I bought this on DVD a few months ago purely on a whim - I liked the cover, I'd heard the story was quite sweet and CDJapan had a few copies of the limited edition left. I'm /so/ glad I did.

I've seen a lot of reviews claiming that without some sort of prior knowledge of the anime/manga, this movie isn't worth your time. I'm going to have to disagree, however, as I've seen neither, and found 'Honey and Clover' to be just so charming.

It's not a dramatic, flashy story - it's a gentle look at love and growing up with five of the most likable characters I've encountered in any film in recent times. I can see why some people would find it slow-paced, but I thought it was a lovely little glimpse into the lives of these characters (and given the nature of the film, I think it makes sense that the storyline meanders slowly through their lives, revealing little bits of them).

Visually, it's very attractive. Being set in an art school means there's plenty of wonderful scenes of paint splashing around on canvas, and everything about it is bright and fun to look at. The soundtrack is great - Yoko Kanno is so talented, I don't even have the words to gush annoyingly - and fits well.

I really enjoyed this film. I wouldn't say it's for everyone (I hesitate to use the words 'chick-flick' as 'Honey and Clover' is a lot more thoughtful than that, but I have trouble envisioning most guys watching and enjoying it) but watching it left me with a warm, nostalgic feeling inside. :)

I'll admit that I only watched this film because of Naomi Nishida (from "The Happiness of the Katakuris"-- a far far better film that this),but ouch was this a real bore.

By the end of the film -- and I'm rather disappointed that I bothered to watch the whole thing - - I had no compassion at all for the characters. The "arts students" were stereotypically the worst students you could imagine (ie. lazy, talentless non-working dossers),the plot is virtually non-existent, and the central "artist" is a misogynistic wastrel. The film outlasted its welcome by at least an hour.

The only good thing I'd say is that this film is available on certain sites, so at least you won't have to waste hard cash to watch it. Time, on the other hand, waits for no man.

I guess this could have been an OK movie on it's own, but being familiar with the anime and the manga I really don't like this movie. They've taken everything that's good about the original and thrown it out the window. It's not possible to fit everything that's in a 10 volume manga or 26 episode anime into a movie of course. This movie solves this by throwing out the original story almost completely and replacing it with an inferior story instead.

In the anime series people are good friends and their friendships are actually important, not so much here. The characters have had major personality changes, most notably Yamada. She's nothing like her spunky self here, quite the opposite. Mayama is even more of a stalker in this version and since many of his interactions and dialogues with Yamada is still there (despite her huge personality change) he comes of as very conceited. Morita is behaving like a conceited stoner. Shūji Hanamoto doesn't seem to care about Hagu at all and is mostly seen drinking with nameless students. Takemoto for some reason works as that cat-mascot (not in the amusement park) and is a real jerk to Yamada when he's not being a whinier version of himself. Hagu is not her shy quirky self either... she's much more forward than Yamada, which is really weird. In stead of showing us the friendship between Yamada and Hagu, we're simply told that they're friends. Rika doesn't have a back-story, she can walk without a crutch and she's just a normal boring person that feels uncomfortable with Mayama's creepy behavior. He stalks her every day, collect and keep different items she's used while he's working for her. They've chosen to keep the gay twins, here they're gallery owners displaying Morita's art. None of the workers of Fujiwara Design is in this one. This is a strange priority to me, that doesn't make much sense. In the anime the characters talk about going to the beach, but they actually never go... in the movie we get a long and pointless scene with the characters on the beach. The whole Hagu-Morita relationship is completely different here too and most of the story focuses on Morita being a successful artist and Hagu being upset because she feels he is a sellout. They have Takemoto driving around aimlessly on his bike, but it's just thrown in without any purpose to the story or any realization coming out of it. Instead of throwing in random invented scenes that doesn't really flesh out the characters or have any meaning they should have focused on the relationships that are there in the original story. Pinpointing them trough key scenes between the different characters. I liked and cared about all the characters in the anime, in this version I can hardly stand any of them. If you like the personalities in the anime and think their friendships are important, stay far away from this movie.