My favourite drama of all time is as above, the first drama I ever saw, and the one that will always remain in my heart, whether or not it is truly the best.
When I first grasped the concept of Hana Kimi, it was different to anything the western world had ever had to offer me. A girl travels from America to Japan, cross-dresses as a boy, to attend an all boys school (only for attractive boys, hence the tagline "ikemen paradise" or "hottie paradise") to convince a young japanese high-jumper to return to high jump.
That's right, I said high jump.
Does anyone actually follow high jump? Seriously?
The beauty of Hana Kimi doesn't lie within the love triangle between main characters Ashiya Mizuki (girl), Sano Izumi (the high jumper) and Nakatsu Shuichi (best friend), although it can be extremely cute - mainly due to the adorable Nakatsu. No, the show's real potential comes from its abundance of crazy and lovable side characters, from the man-whore Namba Minami, to the dramatic, cape-brandishing Oscar M. Himejima. No one can forget the helpful exorcist/medium/psychic Kayashima, the crazy violence of the martial arts captain Tenouji, and the cute but bitchy Nakao.
My favourite personally is the lovable plot-explainer Sekime, whose name no one can quite seem to recall.
Where the romance between an awkward Ashiya and stilted Sano falls a little flat, the humour injected by a love-struck Nakatsu who becomes extrememly confused about his sexual preference, fills the gaps. With a wacky storyline that doesn't even try to be sensible, a cast that never made sense and a script that was surely writeen by someone on drugs, Hana Kimi is still the cutest, funniest and craziest drama I've ever seen...
...and I haven't even mentioned high-jump rival Kagurazaka (who does not look in any way Japanese, let me just say) and the slightly scary but super awesome school doctor Umeda Hokuto.
As Ashiya tries desperately to convince Sano to rejoin the high-jump team and struggles to conceal both her gender and her growing love for Sano, she faces family issues, injuries, self-doubt and life at a school filled with crazy (but hot) guys.
How can you not watch?
Best moments: Any scene with Nakatsu talking to himself, and Sekime's exclamation in the final episode (but that's just because I'm a Sekime fan =)
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