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Boys over Flowers Forces F4 Idol Band to Rename Itself

The Star magazine and the China Daily newspaper reported that the publisher Shueisha has asked the popular male idol band F4 to rename itself. The band's name "F4" was inspired by a fictional elitist high school clique in the Boys Over Flowers (Hana Yori Dango) manga. The artists formerly known as F4 initially came together to play the fictional F4 in the cast of Meteor Garden, the 2001 Taiwanese live-action television adaptation of Yoko Kamio's manga.

At first, Shueisha allowed the use of the name as part of the Taiwanese drama series. However, the issue of confusion arose as the idol group's popularity grew across Asia and two native Japanese live-action television adaptations of the manga, Hana Yori Dango and Hana Yori Dango 2 [Returns], began airing in 2005 and 2007, respectively. Angie Chai, the Taiwanese drama's producer, chose the new name JVKV last month after the first initials of the quartet—Jerry Yan, Vic Zhou, Ken Chu and Vanness Wu—in order of descending age.