Boys over Flowers

The problems start quite soon, though, as she runs afoul of the F4, a group of extremely nasty guys who basically engage in psychological warfare when someone gets them angry for some reason. When a friend of hers accidentally falls on one of the F4 she comes to her defense and ends up getting a red card in her locker, meaning that the F4 intend to drive her out of the school.

As her own declaration of war, Tsukushi slaps red cards on all four of the F4 members. The F4 opens by hitting her with an egg and stealing her desk from her classroom. (Similar things happen in ijime, the term for bullying in Japanese schools.) Then she's attacked and almost raped by other boys (under the orders of the leader of the F4) but is saved by one of the members of the F4 itself.

The back-and-forth battles continue. Matters escalate, though, when she is actually kidnapped, given a makeover and taken to the mansion of the leader of the F4 who has, in his own way, fallen in love with her although she is starting to fall in love with the F4 member who saved her from being raped.

She is embarassed even further when several girls pretend to befriend her, only to turn on her in the end.

This is a really good story. Tsukushi tries to follow the Japanese proverb of "the nail that sticks up is hammered down," and all she wants is to be average and unnoticed, something which she loses immediately when she has her run-in with the F4. It's good to see a girl standing up to male bullies. The people are given interesting characterizations, even the members of the F4.

I think the story is more significant to the Japanese, though, since ijime is such a problem in their schools, although the bullying is generally non-violent, unlike the violent fights and assaults in American schools.

As the story goes on it gets way more complicated and continues to be good and really interesting.