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femme-malewife · 1 year

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A Complete Comparison Between the Honeyworks MVs/Novels vs the Anime Adaptation

Okay. Rant here.

I am tagging this explicitly as Heroine Tarumono/Heroines Run the Show hate. Because I do hate it. I will admit they got a few things right, but the ratio from things wrong to right is more like...20:1.

Here we go.

So, Yamako is the creator and designer for LIPxLIP, their costumes, their kiss marks and their placements, and etc. Shito and Gom are the main musicians who created the LIPxLIP discography.

Kousaka Mari is the writer for the LIPxLIP and the Hiyori novels, she’s the one who expands on the MVs that Yamako, Shito and Gom (YSG trio) created.

Okay? Okay. Now that we got that settled...

LIPxLIP’s story- they met at an audition. They did not get along well at all, and even fought during said audition. When they’re told that they’re going to team up, they protest this and begrudgingly agree because the agreement after that decision was made was “become a unit, or don’t debut at all”, and both of their dream is to become idols. Or, more specifically, Aizou’s was to sing (in order to make people smile, like how he used to make his family smile), and Yujiro’s was to stand on the stage (because he abandoned his childhood to stand on the kabuki stage with his stepfather, but was disinherited. It’s even revealed in the LOVE&KISS novel that he was never meant to stand on stage anyway)

After working together for so long, of course, Aizou and Yujiro grow to genuinely care about each other, and they often try to help each other while the other is down- hence the dedication to each other in Yume Fanfare.

Enter Hiyori. She’s from Izumo City, and got a part-time job so that she can live as her family temporarily struggled with money. She finds an ad to become a manager and finds out that she is now the manager for her (rude) classmates and the idol duo of LIPxLIP.

Of course, both LIPxLIP didn’t want Hiyori to be their manager. Both ganged up on her until she got so fed up with being put down by them that she was determined to do her job solely so she can prove to them that they’re wrong about her.

This is where the amazing dynamic starts.

She does do good with her job- even though she is not without her flaws. In the Nonfantasy novel, she retrieves the rosettes that were left behind by the staff and runs back to where Aizou and Yujiro were and makes it just in time. After that, she decides to take a rest since she was so exhausted, but ended up sleeping throughout the entire event. No ankle injury. Aizou and Yujiro wake her up and begrudgingly admit that she did a good job.

She is also bullied by Yumeru, and yes, Yumeru makes her fall into a lake to retrieve her gloves. However! Hiyori tripped on her own accord. This puts the blame not solely on Yumeru, but onto Hiyori as well.

This is extremely important, as this truly puts LIPxLIP’s faith in Hiyori as their manager and growing-friend to the test. Of course, guilty, Hiyori hides. After the filming is over, LIPxLIP goes and find her, and while she’s moping, they tell her, essentially, “okay, yeah? You fucked up lol. But everyone makes mistakes, you can’t drag yourself down over that. Just work harder and be more careful next time.”

That’s it. No yelling, no “oh we knew that you wouldn’t be a good manager”. Because at this point, they can see how hard she’s working. This is a real bond of friendship of mutual trust and respect that is growing.

By the end of the novel, her contract time is up, and LIPxLIP ask Manager Uchida if Hiyori can continue, because they’ve grown to care for her as their friend, and they genuinely respect the work she’s put in, not knowing that Uchida already was ready to extend her contract. And not to mention, Hiyori didn’t want to quit from the get-go. She was sad about leaving, but figured that she wouldn’t be allowed to stay. Upon hearing LIPxLIP want her to stay, she’s happy and agrees to stay.

The Nonfantasy novel pretty much covers the first five episodes of the anime.

BUT.

What did the anime do???

It took the entire novel, ripped it up, and wrote a shitty retelling of it.

In the anime, Hiyori needing a job remains the same. LIPxLIP hate her and disagree about her becoming the manager. That stays the same. In fact, the first two episodes are actually pretty good.

However, issues arise in episode 3. Hiyori finds out that she’s going to fail her exams, and works to study. LIPxLIP find her, and they ask her why she runs. She explains her dream to run and...suddenly their entire opinion on her shifts..? Um. Okay. Sure. Whatever.

Then they help her with her studies which is a genuinely cute scene, I will admit.

Then the filming of Nonfantasy comes. They keep Yumeru as a jealous bitch but tones down her bullying....UNTIL...

She sees LIPxLIP sharing their sweets with Hiyori (??? why??? At this point they still don’t recognize Hiyori’s efforts. They haven’t even really discussed her as their manager at this point!) and act all friendly with her. Then Yumeru trips Hiyori, and Hiyori hides.

LIPxLIP find her later and say “you messing up is nothing new” then Yumeru comes along, and....they threaten her? “I saw you trip her. Let’s check the cameras” and then Yumeru runs away in tears and Hiyori is like “omg...princes...”

What? What????? Literally what?????????????

This was a complete turnaround?!?! And it’s only episode 3?!?!?! WHERE did the trust and friendliness come from??? Don’t tell me that they’re buddy-buddies with Hiyori because she told them their dream???? UM??? lmao sorry that’s not how that works???

Where is the relationship development??? Oh right. Flushed down the goddamn toilet to make viewers believe that they’re falling in love, even though this is not a relationship development. I don’t know what the hell that is.

In the next episode, it gives the viewers the very tip of the iceberg of Aizou and Yujiro’s past, but they make it so...minuscule that it’s pathetic. Like, okay, I get that it’s Hiyori’s anime, but if you’re not going to elaborate on their trauma, then don’t fucking include it at all, unless you want to give the viewers the wrong impression.

In the novels, Hiyori knows absolutely nothing about their past. Why would she? As abuse victims, they’re not going to just tell her that their lives sucked before they became idols. And she made absolutely NO assumptions about them, and when one was upset, she stayed out of it because she knew it was not in her element.

In the anime, she still barely knows anything, but she opens her big mouth??? Says Yujiro’s family does love him because his mom made him bentos and compares her dislike of squid (the squiiiishy texture) to Aizou’s trauma with women. If her goal was to make him laugh, then that would be passable, but she flat out said she understood what he meant!

NO. That is NOT . how. that. works!

If you don’t know anything about someone but maybe very brim surface levels, you shut up and either wait for that person to tell you more, or just stay out of it!

And finally, episode 5...um. What happened here? Hiyori, who sprained her ankle in the anime, fails to get into nationals. This was never in the novels. In fact, her being in track was brought up a few times by Aizou and Yujiro, wondering if she would participate in those things or focus on her job.

So, in the anime, they sing their song, the song that YAMAKO HERSELF SAID IT FOR THEM, to Hiyori. And this is the ONLY TIME in the anime that we hear them and see their performance. This leads anime-onlys to believe that the song is for Hiyori. But it isn’t.

If you watch the MV (linked above), she does not show up at all in the MV. In fact, if you watch Hiyori’s 2nd MV, Heroine Tarumono, you will see that Hiyori is behind the stage during Yume Fanfare, and Chizuru is crying in the audience. The Chizuru crying frame is from the Yume Fanfare MV, showing that Hiyori was there, watching them and Chizuru, while they dedicated the song to each other.

Hanipre even takes it a step further. Chizuru’s card is the same frame from Yume Fanfare, and it roughly translates as: “Their bond is...so precious..!”

Also, in the anime, it’s HIYORI who asks if she can continue her job as their manager because she liked the concert, and LIPxLIP were like “Ok sure ig” um...where’s the buildup of friendship? Oh yeah- there is none!!!!

The whole reason why YSG Trio’s story with LIPxLIP and Hiyori works in Nonfan (ala eps 1 - 5) is because there is real, genuine buildup in their friendship. Hiyori had to work hard to earn their respect, whereas it is simply given to her because she told them her dream in the anime.

Aizou and Yujiro find girls to be annoying, so they’re not going to just trust and like Hiyori because she has a dream. She, like they had to with each other, had to earn their friendship.

This brings me to the next arc.

The Asuka-Nagisa arc.

In the novel, they’re still moody with Hiyori (and each other but what else is new?) but they do show bouts of friendship. When filming for an MV, there’s a bee in the room, and Hiyori chases it to get rid of it, and Yujiro brings her bug spray, despite being afraid of insects.

It’s small, but that does show that he does care for her.

After watching an Ft4 concert, Hiyori gets knocked over and falls in love with Asuka, who helped her. She later runs into him at a bookstore, and constantly visits said bookstore in order to talk to him.

Eventually, LIPxLIP catch on to what’s going on and drag her out and forces her to admit what’s going on.

They pretty much ignore it after that. Hiyori’s love life is none of their business after all.

Until they catch her writing a cheesy love letter, and Aizou makes her rewrite it because of all of her grammar/spelling errors. Hiyori finally finishes after she gets their approval, and upon seeing Asuka not at the bookstore, she gives it to the manager to deliver it to Asuka...and on the way home, Hiyori realizes that she forgot to write her name on it.

This causes LIPxLIP to laugh at her failure. Upset by this, she screams at them that she’s doing her best and bursts into tears. Realizing they took their teasing way too far, they calm her down and promise to help her. (Though they are pretty mean about her appearance and fashion...which I don’t approve of)

They help her as much as they can, dolling her up, and etc.

But then when Hiyori goes to confess, they see it’s their idol rival, and immediately put a stop to the confession, because ASCANA was trouble to them.

She hears a police car and grabs Yujiro and runs away, and then later goes back. Asuka kindly rejects her, and she stays calm but when she leaves, she cries. Yujiro comforts her, and walks her home.

After that, she’s still upset for a while, and sees a thief at the event running straight for Yujiro. Hiyori is worried for him and tackles the thief.

Hey, remember Herotaru? Hiyori sprained her ankle delivering the rosettes? Yeah THIS is where she ACTUALLY sprains her ankle. She sprained it tackling a thief who was going to hurt Yujiro. This makes Yujiro angry at her, and she gets angry at him in response, and the two have a fight. Aizou tells Hiyori that Yujiro wasn’t mad, and she apologizes. They make up.

Now, back to Herotaru...

Hiyori finds out Nagisa is coming to Tokyo and is :( because he once said as little kids that she doesn’t look good in dresses. She weeps about it to Aizou and Yujiro and they go “>:0 omg we’ll totally prove (her) wrong!” (As they did not know that Nagisa was a guy until Hiyori introduced him)

They see that Nagisa likes Hiyori and tests their theory. Upon being proven correct when Nagisa stands up for her, they approve of him as boyfriend material.

So...since when in the anime did Hiyori say she wanted a relationship? Never. And while I do approve of how she rejects him, saying she has too much on her plate and not enough time for a relationship, Aizou and Yujiro go back to complaining about her appearance and tease her saying she won’t be a heroine because she doesn’t have her conventionally attractive look and no boyfriend.

Um. What.

The lack of buildup here is giving me a whiplash. In fact, the whole arc takes 2 episodes, when the novel was a couple hundred pages long.

After this is the Sports Day episode, taken inspiration from Chapter 1 of the Heroine Development Plan novel.

It’s pretty faithful, the anime even gives us some kotahina and shibarisa and jurikou fanservice, which was fantastic!! The only difference is...

Well...before the race in the novel, some seniors were laughing about Yujiro not being able to run properly, which makes both Aizou and Yujiro pissed off (while Hiyori desperately tried to hide their bad expressions). They win. (And it’s a few chapters later, Yujiro runs into those seniors again who corner him and Hiyori realizes that he was about to be beaten up. She tries calling Aizou so he can help, but steps in herself before Yujiro can get punched. They grab her, and Yujiro almost kicks them for shoving her. She grabs Yujiro, and runs away.)

In the anime, however, they push those seniors to a lesser degree, making them corner him saying he’s a B-rated idol. Hiyori calls out that the race is starting, and the seniors leave. Aizou is left totally in the dark about this, and no one tells him anything. And during the race, Hiyori trips giving the baton to Aizou.

(Also, nitpick? They made Hiyori trip delivering the rosettes in the anime and then here, so why not make her trip in the Yumeru scene? It would have kept up her clumsy character fine, but ig the anime writers don’t know what clever writing is lol.)

This scene in the anime takes away Yujiro’s character. It takes away the fact that he’s grown to be protective of Hiyori as his friend. It takes away little moments that show us what kind of a person he is.

But then again, Yujiro was only meant to be Aizou’s arm candy in the anime, huh?

It also takes away from Hiyori’s character. It takes away that she’s headstrong, reckless, and will put herself in danger in order to keep her friends safe.

Now, onto eps 9 - 12...

Um. Okay.

So in the MVs, we know in Heroine Tarumono that Chizuru took the photos and posted them and Hiyori got bullied. That much was accurate in the anime.

However, in Fansa and Minikui Ikimono, we see silhouettes of what looks to be Hiyori and...someone else? We never did get confirmation as to who that is. But for years, ever since Fansa’s release, we’ve been dying to know who it is with her. We know that it’s a scandal. That’s all.

The anime combines the bullying with that scene. And I don’t think the two were supposed to be conjoined. Otherwise, why would the scandal photo be so different from the photos that Chizuru took?

And...

Remember the novels? Hiyori never quit her job. In the anime, she left like, every other episode, pretty much. Every time an inconvenience happened.

So...what...was the point of this? To show that anime-Hiyori is a quitter??? Okay..? Thanks for bastardizing one of the best girls, I guess???

And then Yappa Saikyou (song linked above). In the MV, we see that it’s a big concert with LIPxLIP, Ft4, Mona, and ASCANA, and we see a young Fuuma in the audience too. (He’s from Dolce, a group that debuts a little in the future)

In the anime, it’s a concert with only LIPxLIP and Ft4. Now, I can understand not including Ascana, because their voice actors graduated and they no longer do work as those characters. They hosted their final stream quite some time ago. But the anime includes Mona in a few episodes.

So why is she not at the Yappa Saikyou concert? Why does Fuuma not even get a minor cameo???

And yet EVERYONE ELSE IS AT THE CONCERT??? Ken, Arisa, Kotaro, Hina, Gen 1 (except Haruki...and I think Miou too..? I don’t remember tbh but I’m not going back to look), the Someya Family, Yuko (WHO IS SUPPOSED TO BE IN FRANCE BTW!!!)...um. What? Lmfao? Is this some sort of “Alls well that ends well!” bullshit???

Um. Okay.

If the anime can include everyone, why not include at least one of the performers who was supposed to be there?!?!?!?!?!

Summarizing it all up:

The anime had potential to be good if it actually followed its source material. Yes, they’re continuing Nagisa and Hiyori’s story through Yamako, Gom and Shito now, and hopefully, they’ll make their relationship more beautiful.

But with the novels, the MVs...the anime just had way too much content to squeeze into 12 episodes, and it created this OOC, rushed piece of garbage.

What Yamako, Shito, Gom, and Mari all created is something beautiful. Something that takes time. You won’t just trust people immediately, you have to earn people’s trust and respect.

Even in LOVE&KISS, Aizou and Yujiro still fight, but they find that they can still rely on each other. They saw each other’s traumas, and worked to help each other overcome it, and stood by each other when things got tough, and the world was turning against them.

But in the anime, it seemed that they were only ever drawn together to come as a package deal, not because they have a genuine bond.

I personally love Aizou and Yujiro’s relationship, the homoerotic subtext, and the theme of “we have our backs, no matter what.” (See: Seika, Yellow, and Samishigariya)

And I genuinely love how the novels showed us how a friendship can go from something ugly, to something true and genuine. Hell, in Heroine Dev, Hiyori makes a New Years wish to be able to support Aizou and Yujiro’s dreams. That’s a HUGE leap from the beginning of Nonfantasy’s novel.

But the anime just trashes their stories and makes it into this...weird circle of “yeah we friends because...well, we just are!”

If the anime was not an adaptation and was a standalone, then it would probably work, because there’s nothing to base the anime off of. But since it is an adaptation, it deserves to be criticized as an adaptation.

I mean, tell me, do you not look at say, Percy Jackson? You read the books and love them. Do you love the movie too and praise it for being perfect? No.

It’s the same with Honeyworks.

The anime took everything that made Aizou, Yujiro, Hiyori, and their friendship so special...and just shat all over it.

And with so many people only getting into the anime, it makes me refuse to ever forgive them for bastardizing three amazing, deep, and relatable characters and making them out to be pathetic, basic, shoujo and idol characters with no real depth to them.

#honeyworks #lipxlip #suzumi hiyori #someya yuujirou #shibasaki aizou #heroine tarumono #heroines run the show #confession executive committee #long post lol

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