Honey & Clover II

Information of Anime

Years have passed & everyone seems to getting along with their lives quite well.  Some are currently working in society, some are still studying, & some are doing both.  Yuuta Takemoto is the only one that is still studying at the university.

Honey & Clover II is a continuation of the first season, Honey & Clover.

Storyline (CONTAINS SPOILERS)

Below is a summary of the storyline.  This section does contain some spoilers.  If you haven't seen the series yet & don't want to be spoiled, skip this section.  If you want to know the story & want to see how I viewed it, read on.

The show continues where the 1st season left off after time passes.  However, the show focuses more on the other characters instead of Takemoto.  We see the relationship between Takumi Mayama & Rika Harada developing & Ayumi continuing to interrupt them but works for Rika on some projects.  We see more about Shinobu Morita & his brother Karou Morita's past & the struggles they went though when they were young.  Also, Hanamoto Hagumi has her own story where she's undecided about what she should do in the future.  The show now focuses less on Takemoto even though we still get the narrations from him most of the times.  Things move when the school festival arrives & Hagu gets involve in an accident where she injuries her right hand.

With the injury of Hagu's injury & many people getting informed about it, a lot of people start to move forward.  When the show reaches its end point, everyone has decided what to do; even Shuuji Hanamoto.  Takumi decides to work with Rika's company, Ayumi is continuing to work with pottery, Shinobu is supporting his brother's company that has been brought back while working in the movie industry, Shuuji quits his instructor job to support's Hagu's dream due to his love for her, Hagu returns to art after her recovery, & Takemoto decides to work on restoring temples across Japan.  THe show ends with as the credit rolls showing what everyone is doing now & Takemoto recalling the times with his friends.

My Personal Review

Honey & Clover II is a really good series to watch for the mature & grown up audience.  The continuation from the first season is smooth & really picks up where it ended.  It still gives off a good lesson about life & society & I strongly recommend watching this.  Despite the fact that the other characters are getting more air time & reveal more about themselves, it's best to watch the 1st season before moving to this one.  You can get lost easily with all the talking involved & missing out a lot of the character background & developments.

Animation

Everything is the same as the first season.  The character designs are in manga style.

The colours weren't very dull as the first season.  Although it's a bit brighter, they still looked quite natural to for the anime.  Also, it still gives off that warm feeling.  The show looked like in was made in the 90s though.

In terms of the animation movement, the flow was quite nice & natural.  Although there were scenes that had silly situations, it was well made.

Sound

The sound effects weren't bad.  The things sounded like what they are in real life.  Although the sounds of bones cracking & things getting slammed or hit had those anime-type sound effects, it was ok.

The voice actors were good.  They matched their characters very well.  Hagumi was a bit on the iffy side.  Since she's a short 18 year old, she sounded like she was a bit "bigger" than she should be.  The voices were mature & gave me the impression

The music is good & reused a bit from the previous season.  The background music blended well to give off the mood of the scenes occurring in the show & still uses Spitz's music as insert songs for each episodes.  These songs are pretty similar to each other, but they are quite good.  The opening theme song is still an ear bleeding for me due to YUKI's voice & singing style.

Story

The show continues on from the first season where lot of the problems that weren't resolved well are further explain here.  But, there is a lot less stories focusing on Takemoto & more on the other characters.  The stories are still well done& contained a lot of life lessons.  However, I felt this season isn't too good as the love triangle relationship between Rika, Mayama, & Ayumi is still going even though it went deeper.  Although it still has the dramatic touch, I felt it was getting old almost.  The character development is there, but it stills that the characters haven't moved away from their spots.  It's as if they either refuse to let go or still ponder on what to do.  Another thing to note about this season is how darker it has become.  The situation with Hagumi is almost a tearjerker when you watch it.  You can really feel sorry for that girl.

Speaking of the characters, they still have their unique charm that makes them great.  I can relate them as real people.  I really like Morita due to his strangely unique personality.  However, we get to see a more serious Morita when we learn more about him.  The characters are enjoyable & fun to watch as they make the show interesting.  The ending tied up the show nicely even though it has half the number of episodes from the 1st season.  Although the path that the characters took isn't different from what they start out with, it's still decent enough.

Overall Conclusion

I recommend watching Honey & Clover II, even though if you are a fan to comedy or ecchi series.  This show gives you a break from those genres & makes you think about your life.  Although there were times that the show didn't give a lot of enjoyment & is a bit weaker than the first season, it's still a good series to watch.  Again, I highly recommend watching the first season before watch this

Honey & Clover II receives a grade of 8.5/10.  The realistic storyline was really the strong point as it shows the viewers the lives of poor university students in a struggle world.  What made me lose some points for it were the times where it can get boring & repetitive.  It seems the characters have little or hardly ever moved on.  The old problems are just dragging the story from what I feel even though the ending resolved that problem without much effort.  The show does contain a lot of talking/self-talking situations as well & probably more than before.  It may drive some viewers away if they are watching the series for some comedic moments like I do at times.