First Impressions / Hana Yori Dango

Summary:
Rui surprises everyone with his return, and Tsukasa immediately moves to claim Tsukushi as his. The F4 leave, but Tsukasa first gives Tsukushi a gold coated cell phone. Tsukushi returns home to find it filled with new furniture, courtesy of Tsukasa. He then calls her to a club with the rest of the F4. When she gets there, Tsukushi is shocked to see Rui openly kissing two random girls. And when she sees him again the next day, Rui suggests that they should go out, even if in secret. Tsukushi initially takes him seriously, but when he laughs it off as a joke, Tsukushi has no choice but to do the same.
Having returned to Japan after learning that her mother had already done the same because of Tsukasa’s relationship with Tsukushi, Tsubaki suggests to Tsukushi and Yuuki that they go on a double date. The night before the date, Rui visits Tsukushi’s home. He tells her that he and Shizuka had some great times together, but that she was busy, and so he was mostly alone. He realized that he still couldn’t do anything for the one that he loved. But Tsukushi says that it’s because of him rescuing her in the beginning that she’s there today. When Tsukushi’s father calls her in, she accidentally drops the gold cell phone, which Rui picks up and takes with him.
On the double date, Yuuki and her boyfriend are late, and her boyfriend turns out to be quite rude. When Tsukushi takes a picture of some penguins with her own cell phone, Tsukasa notices that she’s not using the one he gave her. She lies and says that she left it at home. Yuuki’s boyfriend’s rudeness continues through the day, really getting on Tsukasa’s nerves; it finally reaches the limit when he insults Tsukushi. When the girls arrive on the scene, they find Tsukasa hitting the guy. Without explaining what happened, Tsukasa and Yuuki’s boyfriend separately storm off, and Yuuki knows that her relationship with him is over.
At home, Tsukushi is surprised to find the Domyoji matron there, offering 300 million yen for Tsukushi to give up on her son. Before Tsukushi can act, her angered mother dumps salt on their guest. Meanwhile, Tsukasa finds out that Rui had the gold cell phone, meaning that Tsukushi had lied to him earlier. The next day, after the two argue about why Tsukasa hit Yuuki’s boyfriend and about the cell phone, Tsukushi goes to her usual spot to vent her anger. She’s surprised when Rui speaks up from behind her, and even more surprised when he hugs her. However, things quickly go sour again when she spots Tsukasa watching their embrace from the top of the stairwell.

The focuses of this episode, and probably the next one too, are Rui vs. Tsukasa and how much Tsukushi and Tsukasa like each other. The cell phone plays a key role in moving Tsukasa and Tsukushi apart, both in Tsukushi lying about it, and Rui having it. You can tell that Tsukasa’s jealousy is just boiling over, especially by the end of the episode. However, I still find it a bit hard to take his and Tsukushi’s relationship seriously, mainly because he still acts so much like a spoiled little kid sometimes. I do have to note that in the manga, that final scene involves Rui kissing Tsukushi. Granted, she’s also kissed Tsukasa by that point, so it’s not a first kiss or anything.
A couple of random thoughts:
-The African American servant of Tsubaki’s is completely unnecessary, in a very Gone with the Wind sort of way. That entire scene is just cheesy, from the engrish to the smiling and speaking straight at the camera.
-Imperial March ringtone? Overused….
Anyway, next episode it looks like Tsukushi is gonna go out with Rui for a while, while Tsukasa jealously follows them around. Oh and it seems like Sakurako will play a part too – her lines in this episode were similar to the manga’s, but they came off as very fake-sounding to me. Thankfully the preview shows the “evil” side of her.

Closing Thought: They were so close to getting through the entire episode w/o playing Planetarium, but then it just had to come on in the last few minutes. -_-;;

33 Comments

  6. “was yuuki’s bf saying that makino was subtle?”

    He said Tsukushi was not exactly “interesting” as a woman, and neither was his girlfriend (Yuuki). I just laughed when Tsukasa said “Makino’s eyes are out of this world”. It was just SO corny XD

    So, what happened to Rui and Shizuka in France? I’m guessing the magazine he was looking at had an article that has something to do with Shizuka having relationship with a guy?

    Rasmiel
    Reply

  8. Omg! How I hate Rui. Not only (to me) is he DAMN UGLY!!!!! But the whole….”innocent” guy in the beginning act and crap like that…and then this episode..having him make out with two totally different girls….and then telling Tsukushi he likes her and crap…….really…..Gay. GO SHIZUKA for liking someone else!! Damn!! That girl is one smart girl!!!! Oh…..this episode…Domiyoji was acting so weird. Like…..It made him look so ugly with that personality. I really don’t like it. He looks better if he doesn’t smile all that much man….it’s either that or the hair. I really hate his hair. Oh….the BEST part of this episode..was when Tsukushi’s mother dumped SALT on that bitch’s head!! OMG! I was cheering her on all the way!! I really like that woman. SHe’s an example as such an easy going mother…and when something serious happens…she knows when to be serious..and all. I like that kind of person. Fun and Mature. Oh…judging by the preview of next episode……….WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH TSUKUSHI?! HOW CUD SHE POSSIBLY DATE A GUY LIKE RUI!? Disgusting. Totally Disgusting. And what’s with her hair? …she’s starting to look like the other wanna-be giggly….showoffy girl! Ugh..But I guess it all has to do with making the thing interesting instead of making it all clean cut with only domiyoji and her and everything. So I guess its understandable. Something tells me however that i’m gonna hate next episode. I feel so sorry for Domiyoji. Like…..out of all the girls…he chooses her. And Rui is taking that away from him…just like the apple..lol……

    Babi_Lee
    Reply

  9. Only a few episodes left. (is it really only 9 episodes?! -_-) Doumyouji needs his temper problem checked into xD(last drama I saw MatsuJun in was Kimi wa Pet so this is a total character change to see him in. I just can’t wait for his hair to grow out thats for sure ~hahaha) but even so I like him more than Hanazawa Rui. You just KNOW he is using Tsukushi as a rebound girl. He knows she likes him or sumwhat does. I am excited for Sakurako to come back. I want her to redeem herself for some reason o_o; I loved mama when she poured salt! I was very surprised! “Planetarium” is the theme song but I still think it is played too much. I am watching “1 Litre of Tears” right now too and “Konayuki” plays every episode but it is not also used as BGM that is too much. Plus, “Planetarium” sounds kind of like a summer or fall song. The series is now in winter right? hahaha maybe they will play a different Otsuka Ai song last episode!
    oh-I hate the gold cell phone’s ring >-

    Naru
    Reply

  10. Curious thing about the scene where Tsukushi’s mom dumps salt on Tsukasa’s mom… I wonder why everybody is liking that scene so much… Because from the Manga, and from what she says afterwards, at least from the Chinese translation, we can see that the reason she did it was because she was thinking about giving up the 300million and aiming instead at the much larger fortune of the whole Domyoji enterprise…. Which wasn’t showing guts or integrity or anything of the sort… This also leads to something that was pretty strong in the Manga but not in the drama, that is the mom’s insistance that Tsukushi goes to this prestigious school in order to marry into the rich… Again, it’s already Eps. 6, it seems that they are mixing a lot of the different chapters together in order to tell the whole story in a very short time, but I feel that some of the parts are linked too unnaturally and there isn’t enough time for the characters and especially the T&T relationship to develop in a way that is believable or realistic…

    Sushi
    Reply

  11. “Curious thing about the scene where Tsukushi’s mom dumps salt on Tsukasa’s mom… I wonder why everybody is liking that scene so much… Because from the Manga, and from what she says afterwards, at least from the Chinese translation, we can see that the reason she did it was because she was thinking about giving up the 300million and aiming instead at the much larger fortune of the whole Domyoji enterprise…. Which wasn’t showing guts or integrity or anything of the sort…”

    Umm…That CLEARLY is the joke part of that scene. Tsukushi’s mom was worried about her, as she yelled after dumping salt.

    Rasmiel
    Reply

  12. rofl everything is going according to plan except i’m pretty sure they’ll wind up leaving out my favourite character and replacing her role with sakurako… if they even bother with that angle at all. i think by the next episode tsukushi and tsukasa will have made up, but i’m not sure is tuskasa’s mom is going to sit by and do nothing!

    i am really liking how well it keeps with the manga, but how in a lot of cases it is updated. they also cut out so many useless characters that don’t really matter, but some scenes i would have liked to have seen (tsukasa and tsukushi’s REAL first kiss, them catching fish, the ‘vancouver’ trip – hey i like having my city in an anime!)

    i don’t think tey are ebing untrue to the manga in any means.. imo, they are doing a great job of it and including all of the very important scenes that are needed to establish character. rui’s confusion about his true feelings for shizuka, tsukushi’s parents, tsukasa’s family.. it’s all perfect and pretty much exactly how i would do it if i wanted to fit HYD into 9 hours.

    John
    Reply

  13. I cannot imagine where/how in the manga they’re going to end the series, or if they plan another series to follow. If they are going to introduce your “favorite character” they pretty much have to do it next episode. I also wonder if they plan to follow the plot from the manga or the anime series–which end very differently.
    A short rant on the Beverly Hills scene–What were they thinking?? do they go out of their way to offend?! I haven’t heard that Hattie McDaniel, 1930’s accent since all movies were in black and white! Find me that accent in West L.A.!!! A five minute phone call to anyone living in the L.A area would have informed them the maid would most likely have been from Mexico, Guatemala or points south, not time warped from Mississippi!! That whole scene was unnecessary, did not forward the plot and did not exist in the original story in any form, so I think it has to be a cheap shot. Please do NOT get me started on gratuitous insults like the 4 million in Sakura, which alienated both American born Japanese and the whole state of Hawaii!!! Why do it??

    Sakura G
    Reply

  14. Would you have been offended if the servant was latino? What about causcasian, indian, or chinese? The ones who are offended by these details are the ones that dwell on the differences between us.

    Aiz
    Reply

  15. Since you have no idea about MY ethnicity, I will let your invalid point pass. What offended me was not the maid’s national or racial origins (okay, maybe I am bugged that they’re too lazy to do any research before portraying Americans) but by the god-awful parody of an accent they gave the maid, and yes, I would have been equally offended if the Latina, etc. maid had been given an accent or manner of speech that was as disrespectful as that one. Since I’m speaking of accents, I’ll include that I disliked the scene also because they were apparently too cheap to hire a vocal coach to work on the dialogue with the Japanese actress. She’s a nice person, but if she had really lived in America for several years after her marriage, she would have been better able to pronounce the dialogue. It’s the same objection I have about hokey fight scenes, etc. I’m not a perfectionist, but I don’t like to be distracted from the story line by sloppy bits that could easily have been fixed with a little time, money and attention to detail. It’s hard to take the producers and directors seriously when they display so little care for the quality of their work.

    Thus endeth my rant.

    SakuraG
    Reply

  16. I was responding to the BLOG post you nitwit since he mentions that the “African American servant is completely unnecessary”, implying that he noticed the race. If the blogger didn’t imply that then I’m sorry I misunderstood (I never watched Gone with the Wind)

    Sakura: I couldn’t care less about an uptight twat being offended by engrish in a JDrama. Jeezus.

    Aiz
    Reply

  26. arianne-i looooooooooooooooovvvvvvvvvvvvveeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!! hana yori dango
    iya-tsukushi makino is the best!!!
    kathleen-gandahan nyo naman ung kissing scene!!!!
    -dapat madaming love scenes
    -i lllllllllllloooooooovvvvvvvveeeeeee all the cast of hana yori dango!!!

    kathleen, iya, arianne
    Reply

  28. oh,my gosh……..i really love HANA YORI DANGO……even if i just saw the first part…….it doesn,t matter anyway……..the story was so great…..it really touched my heart……..hope i can watch the whole story of HANA YORI DANGO…….kilig to the MAX…………………..

    rotessa mae
    Reply

  30. tsukasa!!!!! i love you!!!! also you Rui!!!
    i love you both!!!!
    I wish to have a DVD of your lve story titled “HANA YORI DANGO”! for my coming birthday on june 1!!!!

    please!!!! i really love your shows!!! mwaahhh!!!!

    thank you!! and take care!!!
    marycris

    mary cris
    Reply

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