(continued from previous post--Livejournal refused to post the whole thing as one because it was too long)
Boys Over Flowers (a/k/a Hana Yori Dango) is kind of like an over the top cross between Hot Gimmick and a gender-switched version of "The O.C.," with the lower-class interloper being female instead of male. Tsukushi is an indomitable girl from a struggling middle class family who, at her social-climbing mother's behest, managed to get into elite Eitoku Academy, where most of her fellow students have allowances bigger than her unsuccessful dad's salary. When Tsukushi sticks up for a friend and butts heads with the F4, the clique of megarich boys who effectively run the school, they make her life hell--until Tsukushi's refusal to knuckle under and habit of insulting and even kicking him rather than kowtowing start to remind Tsukasa, the slightly scramble-brained leader of the F4, of his domineering but beloved big sister. Soon Tsukasa is trying to make Tsukushi over into a potential girlfriend suitable for someone of his exalted station. Meanwhile, Tsukushi is still secretly pining over Rui Hanazawa, the only one of the F4 who was occasionally decent to her back when she was still the target of Tsukasa's wrath.
Ouran Host Club is also about a poor girl who falls in with a clique of popular rich boys at an exclusive private school. In this case, the boyish-looking bookworm Haruhi stumbles into the host club's headquarters thinking it's the school library. When she accidentally breaks an expensive vase in her hurry to depart, the boys demand that she pay it off by working at the host club (a sort of PG-rated--in this case--on-site escort service; basically, their female fellow students come to the club's HQ and pay the good-looking boys to have tea and flirt with them). When the host club boys finally realize that the short-haired Haruhi, who had worn something resembling the boys' uniform to school because it was cheaper and more practical than the skirted ensemble she should have bought, is actually a girl, they insist that she maintain the charade of being a boy host anyway--not least because Tamaki, the somewhat airheaded club president, developed a crush on Haruhi when he saw how well she cleaned up with contacts instead of glasses, a good (boy's) haircut, and a nice blazer. (No, he's not supposed to be gay.) See also Revolutionary Girl Utena (although the anime is somewhat more entertaining than the manga) for a much, much more fantasy-tinged and over the top treatment of some of the same story elements, plus ritual duels for possession of the Rose Bride, a girl with an incredibly passive personality who functions as a cross between the Lady of the Lake and a human version of the stone King Arthur pulled Excalibur out of. (I.e., the duellist deemed most worthy is enabled to draw the magical Sword of Dios from the Rose Bride's bosom--literally).
More annals of girls in male disguise: Kaze Hikaru is sort of like Hana-Kimi meets Rurouni Kenshin, except that Sei/Kamiya disguises herself as a boy and joins the self-appointed samurai militia of the Mibu-Roshi (later known as the Shinsengumi, who as supporters of the Shogun against the Emperor Meiji would have been Kenshin's enemies) in order to avenge the murders of her father and brother. However, she sticks around even after she's begun to have doubts about this plan because she's fallen in love with the handsome young Okita, one of the (real-life) leaders of the group.
Oh, and in view of your past experiences in India, you might want to check out CLAMP's early series RG Veda, which is based on Indian mythology. I kind of lost interest partway through the first volume, but the only CLAMP series I really like are Legal Drug, Suki (probably the only manga CLAMP ever did which has no fantasy elements), Tokyo Babylon, and Chobits.
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Date: 2006-07-15 07:22 am (UTC)Boys Over Flowers (a/k/a Hana Yori Dango) is kind of like an over the top cross between Hot Gimmick and a gender-switched version of "The O.C.," with the lower-class interloper being female instead of male. Tsukushi is an indomitable girl from a struggling middle class family who, at her social-climbing mother's behest, managed to get into elite Eitoku Academy, where most of her fellow students have allowances bigger than her unsuccessful dad's salary. When Tsukushi sticks up for a friend and butts heads with the F4, the clique of megarich boys who effectively run the school, they make her life hell--until Tsukushi's refusal to knuckle under and habit of insulting and even kicking him rather than kowtowing start to remind Tsukasa, the slightly scramble-brained leader of the F4, of his domineering but beloved big sister. Soon Tsukasa is trying to make Tsukushi over into a potential girlfriend suitable for someone of his exalted station. Meanwhile, Tsukushi is still secretly pining over Rui Hanazawa, the only one of the F4 who was occasionally decent to her back when she was still the target of Tsukasa's wrath.
Ouran Host Club is also about a poor girl who falls in with a clique of popular rich boys at an exclusive private school. In this case, the boyish-looking bookworm Haruhi stumbles into the host club's headquarters thinking it's the school library. When she accidentally breaks an expensive vase in her hurry to depart, the boys demand that she pay it off by working at the host club (a sort of PG-rated--in this case--on-site escort service; basically, their female fellow students come to the club's HQ and pay the good-looking boys to have tea and flirt with them). When the host club boys finally realize that the short-haired Haruhi, who had worn something resembling the boys' uniform to school because it was cheaper and more practical than the skirted ensemble she should have bought, is actually a girl, they insist that she maintain the charade of being a boy host anyway--not least because Tamaki, the somewhat airheaded club president, developed a crush on Haruhi when he saw how well she cleaned up with contacts instead of glasses, a good (boy's) haircut, and a nice blazer. (No, he's not supposed to be gay.) See also Revolutionary Girl Utena (although the anime is somewhat more entertaining than the manga) for a much, much more fantasy-tinged and over the top treatment of some of the same story elements, plus ritual duels for possession of the Rose Bride, a girl with an incredibly passive personality who functions as a cross between the Lady of the Lake and a human version of the stone King Arthur pulled Excalibur out of. (I.e., the duellist deemed most worthy is enabled to draw the magical Sword of Dios from the Rose Bride's bosom--literally).
More annals of girls in male disguise: Kaze Hikaru is sort of like Hana-Kimi meets Rurouni Kenshin, except that Sei/Kamiya disguises herself as a boy and joins the self-appointed samurai militia of the Mibu-Roshi (later known as the Shinsengumi, who as supporters of the Shogun against the Emperor Meiji would have been Kenshin's enemies) in order to avenge the murders of her father and brother. However, she sticks around even after she's begun to have doubts about this plan because she's fallen in love with the handsome young Okita, one of the (real-life) leaders of the group.
Oh, and in view of your past experiences in India, you might want to check out CLAMP's early series RG Veda, which is based on Indian mythology. I kind of lost interest partway through the first volume, but the only CLAMP series I really like are Legal Drug, Suki (probably the only manga CLAMP ever did which has no fantasy elements), Tokyo Babylon, and Chobits.
Margaret