Hachimitsu to Kuroba (officially translated as “Honey and Clover”) is a manga series written and illustrated by Chica Umino. The title is also shortened as HachiKuro and H&C. It was initially serialized from June 2000 to July 2006 in the magazines CUTiEcomic, Young YOU, and Chorus by Shueisha, with a total of 10 volumes. In 2003, Honey and Clover won the 27th Kodansha Manga Award in the shojo category.

The manga was later adapted as an anime series by J.C.Staff, initially broadcasted on Fuji TV. Season 1 ran from April to September 2005 and season 2 ran from June to September 2006, with a total of 36 episodes.

Honey and Clover was also adapted as a live-action feature film, produced by Asmik Ace Entertainment. The film was released in theaters on July 22, 2006, followed by two separate live-action TV dramas in 2008. Actress Yu Aoi won the award for Best Actress at the 28th Yokohama Film Festival for her role as Hagumi Hanamoto in the live-action film. Following the success of the live-action adaptations, a two-chapter spin-off was released from 2006 to 2008, written and illustrated by Umino Chika, bringing the story of Honey and Clover to a final close.

The story of Honey and Clover started at a tiny apartment complex. All the rooms in this complex were occupied by students and amongst them were Yuta Takemoto, Takumi Mayama and Shinobu Morita. These three young men were all attending an art college in Tokyo.

The apartment complex was small, with no shower and none of the rooms were sound-proofed. However, the students living there were lively and their college lives were full of interesting stories.

One night, Takemoto called out for his upper class men below, saying that he had a lot of korokke (fried mashes potatoes) and wanted to treat everyone. It turned out that Takemoto had two bags full of korokke.

When coming up to Takemoto’s room for korokke, Mayama found Morita snoring loudly on the floor. Mayama said that Morita has left for about half a month before coming back here and he did that quite often. Every time he disappeared, Morita would come back dead tired, with a big bag of food for everyone and a pocket full of cash. No one knew what he did to earn that kind of cash.

Later, all the other guys came up to Takemoto’s room and brought all kind of sauces with them. They complained about how Morita only bought korokke and not meat with all that money.

Takemoto told them that Morita showed up at his door and gave him the korokke. Before Morita passed out due to exhaustion, he asked Takemoto to wake him up for the 10 o’clock lecture the day after. Morita has failed to graduate from university because he was missing attendance hours of this particular class and he could never wake up early enough for that class. If he miss this class, he would become a 7th year college student!

The responsibility weighted heavily on Takemoto’s shoulder. The next morning, he tried everything to wake Morita up but failed miserably. Afraid that Morita would bully him if he fail, Takemoto asked for Mayama’s help. Mayama and Takemoto tried to give Morita’s coffee and even took photo of Takemoto trying his best as evidence.

Takemoto then left for his lecture and shouted, “If you end up repeating another year, don’t hold a grudge against me”. Hearing that, Morita jumped off the window and rushed to school. Thanks to that, he finally made it in time for the 10 o’clock lecture.

After class, Takemoto and Mayama were introduced to Hagumi Hanamoto, the daughter of a cousin of art professor Shuji Hanamoto. She has come to live with professor Hanamoto and became a 1st year student.

Hagumi, or nick-named “Hagu”, had a small body, long wavy hair and big eyes. Right at the moment Takemoto laid his eyes on Hagumi, he instantly fell in love. He gave her a bag of korokke and asked her to eat with him. Mayama saw that and thought “This is the first time that I actually witness the exact moment that a person falls in love”.

Later, Morita finished with his lecture and stepped inside the room. There, he also saw Hagumi for the first time and fell in love with her.

However, his expression of love was strange as he ran out to find a giant leaf, gave it to Hagumi and started taking pictures of her. Hagumi was scared and didn’t know what to do. Such, nobody yet noticed Morita’s true feelings.

How will the story of this spring of love unfold? Will Hagumi finally realize Takemoto and Morita’s feelings towards her?