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Title: Flowers & Bees
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| CONSUMER ADVICE |
Parents, while there isn't a whole lot wrong with the first volume of "Flowers & Bees," later on in the series there is more graphic sex and language that shows up. If you decide to let your child read this series you may want to consider doing a leason on beauty, and why you shouldn't overlook someone just because they don't have the best looking body in the world. People who love romance stories won't like this much since this is a series that is more about lust then it is about romance. Both men and women are bound to be offended at one point or another by the shallow way this book portray's each member of the oposite sex. |
If a friend didn’t recommend that I check out “Flowers & Bees” I would have never, EVER, have checked it out! The cover was ugly, the title was stupid, and the book was given an M rating, which to me wasn’t a good sign (most of the time M rated series tend to sacrifice story and character development in favor of pointless sex and violence). So when my friend recommend the series to me I asked him if it was a series I would like. His response was “Heck no, you’ll hate it! But that’s good because that means you’ll write a bad review for it, and your bad reviews are always ten times more entertaining then your good reviews.” So I guess this means my “Spider-Man 2” review isn’t going to help too many people out in the long run. Still, he did have a point about the bad reviews being more entertaining then the good reviews, and my site is sorely lacking in the fact that I just don’t have enough hack-and-slash reviews on this website.
However my friend gave me this advice a month ago, and whenever Waldenbooks has their “Buy 4 Get a 5th Book Free” sale, I tend to always ignore this series in fear of wasting my free book on something that looked terrible. I finally picked it up when I found the book in the bargain bin of a local Wal Mart in my city for $2.50 (yes, I shop at Wal Mart sometimes. Shut up). So now I’ve read the book, and I must admit that my friend was right: This is a pretty terrible series. The story is about a loser by the name of Masao Komatsu, and as far as he’s concerned he’s destined to be single for the rest of his life because he’s just not good looking enough (for that matter, neither is anyone else in this book). This fact is enforced by the fact that there are several girls who go out of their way to look him in his face and tell him that they will not go out with him because he is an ugly loser. Then one day Masao is walking around the his home town like he always does, when he comes across a beauty parlor for men called “World of Beautiful” men, which specializes in making men go from looking ugly to looking pretty. This series might be called “Flowers & Bees” (why I have no idea), but now that I think about it, “World of Beautiful Men” may have been a better title for this series since the goal for every man in this book is to become the sexiest thing to walk the face of the Earth.
Another reason I would call this series "World of Beautiful Men" is because after this point in the story, which to some credit had very little to work with in the first place, goes straight to boredom hell faster then you can blink. Let’s get back to the story so that I can prove my point shall we? So Masao see’s this “World of Beautiful Men” place and decides to get a make over. However all that these (very gay looking) men end up doing is making his eye brows look thicker then they usually do (and they rip him off for the little work they did do). Big whoop right? But wait! Apparently the eye brow trick actually works, as the next day Sakura (the main girl he has a crush on) asks him out to get some coffee with her! Well Masao is so thrilled that this trick works that he goes back to “World of Beautiful Men” almost everyday, spending thousands of dollars on little things like haircuts and what not. However soon he runs out of money, and thus he chooses a cheaper place to go to that is much cheaper in service (and much ruder), but just as effective. While he is doing all of this appearance changing, women will be attracted to Masao when he looks good, and they will not be interested in him if he looks ugly. The main problem with “Flowers & Bees” is the title of the series.
Seriously, if the person who came up with that name is still employed he/she needs to be fired right away, as it’s the stupidest name I’ve EVER had the displeasure to read! The second problem comes with the fact that there is absolutely NO ONE in here that is worth liking! Masao himself is particularly a boring character, who appears to have no life outside of paying stupid amounts of money to get so-called special haircuts that are supposed to make the women pay more attention to him. In fact, both the men and the women in this book are as shallow as the wading pool at my local pool club. All the men wanna do nothing but look good for the women and score some hot chick, and the women are never interested in the men unless the men are attractive (on the other hand, the men are just as guilty as the women are in this case). I’m telling you, these are the kind of people that you don’t want to be like and you also don’t want to get involved with. Not only that, but with the exception of Masao everyone is a stuck up jerk in one way or another.
The artwork is also quite terrible, making everyone (including the girls that are supposed to be pretty) look more freaky then anything else. Everyone has these freakish bug sized eye’s, weird arms and legs that don’t appear to have any solid bones under the skin, and I’d just like to know what is up with those lips the girls are sporting!? The artwork is so poor in fact that there are two girls (Sakura and Noriko) that look so much alike, that I was honestly having a hard time telling the difference between the two of them. The only girl that seems worth getting attached to is a girl named Nao, who offers Masao some money if he will have sex with her. It may seem odd that I thought a girl like her would be worth getting attached to, but Nao ultimately doesn’t go through with the deal since she believes that having sex this way cheapens love, which is actually the ONLY good judgement call that is EVER made in this book!! Not only does Nao do something noble, but she also explains that she feels that life is not fair in how the pretty people always seem to have a slight edge over people who are ugly, and that she realizes that beautiful people just simply have a bigger advantage over people who might not be considered attractive.
See what I mean yet? This girl has real feelings, a story, and she’s much smarter (and more likable) then Masao and Sakura combined! Nao has a story that I would like to follow. But we don’t follow her story…in fact we don’t even see her again as far as I know. She was tossed out of the series just as fast as she had been introduced, and that’s a shame. Why was she the only character that didn’t make the cut as a regular? Was she too smart of a character to be in this series? Makes sense to me. After all, compared to the whole cast in general Nao is a much more interesting, intelligent, and realistic character to pay attention to, and her being in the book would have just made the rest of the cast look poor in comparison. Nao even brings up a major fault in the theme of the story too, when she wonders why pretty people will always have a head start in life, and what is the fascination with pretty people anyway? That’s a very good question to ask and discuss, and it’s a question that we will not get to see looked at in this series.
No, the message this series wants to present to you is that people who are pretty score in life, and people who are ugly get the shaft, and the moral is NOT “Beauty is only skin deep,” but rather “If you’re ugly you won’t make it. So make sure you’re beautiful.” That message, in my mind, is not a message we need to be sending to anyone, as there are already enough arrogant pretty people out in the world today without there being more. Did I mention the name for this series is the stupidest name I’ve heard in a LONG time?! Ranting about the message aside though, I can’t see anyone getting into this series for a number of different reasons, and you can pick your own reason if you want, but ultimately “Flowers & Bees” fails to have likable characters, fails to have a story worth reading, fails to have good art, fails to have a message that is worthwhile, and worst of all, “Flowers & Bees” has a stupid name. Just stay away from this one and go read “Boys Be…” instead. "Boys Be..." may also be a stupid name, but at least that series is good.
- -Review By Kevin T. Rodriguez- -