5 college age art students become close friends as they share common interests in the field of art. The newest member of their group is Hagu. She is the niece of an art professor at the university and is known as a child prodigy. Immediately two of her friends grow to like her, Takemoto and Morita. Morita is the type that lives life on the edge, is extremely confident and talented in art. When Morita gets to spend time alone with Hagu, he expresses his feelings to her by kissing her suddenly. His friend and neighbor in the dormitory is Takemoto. He is more withdrawn, not as talented in art, and, even though he is in love with Hagu, tries to act like a friend to her.

The other two friends are Mayama and Yamada. Yamada is in love with Mayama, but Mayama is in love with an older woman, who is also his boss at work.

As they all grow closer together, they must cope with the unpredictable nature of love, as well as find their own respective places in life.

What drew me to checking out Honey & Clover was the appearance of Yu Aoi, who played the naive but seriously gifted Hagu. I have been hooked on her acting skills since seeing her wonderful performance in Hanna and Alice. Strangely enough, Hanna and Alice was released 2 years prior to Honey & Clover, but Yuu Aoi actually looked a lot younger in this film. I did double check the release date and she was indeed 19-20 years old during the filming of this movie. That was surprising because she looked like she was about 13 or 14 in this film. Her character was quiet, didn’t have speak all that much, yet she could still brighten up the screen with that huge smile of hers.

The reason why I said it may have helped to have been familiar with the original manga or anime series is because during the opening sequences there were a lot of different characters introduced and it was difficult to keep track of exactly who was who. Even with this problem of not being able to keep track of all the characters initially, each of the main characters quickly developed into likeable persons with their own unique quirks. Unfortunately, after the introduction of all the characters, the film then took too long to develop the main plot and during this time I did find myself waiting for something meaningful to happen. That meaningful event would have been a kiss placed on Hagu’s cheek by Marita on the beach, while Takemoto was watching from a distance. It seems that the kiss Hagu received on the beach, disturbed her profoundly, but I was never sure if it was because she looked up to Marita as a mentor and felt violated by that kiss or because she was torn between Marita and Takemoto. Perhaps because of this, I didn’t find the main storyline all that compelling. I actually preferred the sub-plot concerning another love triangle between Mayama, Yamada, and Rika. Yamada would have been my favorite character in the film. She was utterly charming in the film and I did find myself wishing she had a bigger role in the film.

In addition to these like-able group of characters, there were these constant hues of bright colors filmed in Honey & Clover, which I found to be very agreeable. The ultra bright colors that the movie used really helped to enhance the ambiance of the film, in particular the feeling of youth that these characters were able to bring about with their mannerisms and their artwork. On the flipside, I did find the soundtrack to be disturbing at times. The movie featured a lot of middle-of-the-road rock songs that seemed out of place for a group of college age art students.

As you can tell, I found Honey & Clover to be a bit uneven, having some really good qualities (interesting main characters & great cinematography) and some some not so good qualities (mediocre plot & sucky soundtrack). If you are familiar with the original Honey & Clover manga, you will most likely enjoy this movie a lot more. In retrospect I did find Honey & Clover to be a pretty good coming of age film, albeit uneven at times, highlighted by great characters and vibrant cinematography.