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Buried Treasure - Boys over Flowers (Hana Yori Dango)

Perhaps such an ending is more acceptable in Asia than it is in the West.

Americans tend to take for granted the "be anything you want to be" expectation of upward mobility that comes attached to the land as a birthright, even if it's usually an unrealized dream, and Tsukushi's crushing poverty perhaps doesn't feel as much of a dead end with the promise of reinventing oneself playing such a prevalent role in our society.

Different attitudes about women's rights aside, in my experience Asia has a higher number of unassertive, weak men, so perhaps such a my-way-or-my-fist personality is a bit more refreshing in those parts of the world. We certainly have no shortage of jerkbags like that here.

Rich, handsome men are certainly popular everywhere, but I think Japan brings it to a whole new level – I read in a newspaper that there are now dating parties aimed at women where only men who earn above a certain high income are invited.

As a guy, I've always wondered what the hell it is women see in us. Guys are big, brutish, and occasionally smelly. Compared to women we tend to be slobs, as most of us spend little time or effort on personal upkeep. That anybody, let alone half of the human species, finds us even marginally attractive is completely mystifying to me. For the most part, the anime scene has done nothing to explain this, as most of the popular male characters appear to be suffering from a testosterone deficiency, and therefore have little in common with the traits I expect to be so universally repellant. It appears, among anime fans at least, that even straight women don't really like us, and settle for artwork that settles into a nice compromise somewhere between the genders.