Anime: Hana yori Dango (1997)

Note: I try to be as objective as I can when writing a review. But perfect objectivity is impossible and in my opinion, undesirable.
The average grade is completely irrelevant and shouldn't matter to anyone. I personally rated this show 7.


Overview:
Hana Yori Dango The Movie is more like a special to the series than an actual movie. My guess is that it is based on the opening animation of the TV series which has the entire cast dancing as if they were in a musical.

Animation: 7
It looks pretty good as far as characters are concerned, probably because they retain the same design as in the main show. Most of the time, everyone is dancing and their motion is depicted quite well and fluent. However, they do a lot of close-ups on body parts during this. So it doesn't look as good as it could.
The backgrounds are bland and uninteresting (they're apparently in the US so it's pretty much just low res sky scrapers) and seem to be drawn in another style than the characters. This makes the people feel a bit disjointed from their environment.

Sound: 6
The opening and ending themes from the series are used a lot, this being a musical and all. They're not bad, but they're not that great either. So it is a bit annoying when the same song comes up a third or a fourth time during just 30 minutes. The seiyuu do their job, but just barely. Most of them, particularly the ones who play Tsukushi and Rui, deliver their lines in a disinterested, robotic manner.

Story: 5
The plot seems rehashed from a random American dance musical. Poor girl is a cleaner for a dancing troop. Through effort and hard practice manages to get the lead role. The End. It isn't bad. But it is entirely predictable and kinda boring. The majority of it is the lead dancing, so that doesn't help either.

Characters: 5
The characters have the same personality. But, this being just 30 minutes, they are reduced in their complexity. So they seem stererotypical and some even one-dimensional. This is the case for side characters that are put in there just for the heck of it. There is no growth to their personalities to mention, maybe just the lead getting some self confidence.

Value: 5
If you love Hana Yori Dango (and you have all the reasons to) and want to complete your collection, be sure to keep in mind that this is hardly a movie. It was marketed as such for no other reason than to cash in on the series' success. As a standalone piece it doesn't have much value because of the unoriginal plot and the weak characters.

Enjoyment: 7
Well, seeing all the cast from HYD brought back some fond memories. Those distracted me a bit from the movie and with it being so short, I didn't have time to get bored. So it was an enjoyable watch.