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Summary: A girl in a boys' school.
Review: A Japanese-American, Mizuki, track-and-field star has gotten herself transfered to a high school in Japan to be close to her idol, a high jumper Izumi Sano. But the school is a all BOYS school. Not only is she close to him - they end up roommates!
Now she has to keep her secret from him, the school's nurse and her classmates.
Plus a bonus story. Over a 176 pages of fun.
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Summary: ...
Review: Actually, the title of the book is "For You in full Blossoms" not in Gender. Anyways, I think that the original manga in Japanese is better than the translated one because the translator changed some parts of it to be more comprehensible for non-japanese customers. The manga itself remains a good one and Nakajo Hisaya really knows how to draw bishies. \('-')/
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Summary: Fantastic Characters
Review: Hana Kimi is a truly entertaining manga. The powerful characterization carries the plotline along smoothly. Mizuki is a strong female lead; Dr. Umeda is perhaps the funniest adult mentor I've ever encountered in a manga; and Izumi Sano is the epitome of attractive male leads. Many of the other characters provide extra comedic relief. If you enjoy a good laugh and plenty of gender and sexuality confusion in a straight love story, Hana Kimi will certainly make your day.
Rating:
Summary: Fantastic Characters
Review: Hana Kimi is a truly entertaining manga. The powerful characterization carries the plotline along smoothly. Mizuki is a strong female lead; Dr. Umeda is perhaps the funniest adult mentor I've ever encountered in a manga; and Izumi Sano is the epitome of attractive male leads. Many of the other characters provide extra comedic relief. If you enjoy a good laugh and plenty of gender and sexuality confusion in a straight love story, Hana Kimi will certainly make your day.
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Summary: LOVED IT!
Review: I love this Manga! It was the first one i ever bought, just to give it a try and i have read any and all manga given to me! This one in particular was kinda hard to find, but once i did i fell in love. From beginning to end the hilarious events that follow one right after another make me smile everytime i read it! I warn you though after the second volume I was a bit disappointed it was a lot of what happened in the first wolume being explained. BUT once I got to the third I remembered why I love it so much, and I fell in love all over again!
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Summary: Read this book!
Review: I started this book because one of my friends had it. She let me borrow it and volume two. Now I am hooked! Mizuki's cross dressing creates hilarious situations that will entice many types of reader. Once you get the hang of reading it "backwards", it can bring much hilarity to your evening. The doctor is just great, Sano is awesome(every time he rips down a paper I cheer!), Nanba is wonderful eye-candy, and Nakatsu's mixed emotions make for a wonderful time reading this.
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Summary: Hilarious Hijinks
Review: I'm just starting out with reading manga, but I can tell I've found a gem in this one (only the 4th manga I'd ever read). After being sort of bored and uninspired with Kare Kano after reading two good drama/action mangas, I wasn't too trusting of the shoujo genre. Then I saw a review for Hana Kimi online. It sounded promising, and lo- Viz was putting out an english version! So, I bought it and started reading. It was very interesting from the first page on, (although Mizuki's brief bout of fangirling was a bit offputting in the first few pages). Then Nakatsu appeared, and I was lost in laughing. The whole manga was just one long string of HILARIOUS occurences. I liked it so much I bought the second volume soon as I could! All the characters are very likeable. My favorite would be Nakatsu cause he's sooo funny and sincere at the same time. Even Sano, for all his annoying angsty behavior, gets a more agreeable personality as the volume goes on. Mizuki is a good character too, and though a bit naive, turns out to be quite strong. And of course, who could forget doctor Umeda? ^_^ The one minor beef I have is that the artist, Hisaya Nakajo, tends to draw her characters with very similar faces, so that hair color/clothing is the only way to distinguish some characters. A few times, I wasn't sure if it was Mizuki or Nakatsu I was looking at! But that's a minor thing, and does not detract too much from the story at all. So, if you're looking for instant and constant humor, can take some moderate angst and don't mind occasional references to homosexuality and gender confusion, or just like looking at pretty boys like Sano and Nanba, this manga's for you!
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Summary: A hidden gem
Review: I've picked up Hana-Kimi several times at the local bookstore. I've put it down several times too. I've glanced through it... read the synopsis. It sounded too forced to me. Girl idolizes Japanese athlete, moves to Japan and crossdresses her way through an all boy school, just happens to be his roomie. So I put it back down. While picking up my copy of the latest Hot Gimmick the cashier starts talking to me about manga. I asked her what she would recommend. She mentioned Hana-kimi, Fruits Basket, Gravitation... amoung others. So, I picked up Hana-kimi... AND I AM SO GLAD I DID. The execution of all said awkward elements was great. The story is not bland, contrived, awkward in any way. There is a lot to be excited about. Sano (Japanese athlete idol) is a really awesome character, and so is Nakatsu (peer who is hilariously freaked out when he starts to develope feelings for Mizuki- the supposed guy). It will be interesting... because the love triangle works. I don't know who I want her to end up with, and it's only the first volume!!! It's definetly worth it!
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Summary: hana-kimi's spotlight
Review: This is a tale of a girl's fantasy to get close to a star athelete named "Sano." Sano is a high jumper that has recently retired from jumping and Mizuki is determined to start him up again. Mizuki cuts off all her hair and transfers herself to an all boy's school. To her luck, her roomate just so happens to be Sano! Though it makes it more difficult to keep her disguise, she is easily tempted to put hints onto Sano to go back to jumping. What Mizuki doesn't know is that her secret is out, but Sano goes a long with her little fiasco. Mizuki, already caught as a huge fan, falls in love with Sano but can't say anything about her being a girl. To Sano's suprise, he ends up developing a crush on Mizuki but doesn't want it to look like he has feelings for a guy.
This manga is a great series! I've been reading manga for years and would have to give mad props to Hisaya-san for creating such an interesting comedy. This book is great for beginners and regular manga readers. It's a page turner that will definitly catch your attention. Great buy!
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Summary: For You In Full Gender-Bending Mayhem
Review: What is the concept behind Hana-Kimi? Let's see: - Girl sees boy
- Girl adores boy
- Girl becomes boy And for that, the manga becomes a huge success with over 20 volumes and counting. [IMPRESSIONS] Japan has pulled a "Yentl" in the world of manga, and that "Yentl" is Hana-Kimi, or Hanazakari no Kimitachi E(as if anyone's gonna remember that whole name, which is good for Viz to shorten it). Shoujo has become more of an acceptable genre for me. I got up with the slice-of-life, character-driven depth that is "MARS", and now I'm getting' down with this cross-dressing pleasantry. Is the Shoujo genre really that desperate to up the ante from the monotonous boy-meet-girl idea by depending on gender-bending? Well, it worked, or else this manga wouldn't have been a success, now would it? Mizuki Ashiya is a typical American teen girl who travels to Japan as a exchange student for an all-boys school. Why: to get close to her track-and-field idol Izumi Sano she admire since her adolescence. How: by putting on a boy's uniform and pretend to be one. The result: one oxymoron of a biased school year. Fortunately for her, her incognito worked and fooled everyone in this school, almost even a reader like myself. Without much on the T & A, she can downright pull it off for being a man(Eat your heart out, Barbara Streisand). It's too bad that the "Yentl" thing didn't last for long, as later on in the chapter, a wayward homosexual doctor knew that she was a chick when she was knocked down and was sent to the nurse's office, but he was kind enough to keep this a secret. Sadly, another person knew about her gend-bend disguise, and it was the one she idolize, Izumi, but he didn't tell her about him knowing. Great, he knows about her manly disguise, but she doesn't realize that he knows that, so he knows that she doesn't know that he knows that she's pretending to be a he...where was I? Oh yeah, then there's the bleached haired Shoichi Nakatsu. At first, he was cool with Mizuki, now he's at a "gay, not gay" situation whenever he feel aroused around Mizuki, and sometimes act goofy, and he doesn't know that guy a she(*sniff**sniff* I SMELL A LOVE TRIANGLE!). The cross-dressing concept may be somewhat of a gimmick, but with this manga, it comes off fresh. The idea mixed well with some above-par standards of a shoujo title: character development, back stories, exposed feelings, and a hint of gags. The story and humor drags down a little, and the characters are too similar by their facial structure, but other than that, the manga is solid and actually fun to read. Hana-Kimi has some nifty extras contained in this graphic novel. First off is the author's earlier work, "The Cage of Summer", which is about a girl who fell in love with her second cousin who is basically a ladies man, a nicotine addict, and a jerk, but the feelings around him couldn't be avoided. Weird incest material, and "MARS", it is not, but it's nostalgic at its best. Another extra is "The Osaka High School Dorms", which shows and informs the different dorms in this manga, plus a drawn blueprint of a room's interior. She may not be an architect, but she's good. There's also a short comic about the author working on a manga from her past, "Everyday Life", and her short discography. To be frank, I'm quite discomfort about Hana-Kimi. This is the first volume, and already, two people know about the main character's identity. If she was to be exposed in front of the whole crowd within a few volumes, and continues to story from then on, I would eventually see this as another tedious which-boy-gets-the-girl romancer. But I trust Hisaya Nakajo, and if she can continue with the whole gender-bending phase for the rest of this series, I would definitely enjoy reading her upcoming volumes.
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