First Impressions / Hana Yori Dango

Summary:
Filled with anger at his friend’s betrayal, Tsukasa kicks Rui out of the F4. However Rui doesn’t seem to mind too much and takes Tsukushi out on a date, which has its share of awkward moments including when Rui walks in on Tsukushi on the toilet. Tsukasa confronted Tsukushi about the date before she left, trying to give her one last chance to stop seeing Rui, but she refused. He had followed her and Rui to the mall and they run into each other outside of a cafe. After Tsukasa asks Rui what his intentions are, Tsukushi and Tsukasa start bickering like a couple of little kids. Tsukushi eventually pulls Rui off to the park, where Rui reveals that he already knew about the thing that Tsukushi had seen in a magazine and tried to keep a secret from him: Shizuka’s rumored engagement. Meanwhile, Yuuki is trying to get in touch with her ex-boyfriend Nakatsuka, and finally sees him with another girl one night. He pretends not to know her, which causes her to run off in tears. Sojiro happens to see her crying on a street corner, cheers her up, and offers to help her get revenge. They track Nakatsuka to the movie theater, where Sojiro shows him up by taking his girl, but then goes and calls Yuuki his favorite. He even gives Yuuki the opportunity to return the favor and say that she doesn’t know who Nakatsuka is, which she takes. On the way out, Nakatsuka runs into Tsukushi and calls her weird again, this time to her face. Realizing the truth about Nakatsuka and why Tsukasa hit him, Tsukushi delivers a punch of her own. Meanwhile, the F4 gathers outside and tempers flare, resulting in an all out brawl between the guys. When they’ve finally exhausted their anger, the apple theme comes back to bond the four of them together again. At home, Tsukushi opens the cell phone that Tsukasa gave her and writes an apology mail to him. With him on her mind, she even pushes Rui away when he tries to kiss her the next day. She’s happy when Tsukasa calls her and the two make up, but that happiness is shattered when she learns that her father’s been restructured at his job (right after he got promoted to chief clerk too).

Thoughts for this week:
-Rui walking in on Tsukushi when she’s on the toilet created lots of laughs for that scene.
-Shizuka seems to be engaged now, but I doubt that Rui’s given up on her. That’s part of the reason why I keep thinking that he’s not taking his relationship Tsukushi completely seriously.
-Sojiro and Tsukushi give Nakatsuka what’s coming to him. Sojiro even threatens to pull out his internal organs lol.
-In fact, Sojiro seems to be all over the place in a short amount of time, going from that street corner to home to the movie theater and avenging Yuuki to brawling with the others in the F4.
-Speaking of which, the cheesiness of the fight is incredible. All of those punches looked sooooo fake.

Not a bad episode, but nothing terribly special. The series feels like it’s lost a lot of the momentum that it had in the first few eps. Maybe this back and forth between Tsukushi and Tsukasa is getting a bit old, even with Rui competing for her.
And, if rumors are correct and there are a total of nine episodes, then there’s just two more to go. Like a lot of other people, I wonder how they’re going to end this (or what part of the manga they’re going to end it on).

27 Comments

  6. Since there’s almost no chance they’ll get to it in the next 2 episodes, I’ll say, yeah, there is a lot more that happens between Soujiro and Yuuki in the manga, but you should really download the manga which is currently available in several places to check it out.

    SakuraG
    Reply

  8. I am confused.

    Usually the normal length of “hour-length jdramas” have 11 episodes. Shouldn’t Hana Yori Dango have 11 episodes?

    Why is it there is a big rumor that Hana Yori Dango only have 9 episodes?

    I checked the official TBS site of Hana Yori Dango, but it doesn’t tell how many episodes in total there are going to be.

    Confused,
    Please help me.^^

    Thank you very much =)

    phantasi
    Reply

  9. Tsukasa’s loving mother tries to pay-off Sakurako to help get Tsukasa away from Tsukushi, which she declines the money, but will help anyway since she loves Tsukasa. She tries acting all sweet and some BS, of course which Tsukasa obviously knows is a lie. Sakurako goes “real” laying some cold hard facts for Tsukasa but nothing much happens. At the end, she just leaves him alone though declares she’ll eventually win him over.

    Sakurako was pretty useless in this episode IMO. Actually, and I agree with Omni, this was probably the weakest episode so far. The only two points I can see is getting Tsukasa and Tsukushi to make up and to show the strength of F4’s true friendship… cheesy fake fight included -_-;;

    BTW, Tsukasa mother must have *a lot* of freetime to interfer with her son’s relationship plus ruin random strangers closed to him. Doesn’t she have a frickin’ multi-million/billion company to run? heh.

    moyism
    Reply

  10. Rant: The Japanese version doesn’t keep me following it religiously unlike the Taiwanese version, maybe that time I was younger and naive. Yeah, like everyone else said, it’s too cheesy and don’t you think they sort of overdone it. I’m still watching it just wanting to know what ending they will use.

    As for the total number of episodes, it should be at least more than 10eps IMHO. If not, the producers will have to focus only on Tsukasa-Tsukushi-Rui.

    Serene
    Reply

  11. “BTW, Tsukasa mother must have *a lot* of freetime to interfer with her son’s relationship plus ruin random strangers closed to him. Doesn’t she have a frickin’ multi-million/billion company to run? heh. ”

    Well she doesn’t want her billion dollar son marryinga poor civillan. That would be THE danger for the Doumyouji Group.

    I loved this episode. The fighting scene was rather nice. And I learned that Tsukushi has absolutely zero sense of style. She looks better in her pajama.

    Rasmiel
    Reply

  15. I’m kind of sad my favourite character isn’t going to be in the series 🙁 It seems like she will be replaced by Sakurako, but you miss the other things the cut character brings to the table. As far as Sakurako is concerned, I think you’ll see her involvement with Tsukasa’s mother start to play out a bit clearer, if they are going to end on the same note as the animation did.

    obviously they had to cut out a lot and so far everything that’s essential to the story is kept in. I still really like it ^_^ I’m pretty excited to see exactly how they are going to end it and what direction will be taken..

    John
    Reply

  16. I think they made a mistake in not including your favorite character too. That subplot was muck more realistic from Mama D’s point of view than trying to enlist Sakurako. I would have expected Mom to be pissed at the girl who had her son beaten up, not because she loves him, but because Tsukasa is HER property and if anyone is going to send him to the hospital, she’d think it should be HER.
    I’ve finally seen the episode and I think the figt scene wasn’t as bad as I expected in the cheese department, still, from this point on, the manga itself loses steam and wanders around a lot, so they’ve got an uphill battle to come up with an upbeat ending.

    For the person looking for the manga, we can’t list links here, but D-Addicts and several anime sites have the manga and anime–look around.

    SakuraG
    Reply

  19. Stop begging athirah 12!!!!!!!!! It’s so annoying. If you read the other episode summaries, you find out that there are only 9 episodes. And why don’t you try googling it first.

    aki.gawa
    Reply

  20. I agree with aki.gawa! There are only 9, and though it may seem to short, too bad, what are you going to do about it? Just enjoy what there is! I loved the 9 episodes, and if there had been more, it would drag on. Whats there is awsome. So shut the freak up.

    People who actually CARE about hana yori dango would stop whining and start talking about how awsome it is! Jeez!

    Meag
    Reply

  21. lol…
    i have watch 1 few episode of the drama…
    it is nt bad even though i haven read the manga, but i had watch meteor garden.
    the story line of the jap version is actually quite absurd, the apple stuff, the sakurako, the lift incident…
    but all in all, i still like the jap version bcos i luv matsumoto jun.

    siyinglee
    Reply

  22. this was such a great episode. the F4 fight scene was HILARIOUS! I loved how Akira tells Soujiroh, “Why don’t you shut up and go make some tea!!” and then punches him out. LOLOLOLOLOL.

    Thanks very much for the screencaps!

    Christine
    Reply

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