Earlier this year I attended an anime convention which featured an event for anime and/or manga that had been made into live action dramas. One of them was Hanazakari no Kimitachi e, the story of a girl who transfers to an all boy school in Japan to get close to her sports idol, in hopes of inspiring him to get back into the game. Naturally she must disguise herself and she must always be vigilant about not being discovered. The Japanese version of this is quite good, there's a lot of humor and it has a fairly solid ending. After watching it you feel like you saw a pretty complete story with not much left hanging. What I did not feel satisfied with was the relationship between the two main leads. I found it difficult to believe she'd end up loving him, and I grew tired of his attitude and demeanor. By the end I felt sorely disappointed that she chose the moody and emotionally closed off Sano over the more openly caring Nakatsu.
In search of some expansion on the existing story, I thought I would look into the other versions of the story that I knew were out there. Which is how I came across the above video. The production quality of the Taiwanese version is not nearly as good as the Japanese, and I will admit to being extremely distracted by Ella's acting style, especially early on, but what sold this for me personally was their version of the Sano character, Quan.
Quan begins similarly to Sano in that he is put off by Rui Xi's overly forward attempts to befriend him. He's caved into the pressure and has quit was he loves doing and is not in a good place when she comes. He dislikes the situation even more when it turns out they're roommates and it seems impossible to get away from her. He quickly discovers her identity as a girl and due to the main girl's tendency to talk to herself, at times quite loudly, he learns more about how she came to be there, and why it means so much to her that she help him back into the sport of high-jumping. He softens in his attitude toward her and they become friends fairly quickly. They have their rough spots, but he is always looking out for her, while occasionally testing the waters to see if she'll finally confide in him about her true identity.
By the end of the series, you can definitely feel the love between Quan and Rui Xi and you can believe that they could have a future together.
It follows the manga far more faithfully than the Japanese version and covers several more storylines. However I strongly dislike the ending. It feels sloppy and thrown together and gives no sense of conclusion. If you like the concept it's best to watch both versions since both have something to offer.
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