Am I supposed to believe her parents never once researched the school they sent their daughter across the world to? No. She manages to do this without her parents finding out that it's an all boys school. They apparently don't have any system of checking her ID or anything. First off, she somehow manages to apply and get into a boy's school in another country.

The problems I have with this are plentiful. Not only that but she's American, so she freaking moves to Japan to do this. And it's not so much a crush as that she's just obsessed with his high jumping skills. She is attending as a school dressed as a boy not because she needs a scholarship or to play a sport, but because she has a crush on a boy who goes to that school. Gender benders are among my favorite plot lines, but they have been done better than in Hana-Kimi.

It's not awful, and it's still entertaining, but it doesn't stand out at all. I reread it a couple of years ago and I was seriously disappointed, since I remembered enjoying it so much. I was so involved and I was shipping Mizuki with Sano so hard. Literally, I think it was like the third manga I ever read. The first time was in 2008 when I first discovered the wonder of manga. I've actually read this manga a couple of times. Read the full review at A Reader of Fictions. My third read through is a bit more balanced, seeing both the good and the bad. Thus, I later had to reread it, only to find it didn’t live up to my memories of it, now that I had a larger basis for comparison. It was one of the first I picked up and I was IN LOVE with it completely. Early on in my manga obsession, which began in the summer of 2008, I read Hana-Kimi. I’ve actually read Hana-Kimi twice before, so this was both nostalgic and somewhat eye-opening.

Hana kimi hisaya nakajo