Daily Lives of High School Boys - Episode 12 (Completed)

Everything goes a little bit backwards as Daily Lives of High School Boys comes to an end, leaving us with a funky girl sandwich (complete with a wonderful brief K-ON movie parody to end the series) and our opening and ending titles switched.

That aside, it's business as usual for the first half of the episode - after answering some all-important trivia questions (such as "What is Twitter?", a question which is surely beyond me), it's off to the arcade where Tadakuni's sister shows how to defeat the crane game while Hidenori is left feeling rather ashamed by his desperation to win a Madoka Magica figure right in front of one of the arcade's employees.

After pondering how easily and frequently young Ringo gets hit on by guys, and witnessing the devastation and destruction that can be caused by an errant sausage on a cocktail stick, we take on a rather more thoughtful tone for the remainder of the episode as graduation time rolls around - a time to take stock of all you've learned and the friends you've made, and perhaps also the time to have the occasional nightmare about a terrifying experience from your past if you happen to be Tadakuni.

Thus ends a series that set out to break the mould of high school girl comedy series by revolving around high school boys, and actually working for the most part.  Compared to the disastrous Kimi to Boku, Daily Lives of High School Boys was largely a success - not the funniest comedy series ever, and it did fall flat from time to time, but overall it generated more laughs than it did frowns and put its unique spin on the slice of life comedy genre to good effect in terms of the humour it deployed.  I'm not sure it has enough legs for a second season (although God knows if YuruYuri can get one...) but I appreciate this series for daring to be different, and it was a decidedly entertaining proposition that leaves behind some fun memories of its efforts as a result.

Daily Lives of High School Boys - Episode 11

Papapipupepopa. Pipipopepapapo. Pipopopipapupepa.  Hey, if Daily Lives of High School Boys can start an episode like this, why can't I?

From those random beginnings, this week kicks off properly with a rather unique game of father-son catch, the reasons for which eventually become embarrassingly clear.  From there, we have another twist on the tales of our literature girl (who seems to have been usurped somewhat on this occasion) and an overly earnest game or two of "kick the can"... or, in its second instance, "kick the Gundam".

After a discussion on what makes a girl cute and what the ultimate form of that cuteness might be, the awkward decision of how to respond to a love letter in an all-girls school crops up and the power held by a girl when it comes to devastating a boy's psyche comes to light, even if the girl in question ultimately gets her comeuppance.  Finally, (and ignoring our funky high school girls for a moment) we witness the joys and frustrations of a close, long-standing friendship and the happiness and irritation (well, mostly irritation actually) that it brings.

Although it was short on laugh out loud moments, this week actually served up a pretty decent episode of Daily Lives of High School Boys that continually and consistently amused over and above delivering scatter-shot belly laughs - something which might not be to everyone's tastes but it worked for me, with just the right balance of real-life observations and the surreal (although I know it would annoy Hidenori no end to hear me call it such).  It's a solid reminder of what this series does well when it gets things right, and overall it continues to prove that Daily Lives of High School Boys is a cut above a lot of anime comedy even if it doesn't quite reach the dizzy heights of outright classic status.

Daily Lives of High School Boys - Episode 10

Occasionally, daily life is fraught with perils and troubles - like to what to do when you're busting to use the toilet in a shop but someone is hogging it?

Such misfortunes, and some quite literal toilet humour, fill the opening portion of this week's Daily Lives of High School Boys, be it a lack of toilet paper or simply slipping on a banana skin.  Further down the line, we get an important public safety announcement on the dangers of eating mochi too quickly, as well as a demonstration as to why you should be careful when walking on an icy pavement.

Mixed in with all of this, our "literary girl" Yassan continues her oddly tsundere relationship with Hidenori, resulting in her chasing him half-way across town while he rather bluntly leaves a note asking for his jacket (left with her previously) back, while the theft of one of the boy's wallets provides a timely reminder that the student in question doesn't know how to ride a bike.

While not the absolute heights of hilarity, this was still an amusing episode of Daily Lives of High School Boys overall - it relied a little too heavily on slapstick at times (has anyone laughed at someone slipping on a banana skin since the early 1970s?) but there were still a fair number of smiles and chuckles to be had at the antics on show here, which continue to be quite a departure from typical high school anime comedy fare to grant this series its consistently, enjoyably fresh (and ultimately decidedly laddish) perspective.

Daily Lives of High School Boys - Episode 9

Hidenori's brother Yuusuke seems to have found himself a girlfriend as this latest episode of Daily Lives of High School Boys kicks off - the trouble is, the girl in question seems to have neglected to complete the formality of actually confessing to or even asking him about the matter.  Then again, is there anyone better out there for Yoshitake's sister in Yuusuke's directory of perverts?

From there, we get to see the events book-ending a beautiful summer for Hidenori, which begins with him being kicked into a lake by a girl named Emi and ends with the possibility of a confession from her - a holiday romance which, of course, he manages to destroy by saving the wrong thing at the wrong time.  The poor guy doesn't seem to have much luck with glasses either - cue the traditional joke of not telling someone that their glasses are balanced on their head while they're frantically looking for them.

Meanwhile, the school's student council have lots of important work to do - looking through the list of requests left for them by various aspects of the school (and, bizarrely, other schools entirely), deciding where to go and eat, and inviting Ringo over so they can peek at her underwear.  This is, needless to say, a shameful act which no real high school boy would ever entertain.  Finally, the funky high school girls reminisce about a darker time, and the elementary school terrors of Habara.

All of these sketches combine to create a reasonably strong episode of Daily Lives of High School Boys - not as laugh out loud funny as some previous instalments but with an overall fun factor that kept things moving along nicely, while all of its skits were both amusing enough and sufficiently well-paced to make the episode breeze by.  By this juncture, we pretty much know what to expect from the series each week, which thwarts its sense of "freshness" that struck me at the start of its run, but the fact that it continues to entertain despite this is great news in and of itself.

Daily Lives of High School Boys - Episode 8

What are the high school boys getting up to this week? Despatching violence against one another for much of the early part of this episode, it seems.

Thus, many of the initial sketches this week are either punctuated by physical violence or entirely reliant upon it, whether it's the shame or your family finding your porn collection (we've all been there), Hidenori's attempt to draw manga that better reflects the life of the average teenage male, or indeed the aforementioned youngster's attempt to live out a manga cliché for himself.

Thankfully, things very much take an upward swing from here via some wonderful observational humour, such as the difficulties of being short-changed at a cash register against ruining the hapless employee's day, or even his career maybe.  Then there's that awkward moment when you have to extract something that's stuck in a tree, which eventually boils down to throwing even more things at it and hoping that they don't also become lodged in its branches.  The rest of the episode sees a birthday treat go decidedly awry, the horrors of an accurate horoscope and the trouble with insects, before our high school girls round things off by being overly competitive and getting entirely the wrong idea when it comes to shortening skirts.

Overall, this week's Daily Lives of High School Boys was a bit of a mixed bag - an improvement over last week's episode with at least a couple of genuinely good sketches to make up for some of its weaker content.  Again, those weaknesses tend to come from repetition above all else - I'd be the first to admit that teenage boys are always over-reliant on physicality in terms of both self-expression and comedy, but such slapstick is only funny so many times when... well, when you're a grown-up basically.  Despite such qualms however, the series remains worth watching for those moments where it breaks out into some great observational comedy, which is more than enough to keep things ticking over.

Daily Lives of High School Boys - Episode 7

High school boys have to make their daily lives go faster somehow... so why not tell each other gags and have an "indoor adventure", Dragon Quest style?

This ever-more complex indoor RPG proves to be one of the pillars of this weeks episode, as the ever-hapless Tadakuni tries his best to keep up with the weird and wonderful world woven for him by his friends.  Ultimately, this ends with them looking stupid in front of Tadakuni's sister once again, to the point where the trio's female siblings look to Hidenori's big brother in the hope that he can help them to grow up - fat chance of that, of course, he's little better himself...

That aside, we're introduced to the "Literature Girl" once again, as she somehow manages to demonstrate just how clumsy (and not to mention unlucky) she is while Hidenori shifts between wanting to help her and laugh at her, with the latter winning out before his own misjudgement makes for an awkward finale to the "ballet" that went before it.  Easily the highlight of the episode is when the time rolls around for the class to hand in forms detailing their future career plans - this isn't something you can expect teenage boys to take seriously at the best of times, so hilarious answers abound; I may well be putting "science entertainer" on any such appraisal forms I receive in the future.  After mercilessly (and also mistakenly) poking fun at Mitsuo for a while, no episode would be complete without a skit from the funky high school girls, as they try and learn to be dumb enough to appear "cute" to the opposite sex.

Apart from the career planning piece, I have to say that this week's Daily Lives of High School Boys simply didn't gel with me.  It wasn't unfunny, but it didn't make me laugh either, giving off the impression of a series already running out of both ideas and proverbial steam.  There's only so much of guys goofing around you can take before something more substantial is required, and some of the material here felt pretty tired and like gags we'd seen deployed weeks before, as if this series has said everything it can muster about its subject matter to the point of feeling pretty clichéd and almost a little sexist by the time we reached our trio of girls trying to learn how not to look smart so guys would like them.  There's a thin line between poking fun at a genre and beginning to ape it too closely I suppose, and I'd hate to see Daily Lives of High School Boys cross that line at this juncture.

Daily Lives of High School Boys - Episode 6

Everyone's favourite high school boys are back for another instalment of fun and frolics, but never mind that - there are more pressing questions at hand.  For starters, why are there no such thing as magical boys?  Or does Harry Potter count as one?  Enquiring minds want to know.

With that little aside kicking off proceedings, we're treated to another menagerie of short skits this week - we have what pretty much amounts to a public safety announcement as to why you shouldn't ever ask a girl why she's always on her own at Christmas (or Valentine's Day for that matter), a bit of retro gaming discussion interrupted only by a rather massive administrative error on the school's part and some boy problems for Tadakuni's sister - a problem she seems all too keen to use violence to resolve.

In fact, come to think of it girls take up rather a large portion of this week's Daily Lives of High School Boys - Ringo comes to the student council problems with concerns about her size before almost being distracted by the mere prospect of a cat being in the vicinity while our "funky high school girls" attempts to arrange a boyfriend for one of their number goes horribly wrong.  Back with the boys, new entrant Mitsuo attempts to show off his footballing prowess to no avail, while the student council's overly helpful nature continues to be a pain in the backside for them.

Given that last week provided perhaps the pinnacle of this series thus far, it's inevitable that this week's instalment of Daily Lives of High School Boys wouldn't quite be able to live up to the high bar set by its immediate predecessor.  Even so, this episode still provides a smattering of decent laughs and yet more sharp and biting digs at its high school girls as it posits them as being incredibly bitch, a little dumb and incredibly violent - all facets which are hopefully an indicator of stereotypical high school male assumptions about them and insecurities towards them rather than anything more malicious.  Still, even when it isn't firing on all cylinders this show continues to be a pretty fun and entertaining one to watch, although I do worry that it might start to run out of steam before the series is up.

Daily Lives of High School Boys - Episode 5

Who on Earth actually writes Daily Lives of High School Boys?  Some school kid?  A girl even?  Such is the pressing question which kicks off this week's fun-filled episode.

The sketches come pretty thick and fast this time around too - we start out by watching some girls goofing around which somehow morphs into our main trio of boys given their actions a "voice-over" which is, ultimately at least, probably pretty accurate.  There are social pitfalls aplenty too, as Motoharu has to endure the hardships of being made to hang out with his older sister and her friends, which leads to teasing aplenty, while Ringo completely misreads a situation that befalls her and an old friend inadvertently causes some hassle for Hidenori and Yoshitake.  All of this is as of nothing compared to another failed attempt to impress the fabled literature girl.

Despite the show's title however, this series "funky girls" manage to go at least some way towards stealing the show, with some blatant ribbing of K-ON complete with references to its recent movie, while proving that this particular hard-edged trio also have a softer side.

Overall, I have to say that this was probably the best instalment of Daily Lives of High School Boys we've seen so far - almost every single scene was either downright funny from beginning to end or had a sufficiently strong pay-off to be worth its build-up, creating an impressive body of comedy in the process.  There's something rather wonderful about the show's vein of observational comedy as it takes on awkward social situations with a slapstick but markedly accurate male perspective.  Perhaps its voice acting is a little overblown from time to time to a point where it risks becoming a distraction, but that's a small gripe about an excellent slice of comedy entertainment.

Daily Lives of High School Boys - Episode 4

Ever wondered what your friends talk about when you're not around?  Of course you do!  If you plan on listening in on their conversation however, make sure you're listening in on the right people and not just someone who looks incredibly similar...

This minor error on Tadakuni's part takes us onto the mainstay of this week's episode of Daily Lives of High School Boys, with East High and North High foisted upon one another to work together towards a joint festival, thus effectively merging an all boys and all-girls school for the duration in the process.  Thus, the various segments which make up this arc give some surprisingly sharp insights into how boys tend to view the opposite sex, trying their best to ignore the airs, graces and constant complaining about them which comes from the female contingent.  Meanwhile, East High's student council president, and more specifically her competitive streak, causes all sorts of hassle before finally culminating in that most ladylike of past-times - a full-on fist fight in the school hall.

That's actually pretty much it from this week's episode - not as laugh out loud funny as previous episodes, but occasionally very much on the ball with its observational comedy to somewhat make up for any shortfall in belly laughs.  If nothing else, Daily Lives of High School Boys gets by from daring to be different and poking fun of things from an entirely male point of view, and that alone is often enough to make it wholly fun to watch.

Daily Lives of High School Boys - Episode 3

It's summertime!  Okay, well, it's not actually summertime, as this week's Daily Lives of High School Boys self-referentially points out, but let's just say it is for the sake of this episode, okay?

Of course, summer can only mean one thing for a high school boy - chasing after girls on the beach!  Of course, this is easier said than done, as Hidenori realised when he comes to the shocking revelation that guys are, in the eyes of girls, pretty much exactly the same as noodles.  Still, you can't win them all, so it's off to the hot spring ("so much steam") and a game of trivia ping-pong that leaves Tadakuni feeling inadequate in both knowledge and ability with a little ball.

After having a crack at creating the world's worst anime related radio show (and succeeding, I would say), a rather pointless time-filling (and CD selling) montage leads into Hidenori finding himself anguishing over whether he should talk to a girl who takes the same train as him.  Could it be love?  Or maybe it's just the hair growing out of the mole on her neck that compels him to speak to her.  All of this leads us into the big finale, a dig at the high school girl anime genre complete with Yuu Kobayashi screaming her heart out for much of its running time.

Whether it features high school girls or boys, quick-fire anime comedy tends to be a hit and miss affair as I've discussed many times previously, but at least Daily Lives of High School Boys is managing to keep up a decent hit rate - the boys amazement at the amount of steam in their bath was a hilarious dig at modern anime censorship, while the ping pong game which followed was laugh out loud funny in a more general sense.  This show is at its best when it's poking fun either at itself or other anime clichés and tropes, but it also has a vein of more traditional humour running through it - although it doesn't always get it right, it continues to be entertaining stuff more often than not.

Daily Lives of High School Boys - Episode 2

One of the great things about being of the male persuasion is that you can be amused for hours by even the simplest of things - like a big stick for example.  Cue the opening gambit of this second episode of Daily Lives of High School Boys.

In this case, finding a stick in the street offers an opportunity for our trio of high school lads to play at being in an RPG, with decidedly amusing consequences - until two of them realise they've been getting too carried away and have forgotten their bags that is.  This opening skit is probably the highlight of what is otherwise a somewhat funny instalment, which goes on to prove the wonders of a convex mirror when it comes to making women look good and the news that an underwear thief is at large in Tadakuni's sister's vicinity - although said underwear thief might be closer to home than any of the boys would like to admit.

Moving into the episode's second half, we're introduced to the book girl of one of last week's skits, find the hapless school principle trying to justify his establishment's seventy hour fasting activity about which he has no idea (another well-delivered little moment for this week), ponder the brother-sister relationship of several characters and try (and fail) to tell some more ghost stories.  Oh, and there are butlers too, as they try to figure out an excuse for the young lady in their charge to skip school.

While I can't shout from the rooftops about Daily Lives of High School Boys as a classic anime comedy based on these two episodes, I do appreciate where it's coming from and what it's trying to do, and although it doesn't offer up vast swathes of laugh out loud moments it does have plenty of chuckles to offer to make the time spent watching it worthwhile.  Even when its setup is predictable, the comedy pay-off usually makes it work ultimately, and the show's main characters walk the line between being likeable and "laddish" enough for the basic premise of the series to work.  "Like" always feels like such a weak adjective to use about anything in a world where it's almost become synonymous with "secretly hate", but in Daily Lives of High School Boys' case it feels exactly right - this isn't a show I'm willing to gush about at the moment, but I genuinely do like watching it as it both entertains and amuses me, which is no small feat in the sea of mediocre anime comedy we're often faced with.

Daily Lives of High School Boys - Episode 1

Tadakuni is just an ordinary high school boy - so ordinary in anime terms that he runs out of the house when he's late for school carrying bread in his mouth.  Thankfully, this clichéd opening scene is merely the catalyst for a flight of fancy regarding even more ludicrous foodstuffs to eat on the way to school, a Gundam invasion and the requirement to fight off said invasion using a party of fantasy characters.  Well, this is a Square Enix and Sunrise co-production after all...

In line with long-standing anime comedy regulations, Daily Lives of High School Boys sees its episodes split neatly into segments with a single skit within each - this opening gambit sees our trio of lads pondering scenarios in which it might be possible to woo a girl, the benefits or otherwise of the humble skirt and some scary stories that... well, really aren't for the most part (although don't try shaving your nipples using a razor, guys).

From there, we move a little further afield to the suspicion aroused in his classmates by Tadakuni seemingly walking a girl to school (their response to which I'm still unsure was supposed to be help or hindrance), before some reading at dusk by the riverbank for Hidenori turns into something decidedly more awkward when a quiet bookish girl decides to sit right next to him.

Having complained about many an unfunny anime comedy in my time, I can at least have the pleasure of confirming that Daily Lives of High School Boys is pretty funny at times, showing last season's attempt at "boys doing amusing things" Kimi to Bokuhow its done.  Indeed, this series is a far better representation of teenage male behaviour and humour (albeit an exaggerated form of it) than the aforementioned show, which seemed to have little clue as to how to use young male characters in a slice of life setting.  The only real oddity with this first episode of Daily Lives of High School Boys is that it manages to achieve the opposite of many anime comedy shows - while so many series have strong set-ups let down by poor or over-used gags (I'm looking at you Nichijou), this episode's comedy set-ups feel rather weak before defying expectations with some wonderful pay-offs, from the bizarre to the more outright funny.  This imbalance makes me question whether the series will have the legs to carry it throughout its entire broadcast run, but for now its something of a simple pleasure to see a series that pitches a group of boys together in the name of comedy and largely gets it right.