I have to agree with you..high expectations might lead to big disappointment even no matter how we try to keep positive. In this case, KBS BBF has a lot to live up to especially when the Japanese version is so well-loved by so many.

Can't wait though even here in Malaysia it will premiere a little bit later (erm, three weeks after maybe).

Thanks for the info! :)

Perhaps its because Im yet to finish Hana Yori Dango and have not made any attempt to view Meteor Garden nor have I read the manga, but Im curious about all the clamor that surrounds this story. Im asking this as a real question - could someone explain it to me? I find HYD cute, but not overwhelmingly so. Is this a teenage mania ( a la Twilight) that I missed since Im out of my teens?

Why did she visit only Korean version ? Not even Japanese version.

There are 2 answer I can think of. #1, she must really like the cast. #2, marketing strategy (a good one, I say).

You're right. I hope they won't let us down.

Ah...I also have very high expectations at this point! If it isn't amazing I'm gonna be really depressed.

Omo! I must keep my expectations lower because I really don't want to be disappointed by this. I'm still super excited for this.

Instead of running around with the perception that our glasses are "half-empty", shouldn't this praise from the actual creater of this story and these characters seal the deal as far concern about the casting goes? THE SOURCE of the inspiration is inspired by the choices and we're telling her that she's wrong??!!!

I have a cousin who's just like that. Constantly insisting that he can build a better mousetrap, but never actually building one of his own: He's not a real popular fellow. Cheer up, kids...lets' enjoy the promise of the upcoming year.

P.S. Hire that artist. She's really captured the characters! Oh, yeah....

The only question I have in this drama is how lee min- ho and go hye sun can pull off the characters of domyouji and makino. I hope they do it right because people will be pointing at them first since they are the main characters. I'm a huge fan of hana yori dango, I hope Korean version will not left me disappointed.

@Liv, I know that the original Hana Yori Dango is a bit underwhelming at first, but it really hits its stride by the end of the series. The acting in it is great, and I believe the production values for the show were the highest ever for a Japanese serial at the time. I think it is an example of a perfectly executed drama-- it's not that the plot is anything new, it's just extremely well done. As for the plot itself, the theme of high school bullying is pretty universal, and the victory of that hearty weed, Makino, over her powerful bullies, their hearts, and pretty much any other obstacle in her way makes for a wonderfully rousing bit of television.

I second Liv's thoughts. I watched the first installment (season) of the Japanese Hana Yori Dango about a year or so ago after reading a lot of people raving about it online, and I really was not at all impressed with it or even all that entertained by it. It had its cute moments, and I had a couple of laughs watching it, but for the most part, I found the story underwhelming & immature. And I did not like the main male character, Domyoji, at all. Probably the only character that I did actually like quite a bit was Makino....and well Rui, but that was mostly because he was eye candy.

So, I too don't really understand all the hype that surrounds HYD.

i cant wait for this drama just 5 days left YEAH BOIII
i cant wait for this drama just 5 days left YEAH BOIII
i cant wait for this drama just 5 days left YEAH BOIII

thanks for sharing the updates on boys before flowers

does anybody know how the movie Antique Bakery did and were i can watch w/ eng subs?

I've been disappointed by countless dramas this past year, so i'm trying to learn from my mistakes and keep my expectations low...but it's HARD!!!

I LOVE THAT PICTURE SHE DREW!!!

@Marg
Well, hopefully you'll like the korean one yeah?^^
I liked the manga best, obviously original is gonna be better than any remake. though I havent seen meteor garden no do i want to. I can tell the korean one will be more true to the original than the japanese version already from the trailers. The kiss on the beach at night with doumyoji walking in, venice...its all there!
ooo that would be such high praise for me if i was the actors, coming from the original artist.

I like this poster best. All of them look great especially Lee Minho. He is really gorgeous. I am so glad they picked him for Domyouji. I am unable to keep my expectations low. Korean dramas have high production values, we know the story already and and I am not demanding oscar caliber performance. Just something fun and entertaining and cool clothes and a great soundtrack.

@Anonymous

I'll definitely check out the Korean version...even if just out of sheer curiosity of how they'll approach the story (similarities/differences). I know that Japanese dramas have a very different style and approach to storytelling compared to Korean dramas. In all honesty, I do prefer Kdramas. Anyways, I'll try to approach this version with an open mind and give it a try.

their promtion team is really working hard.. they have different posts almost everyday over a month to arise viewers' attention. i hope this drama will be doing well & the acting is acceptable otherwise it is just a shame ^

heheh, I was surprised when I heard the mangaka actually visited them!

And she's right... the Korean cast (especially Lee Min Ho! He looked like he really popped out of the covers of the manga....) really do match well with the manga... and I suppose they really did know who they were choosing when they picked the cast! (especially after seeing that picture she drew... and looking up to compare... even I dont mind GHS now......... o.o)

My expectations are highest now.. and after the slow year in 08 with dramas and etc, hopefully this drama will revive the year with fresh dramas and... make it a better year~ ^^ (sigh.... I know YEH is everywhere... but I still wished she would have been Makino because I know she probably would have been able to do this naturally.. *cries*)

I've seen the Japanese show, so my worry is that they'll copy it nearly scene for scene, like Americans tend to do. I watch a lot of UK television, and too many of their shows get remade by Americans. All the American remakes do is copy the UK version almost exactly. It's annoying and ridiculous, as well as a huge disappointment.

excitedddddddd.
and i rooted/preferred rui in the japanese one and i think i will do the same for the korean one..

@Pully,

"Why did she visit only Korean version ? Not even Japanese version."

Kamio-sensei visited the Japanese set before the first season. Kamio drew the cast for them as well. Inoue Mao was a MakinoxRui (FTW!!) fan, and so she drew her a personal Rui as well.

Worth mentioning that Kamio's drawing skills were initially very limited, and that she effectively learned her craft as a manga-ka during the run of Hana Yori Dango. So the artwork and character drawings go through a lot of changes as she got better. She was really excited that finally a Jdorama was being made of her story and was ecstatic about the results after the first episode.

@Liv,

Yeah, there's a Goong-size disconnect between J-drama fans and everybody else over Hana Yori Dango. To serious J-drama watchers, HYD is often considered a mediocre-to-bad show mostly helped by the production budget that went behind it. Unrealistic side characters, overuse of slapstick, an extremely mannered performance by Matsumoto Jun, implausible plot twists, an orgy of bad idol appearances, etc. etc. This assessment BTW also holds for the majority of idol dramas adapted from manga. There is a similar disconnect in regards to Pride. Pride is popular overseas, but it's considered a mediocre Takuya Kimura show in Japan.

Objectively (i.e. treating Hana Yori Dango as a J-drama proper, rather than as adaptation) I happen to agree. But I still love HanaDan. Depending on whom you talk to, it's somewhere between the Twilight and the Pride and Prejudice of the Asian idol/trendy drama genre.

NOW the backstory about Hana Yori Dango . . .

When the Hana Yori Dango manga ended in 2003, it was at the time the most read shoujo (both in total sales and per volume) ever. It had been already a big hit a few years into its run when it spawned the original HYD Live Action movie as well as CDs and the like. However its key claim to fame was spawning Meteor Garden, which was the first major Taiwanese idol drama/manga adaptation, and which in turn was the seminal show that keyed off the Taiwanese trendy as we know it today. The acting wasn't good (at the time, none of the F4 or Barbie Hsu had done real acting before); my guy friends hate the show with an extreme passion. The F4 of Meteor Garden became popular all over Asia, and the Meteor Garden franchise ran on and off from 2000-2003 as well.

When Hana Yori Dango was announced for the fall 2005 season, it was actually a very late addition. The rumor mill for Hana Dan J-drama had run on and off since Meteor Garden 3 ended, and there were even rumors that maybe Hikki-chan (Utada Hikaru) may be cast as Makino. The producers of another show ran into legal troubles, and so they decided to produce HanaDan instead. TBS also hired Yamamuro Daisuke (Im Ai ni Yukimasu, Taiyou no Uta, Rondo, Karei Naru Ichizoku, Tomorrow) to direct HanaDan; Yamamuro's one of TBS's "go to" guys when they want to shoot something expensive. Because of its very late run, only 9 episodes were planned for it. Also -- and this is worth mentioning -- even though it was initially viewed as TBS's cash-in of F4 popularity in Japan, TBS had not really committed to promoting the show fully. It was a higher budget show (at the time, the most per episode), true, but that was partially due to the 9-episode run.

Hana Yori Dango was a perfect storm. You had the F4/Meteor Garden effect. It was a reunion between the original Gokusen bad boys -- Matsumoto Jun and Oguri Shin. Arashi was about to break big into the international market. And of course you had the original Hana Yori Dango following (HELLO ME!!), who were in their 20s and dealing with the manga finishing its run with a somewhat open ending. The casting was also well suited in the sense that the female actress cast as Makino was already a big fan of the manga, and Matsumoto Jun's older sister FORCED him to read the whole thing.

For the fall 2005 season, Hana Yori Dango won the ratings war, edging out Dangerous Beauty/Kiken no Anegi. However, those numbers didn't reflect the popularity it generated on the Internet or internationally. After the first episode of HanaDan, the write-in response from all over Asia was so overwhelming that it shut down the HanaDan website, the first time that's EVER happened for a J-drama show. Due to that response, they did a late cast-in with J-drama Queen Matsushima Nanako as Doumyouji's big sis, which contributed to 2-3 percentage rating points for everytime she showed. Over the run of the first season, the HanaDan website ended up bringing in over a million hits, itself a record for J-drama. Even with its original hopes, the TBS station had not anticipated that HanaDan would become effectively one of the first Japanese mania dramas. The success of its run influenced the storyline. For the TOJ ending, TBS chose a bigger auditorium hall and did a major casting call to bring in fans of the show to fill out the auditorium. Also, they asked the PD to make the ending somewhat open-ended, in case a second season would be green lighted.

It should also be noted that Fall 2005 was kind of seminal season for the current generation of international J-drama fans. In addition to HanaDan, you also had Nobuta wo Produce (Producing Nobuta) and Ichi Rittoru no Namida (1 Litre of Tears.) HanaDan and Nobuta ended up splitting the major popularity awards for Fall 2005. Nobuta launched Horikita Maki's popularity, won an award for Kame as a lead, brought visibility to Toda Erika, the #1 Oricon single of 2005 . . . and gave us perpetual "next Takuya Kimura" idol Yamashita Tomahisa's most famous role. 1 Litre of Tears set up Erika Sawajiri's run as a top idol starlet and (then) the Nagasawa vs. Sawajiri idol battle of 2006, established Nikishado Ryo's popularity as a future lead. In addition, Remioromen's Konayuki became the most popular ballad of 2005, and K's "Only Human" became one of the biggest singles ever by a Korean male singer in Japan.

HanaDan's international and Internet popularity continues to grow in 2006, especially after the sequel was finally announced. It had successfully established a new property and identity independent of the original F4. The news of a sequel was surprising, since most people expected instead a movie or special to finish out the story. First, to do another season of HanaDan would have required them to bring back at least five actors (the F4 plus Inoue Mao), all whose popularity (except for MatsuJun, who was already very popular) significantly expanded after the show. Second, HanaDan had already used the ending of the original manga. Third -- and biggest of all -- although various J-dramas have had multiseason runs, it was/is still extremely rare for a ren'ai renzoku ("Serialized Love Story") to be given a 2nd season run. To give a romantic trendy 2nd season status is to effectively elevate that "love couple" among the likes of seminal territory like Aya/Takumi from Japanese tearjerker Hoshi no Haka (Heaven's Coins.)

However, TBS had really struggled in 2006 (much like MBC in 2008.) The general downturn of J-drama ratings, which had roughly begun in 2004, had taken a big nosedive through 2006. (And it kind of reiterated the bittersweet feeling among older, disfranchised viewers that J-drama now stood for Johnny-Entertainment Drama, even among those who loved SMAP and the 90s JE Idols. That disillusionment, of course, led to Hallyu in Japan.) The point being -- TBS was desperate, like "MBC begging people to love East of Eden" desperate. THEY NEEDED A HIT. For whatever reason, TBS was so freaked out about getting a surefire hit, that they also programmed Kimura Takuya remake of the classic Karei-naru Ichizoku for the same winter 2006 season. Essentially, what TBS did was run their Goong and their East of Eden adjacent to each other.

They gave HanaDan 2.0 not only a massive budget (including an extended shoot in New York City), but a much longer production schedule and MOUNTAINS of hype. In a sense, they overcompensated for the relative under-promotion of the original season. But the most important thing that TBS did was essentially give the story to the rabid Internet HanaDan following. Remember -- Japanese HanaDan had ended the same way the original manga did; they didn't really know where to take the story. On their web site, TBS polled the viewers for all the storylines that THEY wanted in the 2nd Hana Yori Dango, which included the Saturn Necklace motif (glaring omission), the Rain Scene, the cabin scene, etc. (I'm not sure how the amnesia scene made it, as that was widely regarded as the worst story arc within HanaDan.) Before the show ran, TBS published all the story points that they were planning to do for 2nd season.

The key difference in audience response between Hana Yori Dango Season 1 and 2 was that, while HanaDan Season 1 was about making a popular adaptation, Season 2 was an insular exercise in “HanaVerse-fandom” (which was good for hardcore fans), and it became a christening of “JunMao” as a J-drama supercouple. The main appeal of HYD S2 was that THIS would be the drama that brought closure to the Hana Yori Dango pan-Asian franchise, that it would finally bring some kind of emotional resolution to the open ending of the original Hana Yori Dango manga. Somewhere along the line, the J-drama identity of Matsumoto Jun and Inoue Mao became the fangirl focal point instead of merely Doummouji and Makino. We see this all the time in K-drama, but it had been years that the core J-drama teen audience responded with the same hysteria. At various points in the drama 2nd season, you could see both MatsuJun and Mao-chan effectively break character and do essentially a version of their brother-sister-like friendship. Given how tightly managed Johnny Idols are (to the point where ANY public display of flirtation on a variety show leads to mass hysteria on teh Interwebs), it was unprecedented to see a group of young Japanese actors that seem almost like family amongst each other. Not just Mao and Jun, but Shun, Shota, and Abe.

At that point, Japanese HanaDan really asserted its status as a J-pop phenomenon, in the way Meteor Garden did years ago. HanaDan ceased becoming a drama; it reached meta, a event upon itself. When TBS rented out the Budokan Arena for the finale, and Makino/F4 stood before its audience, HanaDan essentially broke story and turned into a curtain call between the cast and the enormous fan following. It was a tremendous showing of gratitude: for running a big ratings hit (the Winter 2006 season would eventually be distinguished out as the only season to have run THREE shows that averaged 20+, which hadn’t been done in years or since), for giving finally a satisfying sense of closure to the HanaDan storyline, but above all, for the genuine chemistry between the actors making up the F4 and their female lead.

Finally, this summer -- as a kind of victory lap (and way to milk the rather barren breasts of Japanese HanaDan) -- they ran the Hana Yori Dango Final movie. Which drew in box office close to the movie version of Hero and became one of the top hits of 2008. In addition, it did well in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and South Korea. From 2000-03, there was Meteor Garden, the drama that essentially launched the Taiwanese trendy as we know it today. From 2005-2008, there was Hana Yori Dango, one of the most popular Japanese idol franchises of the last 4-5 years.

And now, a belated X-mas gift for anybody who made it to the end of this essay. Preview of Episode 1. F4!!F4!!F4!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxUgTrmB3WU

wow im really looking forward to this, but trying not to expect too much heh. i hope the production won't disappoint! i have such an affinity with hyd from the taiwan version lol

hwaiting! ^_^

I dunno but I think the Korean version will be better than the Japanese & Taiwanese cuz the lead actors are really handsome but I'm only disappointing with lead actors who played Makino cuz the Japanese actress is better.. but I don't need to rush on my decision & wait till it air to watch it & decide..

Belleza, wow. Just wow. That essay was way informative about the HYD/"Boys before Flowers" phenomenon. Thank you for the insight!

@Belleza...I couldn't make it to the end of the essay but I did finished half-way. lol Good job!

Ah, I'm not hoping for this to be good nor fearing it bad. I'm going to keep a "blank" mind in watching this so I won't be biased. Will see...