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.