Sweet - Honey and Clover - a cute struggle of love, life, and graduating art college to get a real job.
The main character of the story, which takes place over about 4 years, is Takemoto, a 'starving college student' with little confidence and no idea what to do with his life. When Hagumi, an adorable young art student, joins the school, Takemoto falls right in love with her. However, so does Morita, the eccentric money-loving never-graduating student who picks on both Takemoto and Hagu because they let him.
Then we have: Mayama, the one who actually graduates and gets a job, he's in love with Rika, a woman he sometimes works with; Yamada, a beautiful much loved young woman who is obsessively in love with Mayama as much as he is obsessively in love with Rika; Hanamoto-sensei, an old friend of Rika, he is Hagu's caretaker to whom she is absolutely devoted; and a full cast of supporting characters.
Still, the main character is Takemoto. He is the one who grows the most and gets the most out of the entire experience. He takes a random bicycle trip to 'find himself' (no, says Mayama, don't say that, it's embarrassing!)... and he really does.
The series is 10 volumes long, the art is lovely, the story is sweet, there's a lot of humor, some sad stuff (everyone has a tragic past or present or whatever), each panel is full of information. You can learn a lot about Japan culture through the series and the translation notes... And you may learn some about the unstable Tower of Youth.
If I were trying to compare it to another manga series I would probably say Fruits Basket, or Kare Kano, but I honestly like Honey and Clover better, and it is more innocent.
Fun fact: the name of the series comes from music the author likes, and those bands (Spitz and Suga Shikao) actually did music for the anime.
The main character of the story, which takes place over about 4 years, is Takemoto, a 'starving college student' with little confidence and no idea what to do with his life. When Hagumi, an adorable young art student, joins the school, Takemoto falls right in love with her. However, so does Morita, the eccentric money-loving never-graduating student who picks on both Takemoto and Hagu because they let him.
Then we have: Mayama, the one who actually graduates and gets a job, he's in love with Rika, a woman he sometimes works with; Yamada, a beautiful much loved young woman who is obsessively in love with Mayama as much as he is obsessively in love with Rika; Hanamoto-sensei, an old friend of Rika, he is Hagu's caretaker to whom she is absolutely devoted; and a full cast of supporting characters.
Still, the main character is Takemoto. He is the one who grows the most and gets the most out of the entire experience. He takes a random bicycle trip to 'find himself' (no, says Mayama, don't say that, it's embarrassing!)... and he really does.
The series is 10 volumes long, the art is lovely, the story is sweet, there's a lot of humor, some sad stuff (everyone has a tragic past or present or whatever), each panel is full of information. You can learn a lot about Japan culture through the series and the translation notes... And you may learn some about the unstable Tower of Youth.
If I were trying to compare it to another manga series I would probably say Fruits Basket, or Kare Kano, but I honestly like Honey and Clover better, and it is more innocent.
Fun fact: the name of the series comes from music the author likes, and those bands (Spitz and Suga Shikao) actually did music for the anime.
