HANA NO ASUKA GUMI! (franchise) A.K.A.: Flowers of Asuka 花のあすか組 Hana no Asuka-gumi! started life as a Japanese manga by Satosumi Takaguchi serialized in Monthly Asuka. It was adapted into a television drama series, two live action films, two OVAs and two audio drama CDs, and is one of several series whose main characters were delinquent girls (Sukeban) that were popular in Japan during the 1980s. Two new manga series were also published, one from 2003 to 2009 and the other from 2007 to 2008. Though the television drama series, originally broadcast on Fuji Television, was relatively short-lived, only screening from April 11 to September 26, 1988, it was successful enough to spawn two full length feature films - the first, Hana no Asuka-gumi!, directed by Yōichi Sai and released on August 13, 1988 and the second, Hana no Asuka-gumi! Neo, directed by Yutaka Tsurita and released on April 25, 2009. PLOT: Of all its contempory rivals, such as Sukeban Deka, Shoujo Commando Izumi and Rebellion League of Girls in Sailor Uniform, Hana no Asuka-gumi! was by far the darkest and most violent of the genre. The basic premise for Hana no Asuka-gumi!, in all its incarnations, is basically the same. In a dark and dystopian alternate reality, Japanese schools have become a warzone. The country is mired in the Sengoku era (1467-1573), rife with political chaos, and the streets are dominated by the various youth gangs engaged in turf wars with each other. The evil Lady Hibari (Shiori Sakura), an elite warrior, seeks to gain control of the whole country through bringing the gangs under her control by appointing her minions in positions of authority in the education system and other government departments. As each gang, school, area and department falls under Hibaris control it flies the red flag of her Zenchuura organization as a sign of its loyalty and obedience to her totalitarian regime. One girl dares resist Hibaris repressive rule. Fourteen-year-old Taishan Gakuen student Asuka (Megumi Odaka) publicly puts a group of Zenchuuran generals to flight, inspiring her classmates to join her in rebelling, but... *sighs* ...when push comes to shove, they leave her in the lurch... Overcome with morbid depression, Asuka attempts suicide (as I said earlier - of all its contempories Hana no Asuka-gumi! is by far the darkest), but survives and is, ultimately, even more determined to resist evil. The movie adaptions were even darker and more violent than the TV series, and strayed a little from the original premise by introducing subjects such as drug abuse and teenage prostitution, that were not present in either the manga or TV drama, into the mix of the dysopian universe inhabited by Asuka. https://youtube/watch?v=T4MtRXkTcVg
Posted on: Fri, 05 Dec 2014 02:32:11 +0000
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