Hi, if you're not using Catalyst and setting everything advised in HTML::FormFu::Manual::Unicode, you need to read the whole document, and apply the same principles to your project. In particular, see the "HTML sent to the browser" section of that page.

btw, I only noticed a couple days ago that DBIx::Class::UTF8Columns is no longer advised, so that part of the manual will need updating - in the meantime, you should see the DBIx::Class docs for details.