At 37 volumes, Hana Yori Dango first seemed like a daunting read for a strictly-shoujo-reader such as myself. However, I won’t hesitate to say that the length of the series plays to its strength. I don’t think that the manga would have had such an emotional resonance if it had been a short series.

Starting out, HYD is very much like your typical shoujo. It features this seemingly meek heroine who, in fact, is much tougher than her exterior suggests. I would daresay that it’s Makino Tsukushi that really keeps the manga afloat for some of the early volumes.

At times it felt like much of a chore having to sludge through the first half of the series - dated art, and an inordinate amount of dissembling from the often dense heroine. The ever-revolving door of love interests that kept appearing in the story got old and frustrating really fast. Yet, like almost everyone here, I couldn’t stop once I got started.

Thirty-seven (36) volumes flew by, and like many other people have mentioned, the manga actually gets better after the first 20 volumes. Of course, our beloved manga-ka exhausts a fair amount of clichés to get there, but because HYD is so character-driven, it’s nearly impossible to stop once you’ve begun.

It is the characters, above all else, that endears you to its story. Youko Kamo strikes a delicate balance of a strong, but vulnerable teenager in the admirably bold and earnest Makino. Tsukasa Doumyouji, similarly, is an exceptionally vibrant character. At first, he appears to be the typical bully bishonen archetype (with bad hair at first ^_^), but unlike many other shoujos, Doumyouji is a surprisingly rounded character. His demanding, spoiled, and violent personality is redeemed by his unrelenting determination to fight for what he wants. He’s honest to himself regardless of everything and anything else, and it’s probably this particular quality that makes him so attractive.

My biggest complaint about this manga would probably be the gradual loss of Doumyouji’s perspective later on down the road. For a good portion of the manga, the budding romance between the two seemed to be told as much from his view as it was from Makino’s. Nonetheless, with all its flaws, Hana Yori Dango has been well-worth the time and emotional investment. It is my regret that I never gave this manga a chance when I had first heard about it, so don't make the same mistake I did, give Hana Yori Dango a chance.

... Last updated on March 11th, 2009, 9:21pm

Okay so at first glance...
- horrible art
and if you were to keep reading a little, despite the first impression...
- seemingly typical shouga manga plot
(at least the 'comedic' ones anyways)
& if you're like me, you'll probably end up guessing who she's going to end up with by the end of the first couple of chapters
BUT
don't stop reading it or not even bother to read it
because (maybe i just got used to it) but the art gets MUCH BETTER. Of course at the first couple of chapters (or more) aren't so pretty but by the middle you pretty much become used to it and by the end you start to notice that they actually look really good (especially Rui ^_^)
Oh and as for the plot, don't judge it.
It's not as typical as you might think.
Now this is depending on how good you guess, but it's pretty obvious who's she's going to end up with from the start but come on, practically all shoujo mangas are like that.
PLUS, you know you love it when the girl ends up with the right guy and the plot is written so good that you won't care anyways.
Well, I think I dragged on a bit, bottom line----read the manga please ^_^!

Truthfully i hesitated to read this manga because:
1.) The art in the beginning was just horrible
2.) The fact that it's around 37v's
3.) i already watched the drama so i thought it would be like a repeat -.-
HOWEVER:
I found that
1.) The art gets A LOT better each volume (and i mean AMAZING ART)
2.) 37 volumes felt like 15v's to me for i finished it in 2 days!
3.) It was a lot different from the drama: Different scenario's times and places.

So all in all.. I highly Recommend this manga and now i know why people like this manga so much and why it has such high ratings cuz its so friken good! i couldn't stop reading! Don't miss out on this incredible manga! The art get's a lot better trust me. It has the best twists, plots, development and the characters are really interesting. && Again, if your picky with art (like i am) the art gets a lot better and i mean A LOT; if you've read her other manga Cat street it's the same art as hana yori dango.
Highly Recommended****************************************************

Okay. So you're all like. Ew Domyouji's so ugly.
Well I'm like stop being a superficial ... person.
Domyouji is one of the most romantic... manga men I've ever read! He's arrogance is so lovable. Ok so you dont like Domyouji, there's enough F4 to go around. All a different variety of personalities. And now to the girl. Makino Tsubasa isn't your every day girl. She's not your typical airhead cliche maniac.
This is a serious must read.
All in a girls opinion.

OMG didnt know that the chinese teve drama show called "liu xing hua yuan" was based on this manga I looooved the show!

The manga was really easy to read, but it had to much twists in it for my taste, it seemed almost like the main characters wasnt suppose to be with eachother...
overall a great easy to read manga, but not quite to the standard of cat street, but close enough to keep you intressed

... Last updated on December 14th, 2008, 9:41am

love, love LOVE this manga. It makes me happy reading it . Though i admit the length of it was close to ridiculous,it didn't really matter once I got into the story. With this, I was always dying for more.

feel it has being carried on TOO long; sometimes you will hope for a better ending; sometimes you will be pissed by exagerations in the plot. but all the time i hope you will be, like me, amazed, attracted, happy or bound to cry. this manga gave strong and several emotions, no other words for me to describe and advice it to you all.

i don't know about other people but i didn't really like the art but the characters were pretty cool. the heorine was strong. but it was sooo long that i just got bored and didn't want to read any more.

I read this almost a decade ago and decided out of the blue to reread it again. I’m updating my review.

The length of the manga may seem daunting at first, but as soon as you read it, the story will captivate you. It’s easy to read, and unlike a lot of popular mangas that goes on for more than hundreds of chapters over several years, you don’t get the sense that the mangaka is rushing the story.

With that being said, I have several problems with Hana yori Dango:

1. The first is the violence. The sexual assault committed by Doumyouji went over the line, and by the second time that he hits her, I almost had it. Makino is also prone to violence and resorts to it every time someone crosses her in any way, which I also find obnoxious. I understand that mangas exaggerates and it is part of the humor and charm, but I could do without the extremity of the violent reactions and the fights.
2. The second is despite Doumyouji’s role in this story as an immature brat, he seems to have more of an emotional intelligence (in his own way) compared to Makino. He knows what he wants at the start, and there was never a point when he falters with his desires and feelings for Makino. More than halfway in the story, Makino still struggles whether or not she loves Doumyouji. Which is fine, except, it’s very clear that she does, she just doesn’t want to exclaim it. Their relationship, I thought, had grown to a point where they should have more maturity enough to not feel so embarrassed to verbalize that they like each other, but Makino acts like a middle schooler with the way that she handles her feelings for Doumyouji.
3. Doumyouji’s humor is gone as their relationship grew. Despite being a bully, one of the things I found hilarious about the story is Doumyouji being the comic relief at the beginning. Don’t expect this to last because his humor is completely gone as his relationship with Makino grows. I suppose this represents his character growth and maturity, but it’s still weird to see Makino’s strength, the trait that made Doumyouji fell in love with her to begin with, wanes while Doumyouji develops into an adult. He seems to know what to do and what he wants, while Makino struggles for far too long whether or not she likes someone.
4. Along with Doumyouji’s dead humor, his facial expressions are gone as well. The core of this story is the love between Makino and Doumyouji and we spend almost the entire manga waiting for them to finally be together in a real way. Doumyouji waits for a long time for Makino to reciprocate her feelings and express it to him, but the very few times that she sincerely does once she finally realizes that she loves him, Doumyouji doesn’t seem to reach strongly other than perhaps a kiss or a smile. Again, I guess this represents his maturity, but I miss the over the top Doumyouji.

This is definitely a must-read for manga lovers. It’s a classic shoujo manga, and I was enthralled despite the problems.

... Last updated on October 7th, 2017, 12:45pm

Well I tried out this series a long while ago and I couldn't even finish the first chapter. Maybe it wasn't didn't interest me enough or perhaps it was the art was a little off or maybe because it was called 'Boys over Flowers' (no offense or anything but a title like that puts me off ). Anyways I got bored two days ago and needed something to read so I decided to pick this up again.

I liked it.....no that's really an understatement. I just finished all 36 volumes just a few hours ago and just enjoyed the entire series. This is probably one of the few shoujos that I can honestly say is really interesting and not that predictable.

I like Makino since funny, strong and atypical personality compared to most shoujo heroines (although her constant wavering between Rui and Domyouji got kind of tiresome after a while) but I got to say that Domyouji was definitely my favorite character. He's such a hot-headed idiot and he did make Makino's life at school nearly unbearable with his stupid F4 crap but he has changed for the best and truly does love her. I do feel sympathetic towards Rui since it seemed like by the end of the series he had been dumped twice.

I definitely liked the ending (well mainly the ending of that one-shot ^-^) since it wasn't one of those cheesy, '~4 years later~ we do get married, see?' endings. Sure we don't actually see them get married and have kids and all but we just have to believe that they will reunite in the future just like Makino has to believe that Domyouji will come back to her. (that sounded corny, I know >.>)

Anyways, I definitely would have given this series a 10 but that amnesia mini-arc annoyed me a bit. It just felt like some crappy soap opera move so I deducted 0.2 points.