Hachimitsu to Clover II - Completed on 22/03/2015
“What is a life for … it’s there so that you can tightly grab the hand of someone close to you” – Takemoto
The amount of metaphors, and symbols in this series are innumerable, thus here I just talked about some archs, and features of Honey and Clover I especially enjoyed.
Anime fans have been labelled as suffering from escapism, seeking excitement, and thrill from hugely unrealistic giant robot battles, or on the other end of the spectrum, fan-serviced smut that usually follows a harem where the only male is subjected to overly explicit role-playing scenarios. Honey and Clover, I am proud to say is nothing like that. I have never watched an anime that hit so close to home, I mean the ideas they were talking about, and the complete denial of most of the main cast finding love was really refreshing, even though at certain times, I was like this is getting too real.
The story of Honey and Clover pretty much started from where it left off, in the previous season, and I as someone told me *nudge, it was a lot better. The overall story progresses quicker than first season, and boy does a lot happen. Being a Slice of Life, you can’t expect much from the story, as their will be no magic, robots, or adventures, yet I the content that this show tackled left me speechless, crying, and sometimes in awe of how wonderfully they merged such a difficult topic with the main story. The characters are what I watch SOL for, and they are just outstanding. They are real people, they have been orphaned, witnessed their dreams being crushed, having the person they love reject them, and suffering the loss of what’s most dear to them.
The second season tackles Yamada, Mayama, and Rika’s love triangle a bit more, and I think for the first time introduces Nomiya-san as an actual contender. In the first season, I got the sense that he was a bit of a sleaze bag, although all I had to go on was Mayama’s description. Here he genuinely seemed like he was falling in love with Yamada, and had the ability to right by her. For the first time you also realize that Yamada could have feelings for someone else, and this is really interesting, from Yamada’s point of view, if she were to forget about Mayama, then all her emotions must have been a lie, and she even asks God, not to save her from her emotions, revokes like quickly as Nomiya shows up with Leader. Other than that Yamada grows more in this season, although she still cries a lot, something which really bothered me but I quickly ignored. She has an actually outing with someone not in the group, that being Nomiya’s sister, whose name I can’t remember. What I love about her in this season is that she is finally getting comfortable with Mayama, and Rika, although this can be debated, she also seems more self-sufficient and not just a younger sibling to Mayama. As far I remember her story was not the focus of this season and I thought that was wonderful, she is interesting though, but teenaged girl who’s in love, which to be fair Yamada isn’t but essentially is, has been done to death, good choice by the production team.
Now on to Rika, and Mayama, my favourite couple, if you’ve read my summary/rant about the first series you’ll have picked up on the fact that I am infatuated with Rika-san, her type of character is so rare in Anime, and even rarer in life, a strong, level-headed, independent female. At this stage in the story I think it has been about 4 years since Mayama and Rika have been an item, and man does Mayama get the world record for patience. The pinnacle of these two is in episode 4, and it had scenes that were just tear-jerkers, and scenes where I just erupted in to tears, this is what I love about good anime. At the start of episode 4, Rika is seeing off her old teacher to the train station, and that’s when they all hell breaks loose. As they stand there, Rika sees a train that’s headed to Sapporo, and is mesmerized, this is the place she is always looking at on a live camera website, but she can’t force herself to make the decision, so Mayama picks her up and as the door is opening puts her in the train, along with himself, both of them are speechless. Mayama is shocked by what he just did, and she is flabbergasted that he had the courage to act. It was beautiful, and surreal, the most romantic someone can be, reading the emotions of their partner so well, and then giving them a push in the right direction. Later on in the train she is thinking to herself that she could have brought work, and that it will take them 17 hours to get to Hokkaido, whereas by plane it would have been only 2 hours. When there in Hokkaido, Rika san finally tells Mayama where she lived, and that it is in fact much further away than the live-stream website that she used to look at. It turns out that her house has been demolished, by the weight of the snow, and rain, she also tells him that the last time she was here, was when she came for her father’s funeral, and Harada-kun escorted her. You as the viewer can finally see some emotion in Rika-san, and that’s she’s slowly but surely opening up to Mayama, that is until the next morning. What seems like the early morning, Rika is seen getting ready, and just as she is about to get her purse off the table, an alarm triggers, one that Mayama had enabled. The feelings in this part are so explosive, Mayama confesses that he looked at her emails and that she had only been searching for 1 bedroom apartments, confronting her that she is actually going to Spain to finish the last project that she took on with Harada-kun, and then end her life. Mayama is now towering over her, in front of the door, and begs her to live, and to keep on living, and that she shouldn’t have gotten involved with someone like him because he’s going to go wherever she goes. After the heat of the moment settles Mayama is reduced to a weakened shell of a man, and cries profusely, and if you have a soul so will you! They later on meet in the lobby, and after than Rika opens her heart to Mayama, and his lifelong dream has been accomplished. Excellent episode, I mean brilliant, I was amazed that TV could be used as a medium to convey so much emotion.
The rest of the story primarily revolves around each of the characters, and Shinobu is actually given a reason for why he acts like a complete moron most of the time. Thought what I really loved was the final arch in this amazing series, which is where Hagu-chan gets hurt, thought she is hurt, each of the characters take different lessons from her injury. Takemoto finally understands why Mayama said what he did about giving the “woman he loved some time to relax”, and having the means to do so. This is something that we, yes I’m talking to you old geezers, finally get introduced to when we reach an age, where the love of your life, is (a) not a princess, or (b) not a prince, they’re humans, and as humans we need to talk about finances. At the same time however, it is not as cold as to say you can’t make a life with the person you love, but the realization that if you are in financial trouble when you are older, you’ll definitely put her through a lot of grief, granted no one actually intends to do this, but that’s life. The whole morale is packaged up in a nice life, “If I can’t even buy here a 300 yen flower, then how I support her?”.
This arch is also very interesting as it marks the beginning of the end for the gang. Hagu is struggling with the realization that when she was young she used drawing and art as an outlet for her creativity, and that she thought no purpose to life beyond drawing, going as far as to make an oath with God, to take her back when she loses the ability to draw. Hagu’s character is shown in a whole new light, she is stronger than anyone would have expected. It also thought made me think about my life and the blessings that we are giving, today I’m able to share my feelings, and write, but tomorrow, I might not be. Still so many more things are going through my head, with if that day Hagu had been with Takemoto what would have become of it now, or with Morita-san? The series I think is unique in this respect, that it can make you think of all these things we have been given to us, but kind of take for granted. I can’t end this review, without saying that the ending was beautiful, just like I had imagined it, and just like most of us will go through. We’ll put up advertisement for the apartments we’ve rented for 4 years, say goodbye to friends, all of us disappearing into that distant abyss called Adulthood, some of us will find happiness, some won’t, but regardless of that there will never be any regret in our heart for wasting our time together.
This being on of my favorite quote was actually something I have thought long and hard about, “Is something that will disappear, the same as something that never existed?” and the answer is no, because all that we do will come to an end, but that doesn’t mean that it won’t permanently scar us, or fill our hearts with love, the result is something that we have to hope for.
Honey and Clover surpassed my expectations, I never thought I could have been touched by a story this much, as someone special said to me “It’s like I was watching my life”, and now I can finally say to her that I agree. I think that we’ve all been gifted with so many different kinds of friends, moving away from them is always difficult, heck moving away from the town you’ve called home for 4 years is tough, but in the end, just as Takemoto had to cycle across Japan to realize, it’s at moments like these that we’re empowered to take action, and realize just how much those around us mean!
