Honey and Clover

Yūta Takemoto, Takumi Mayama and Shinobu Morita are three young men who live in the same apartment complex and are students at an art college in Tokyo. One day, they are introduced to Hagumi "Hagu" Hanamoto, the daughter of a cousin of Shūji Hanamoto, an art professor, who has come to live with Hanamoto and has become a first year art student at the art school that everyone attends. Yuta and Shinobu both fall in love with Hagu, but Yuta hides his feelings and tries to be a friend to Hagu while Shinobu expresses his love in ways that seem only to scare Hagu, such as calling her "Mousey" and constantly photographing her. Hagu herself, though initially timid and afraid of company, gradually warms up to the three. The group comes to include Ayumi Yamada, a master of pottery who is well known by her nickname "Tetsujin" (Iron Lady), who becomes very close to Hagu. When not at school, she helps run the family liquor store. While Ayumi is popular with many young men, she falls in love with Takumi, who does not reciprocate her feelings and considers her a very dear friend. Instead, Takumi pursues an older woman, Rika Harada, a widowed friend of Professor Hanamoto who runs an architecture studio she founded with her late husband. The story follows these five characters in their love triangles, unrequited love, graduating from college, finding jobs, and learning more about themselves. ==Media==

Manga Written and illustrated by Chika Umino, Honey and Clover debuted in Takarajimasha's manga magazine '' on April 24, 2000. Takarajimasha released a collected volume on January 29, 2001. Cutie Comic'' ceased publication in 2001, and the series was transferred to Shueisha's manga magazine Young You, where it ran from October 6, 2001, to October 8, 2005, when the magazine ceased its publication. It was then transferred to Shueisha's Chorus magazine, where it ran from December 28, 2005, to July 28, 2006. The 64 chapters were collected in ten , released from August 19, 2002, Two spin-off chapters were published in Chorus on November 28, 2006, and October 28, 2008. All the series' chapters were made available for free on Hakusensha's Young Animal website from August 21 to September 11, 2023. The manga is licensed in North America by Viz Media, which began serializing it in Shojo Beat magazine in August 2007. Viz Media released the ten volumes from March 4, 2008, plus two DVD-only episodes, released on December 14, 2005, and February 24, 2006. The series premiered in Southeast Asia on Animax Asia on August 1, 2006. In North America, the series was licensed by Viz Media. Funimation got the broadcast rights to Viz Media's dub and it premiered on the Funimation Channel on September 19, 2009. Viz Media subsequently released the entire series across three DVD box sets from September 22, 2009, to March 16, 2010. In May 2019, Discotek Media announced the license of the series; both seasons were released on two Blu-ray Disc sets on March 3 and April 28, 2020, respectively. In Australia and New Zealand, the anime was licensed by Madman Entertainment. Music The series' music was composed by for the first season, and by Depapepe and Hayashi for the second. For the first season, the opening theme is , performed by Yuki. The ending theme for the first 12 episodes and episode 24 is , performed by SuneoHair, and the ending theme for episodes 13–23 is "Mistake", performed by The Band Has No Name. The season features insert songs performed by Shikao Suga and Spitz. It was released in Japanese theaters on July 22, 2006. The film was released theatrically in the United States in fall of 2007 by Viz Media. The DVD for the film was released on January 12, 2007. The opening theme song is by Spitz, while the ending theme song is by Arashi. Live-action drama Japanese TV drama A 11-episode Japanese television drama adaptation aired on Fuji TV from January 8 to March 18, 2008. Written by Kaneko Shigeki, and directed by Masaki Tanamura and Hiroaki Matsuyama, the show starred Toma Ikuta as Takemoto, Riko Narumi as Hagumi, Hiroki Narimiya as Morita, Osamu Mukai as Mayama, and Natsuki Harada as Ayumi. The music for the series was provided by Shōgo Kaida, Keiichi Miyako (SOPHIA) and Shin Kono, while the theme song is "Canvas", performed by Ken Hirai. A DVD set was released for the series on July 11, 2008. Taiwanese TV drama The manga was adapted into a Taiwanese drama titled () starring Lego Lee as An Zhu Ben (Takemoto), Chiaki Ito as Hua Ben Yu (Hagumi), Eddie Peng as Ren Sen Tian (Morita), Joe Cheng as Den Zhen Shan (Mayama), and Janine Chang as He Ya Gong (Ayumi). It was produced by Huang Zhi Ming and directed by Li Yun Chan. It was broadcast on free-to-air on Chinese Television System (CTS) from May 25 to August 31, 2008. ==Reception==

The manga has had over 8.5 million copies in circulation. In 2004, Honey and Clover won the 27th Kodansha Manga Award for the category. The manga topped the 2006 and 2007 list of Takarajimasha's Kono Manga ga Sugoi! guidebook of top 20 manga series for female readers. About.com's Deb Aoki lists Honey and Clover as the best new manga of 2008. Yū Aoi won the award for Best Actress at the 28th Yokohama Film Festival for her role as Hagumi Hanamoto in the live-action film. ==Notes==