ._.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Nope, not really.

[salimbol.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm so with you on this one! My fondness for the j-drama evaporated a long time ago (it was one of the very first doramas I ever saw, and to give it its due, it kind of opened the dorama floodgates for me ;-), but I still enjoy watching Meteor Garden, however large its flaws are writ. The acting has certainly never bothered me, even though (Barbie aside) most of it isn't great; to me it's 'shaky but sincere' (MG) versus 'polished ham and cheese' (HYD), and I prefer the former. And as you say, it retains all the gradual character development - AND the sexiness!
I was reading through some old posts on the dramabeans forum the other day, and found something that helps explains why the HYD j-drama bothers me somewhat: one of the posters called it as much a 'meta-dorama' as anything else. By her theory, the focus is therefore as much on the meta-fictional stuff as anything else: the glitz, the 'cult' of the JE boys and the other famous actors (and increasingly, by the second season, of all the main young actors in the show), the sheer money poured into it, and the high 'wink-wink' factor. Now that's an interesting phenomenon in its own right, but by the time the movie came out I could find almost nothing in it that actually felt like HYD to me. And that makes me cross ;-).
As for the anime: I like it for its closeness to the manga, but it's soooo slowly-paced that it drives me crazy. And I find the tone of it really off; to me HYD just isn't a story that suits pastels and classical music. Part of me would kind of like them to animate it now, taking up from say Volume 19 of the manga (where this series left off); I wonder how they'd treat it now?

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

It's true, HYD-jdrama is very tongue-in-cheek about a lot of it, and the manga, with all its poking fun at Domyouji or what not, was always very sincere.

I enjoyed the jdrama immensely when it aired, but it doesn't have nearly as much rewatchability value for me as MG: I think in a lot of ways the characters of MG feel more organic and real. Jerry Yan might not be the world's greatest actor, but the way the character is written, he comes across as real to me: someone I could pass on the street. The same is not true with MatsuJun's version: he is rather like a human cartoon. Also, slow character development appeals to me.

(Some of it is less highbrow and more shallow: I find Taiwanese F4 pretty gorgeous but the Japanese one is much too young, skinny, and feminine-looking, by and large, for my tastes).

The anime? Pastel and classic music were the most bizarre thing. I almost gave up on the anime twice, the style so didn't work for me.

[salimbol.livejournal.com]

One thing I find when reading the manga and watching MG are how naturalistic the leads' interactions feel. They take the time to develop their relationships, and while the manga-ka especially has an eye for the absurd, you certainly do feel that they're real people. I agree with you on that point 100%!
And yeah, the Taiwanese F4 are smoking hot, especially in comparison to the Japanese boys. This is part of the reason, of course, that I am looking forward to the k-drama version with such high hopes: more hot men *naughty grin*. Xiaobellsa and I have been totally drooling over the behind-the-scenes stuff with Lee Min-ho (who has a very sexy speaking voice in addition to being tall and good-looking. Oh, how shallow I can be!)
Having said all that, part of me still thinks that the j-drama version is quite a good way to get people into doramas :-).

[alexandral.livejournal.com]

I also prefer "Meteor Garden", and by far. May be because I watched it first but mostly because whoever hard I tried I could not feel any attraction to Matsumoto Jun and I still don't have , he is one of the actors I find plain ugly. Also I agree that the rest of F4 is much hotter too, though I like Oguri Shun more than Vic Zhou in that role.

Also I think I like Barbie's version more, she was so cheerful!

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Yes, I think MatsuJun is a very good actor, but I don't find him hot: too scrawny and young, not to mention his face is rather odd.

I like Oguri Shun much better in the second season. In the first all I could do was concentrate on the tortured hair.

[aliterati.livejournal.com]

Aw, I love the anime! Pastels and classic music and all (and I did not thing the artwork was so horrendous--though it was inconsistent sometimes)! I know that it's a read odd aesthetic for an anime, but that's what I loved so much about it--it was so unique, and so different from anything I had seen before. And I think the muted style helped me take the story that much more seriously.

Not trying to change your mind, obviously, especially since I haven't seen the dramas to compare. But I do think that we shouldn't just dismiss the anime off hand.

[katranna.livejournal.com]

I agree--I'd love to see the dramas, but I thought the anime artwork was actually quite well done. Most animes looks so similar and have such a set style that I really appreciate those that are a little more experimental or unusual with the art. Thus I loved the weird profiles and longer faces and the mutedness of the HYD anime look, like I love the bizzarro noses and such in Escaflowne.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

I thought the artwork was awful: the colors were ugly and the less I say about the backgrounds the better. They looked like the whole thing was done for $5. But you already know my opinion...remember how you had to encourage me to continue? :)

I like Escaflowne artwork though.

[prettierdanpink.livejournal.com]

I'm still not sure which drama I liked better but MG is special to me ♥ It's my first drama and I've been a very big Barbie / Vic fan since then. Inoue Mao is cute, yes, but Barbie is.. well, Barbie. She's still my favorite drama actress and female celebrity. So beautiful and talented! As for the rest of the F4, they improved a lot in their acting since MG. I think they did a good job since it's their first drama. There were many flaws, but still, I love it to bits. ♥

About HanaDan, oddly, I liked Shun better as Rui. IDEK why though :))

Rainie Yang and Ken Zhu looked great in MG too :D

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Yup, that was the first time I saw Rainie and I've liked her ever since.

[sodahands.livejournal.com]

I'm rewatching MG and I totally agree with you. I really like the Japanese version as well but there's just something about MG. The production values were awful and the F4 couldn't really act but for me MG balanced the angst and the funny really well.

And MG has one of my all time favourite drama scenes where DS wants to move out but Shancai vetoed that idea and he was all "why do you always have to be that way? Can't you be all girly and nice just for once? But then again the reason I love you is cos you are so strong-willed and awesome." Squee! That was so awesome!

And OMG Xiao You/Ximen ship was so awesome! MG is probably the only reason I ship Yuki/Soujiroh (the Japanese version was disappointing in that area).

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

DS wants to move out but Shancai vetoed that idea and he was all "why do you always have to be that way? Can't you be all girly and nice just for once? But then again the reason

That is one of my favorite scene, probably because it encapsulates why I love that ship.

And yeah, MG is the only reason I ship Y/S.

[moth5dream.livejournal.com]

I still have to watch both versions. I'll probably see the Korean one before then though at this rate. So much to do.

That girl is about tiny as I am. I don't feel so alone. lol

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

She is pretty short!

[mishane.livejournal.com]

See now you're kind of convincing me to try Meteor Garden (if only for the character development). I LOVED the jdrama, loved loved loved it, but I HATED that it was only 9 episodes. I really felt that it should have been much much longer.

I'm really thinking about downloading it now. It' just. . . I don't know the acting was horrendous when I saw a random 10 minutes and the production value DID look really bad. BUT, I will try the first episode out and see!

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

It gets better as it progresses as the guys were learning acting on the job.

[lydzi.livejournal.com]

I have to say, I do prefer Meteor Garden too. And that despite my biaise toward JE boys and Matsuda Shota. But everything was... I don't know... it felt more right with Meteor Garden. Things weren't as rushed and, oh well, Barbie just owns everything she does right? She's just perfect as Makino as she was for her other roles.
And as much as I like Oguri Shun, I found that Vic Shou totally grasped the essence of Rei's character.

I'm waiting for the K-drama, see how it goes ^^.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Yeah, Barbie was spactacular.

Hope the kdrama is good.