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.