The story begins at Eitoku Academy, where the students have a novel approach to bullying: Every few weeks an unsuspecting student opens his locker, sees a flag hanging inside and hyperventilates. It's a signal that the student will now be subject to mandatory ostracism and torture, while the cliquey F4, scions of Japan's wealthiest families, will sit back and watch. It's Gossip Girl meets Survivor. Into this fray steps young Tsukushi, a scholarship student.
In the summer of 2007, I spent a great deal of time absorbing Hana Yori Dango. Why? I too, attended an elite prep school in northern California with a trenchant cliquey system of which teachers were sometimes a part. I too, cowered from bullies and skipped lunch altogether to avoid having to figure out where to sit, while I longed for acceptance and escape. I'm an adult now, but my adolescent me still cheers for Tsukushi.
Because when Tsukushi's friend is bullied, she takes on Domyoji, the leader of the F4. Naturally, she gets a red flag. Incensed, she declares war on the clique, later marching up to Domyoji and kicking him in the face in the cafeteria. He topples over in full view of his minions and falls instantly in love. So begins a very complicated romance.
By the early 90s when the series came out, the "bamboo shoot" days of post war Japan, in which the country was forced to forage to find something to eat, had ended. But money did not provide an answer to the existential questions of the Japanese youth. Nationwide bullying became so popular an incident as to become a regular feature on the nightly news.
