Petite Lass: Hana Kimi @ Hanazakari no Kimitachi e

I still recall those days when I would rush back from work to catch the popular Taiwanese drama series Hana Kimi (花樣少年少女). It's addictive in some ways. In addition, the main character in the series is a pretty boy! How could I miss that?

When the series came to an end, I was kind of sad. It was entertaining and that's just what I needed after a long day at work. My friend then told me the Japanese version was worth watching as well. An inquisitive person I am, how could I not find out? So, I went to crunchyroll to ascertain her remark. Well, you might have guessed it, I was addicted to it too!! The Japanese version is even funnier than the Taiwanese.

The Japanese version did a good job in illustrating the life of high school students in Osaka Gakuen, so much so that I wanted to study there too =p There are more activities, sports events and fun activities chipped into the scenes from time to time as compared to the Taiwanese version.

In general, the story line in both versions are similar but there are some details which draw them apart. For example:

How Sano finds out Mizuki is a girl
The reason why Mizuki wants to enroll into Osaka Gakuen
How Nakatsu finds out Mizuki is a girl
The character Julia (Mizuki's best friend) only appears in the Taiwanese version
Taiki has more focus in the Japanese version

Personally, I felt there's more character development for each characters in the Japanese version. Each shares equal lime light. The Japanese are pretty good in stirring emotions as well as warmth in movies and/or dramas. This is is no exception. It has a good mixture of comedy, romance, friendship and philosophy.

I like the scene which Mizuki and Nakatsu danced (Japanese version) and the scenes which the students were at Nanba's sister vacation home during summer holidays. Apart from Nakatsu, I am drawn to the character Masao a.k.a Oscar. LOL. I believe credits should be given to him for injecting comedy element into the scenes. He's done a great job. I couldn't help laughing whenever I saw his appearance. All in all I would rate 9.5 (there's no perfect score hehe) out of 10 for the Japanese version and 8.5 out of 10 for the Taiwanese version. I am actually looking forward to the sequel of the latter as I am curious of the development from the prequel, though usually sequels are not as good as the prequel. We'll see then.

There are some NG scenes, MTVs and interviews uploaded at crunchyroll. Enjoy!