Boys Be...

No males in any culture act like these. Sitting around talking about their love lives, constantly in the company of girls otherwise. This story had to be written by a woman or a gay man. In the middle of the story I thought the main character was going to realize he was gay. that would have explained a lot. I usually like the slice of life animes because they are incredibly insightful. This one is an exception. It did not have the truth and warmth that I enjoy so much.

While the story focuses on teenage boys, some light has been shed on Female characters as well. Generally, it’s something that both sexes can relate to. For the first two times watched it, I wasn’t able to fully grasp its meaning. Now that I’m a little older, I understood myself a few years back.

For this third time around, I was able to learn new things. That is what makes this series great. It’s a slice of life anime that’s actually closer to reality than other slice of life series out there.

The characters were great too. They all were very different from each other, so I’d ... say that anyone who watches this can relate to at least one character. What hit me the most is Kyoichi’s character. I know he’s a guy, but when he talked about how lonely and isolated he felt I actually understood him. I guess loneliness isn’t exclusive to any gender.

As for the animation, I can safely say I’ve seen better. It’s not that bad, but I just wish that the character design was in the same level of the background design. Compared to the backgrounds and landscapes, the characters just seemed so bland. There was also the slight use of repetitive scenes that made me feel iffier (if there is such a word) about it.

As for the voice acting, I didn’t like Kyoichi’s voice that much. He (Kenichi Suzumura) sort of sounded like a 30 year old pretending to be a teenager. I know that’s a well known practice in anime voice acting, but Kenichi Suzumura definitely had better days. He handled Hikaru Hitachiin’s (Ouran High School Host Club) character really well.

I liked the music though. Aki Maeda is definitely a talented person. She did a good job singing the opening and ending themes of the series.All of the tracks were very impressive. I like the variety of BGM that held every scene very nicely. My favorite episode was episode 8 because of the catchy pop songs.

I guess that the series is worth watching, and re-watching as well – I did watch the series three times. While there’s room for improvement in the animation department, the story is what makes Boys Be a must-see.

You don't notice it at first, but this is definitely an anime worthy of a Hal Film Maker production. The animation seems bad at first, but it grows on you. The story seems standard and predictable at first, but it surprises you. In the end, you realize this is a man's romance story, deep in emotion, but also deep in thought. It's like the philosophy of life. It really makes you feel it, very artistically done, unbelievably beautiful especially towards the end. Undeniably beautiful, definitely recommend it.

The series struck me as unique. It did, kind of in a bad way at first. During the ... first few episodes, I thought it was almost embarrassingly bad with its animation, and its plotline. But then it catches you. There is like a bit of magic in it, that it starts to draw you in. Before you know it, the character's feelings and troubles become your own.

You start to feel what is going to happen, but unlike so many romance stories, this one leaves you torn at heart. There isn't really an obvious answer anywhere, and although things happen as you would expect them to, you are a bit saddened by it. There is plenty of humour to balance it out, and to keep up the enjoyment.

Honestly, there are moments in the story where you can’t help but think “Seriously? Like that’s ever going to happen?”. Were they necessary? I don’t know, but I do know that they weren’t that bad in the end, and it seemed worth it. I think each and every encounter, each and every episode, had its own meaning and its own message to convey. What is important in a story isn’t necessarily credibility, it’s creativity and enjoyment.

What I noticed was that the creators played a lot with symbolism and imagery, especially during certain episodes. You don’t often see this in an anime, and to be honest, I was quite surprised. Many of the dialogues and monologues are also very insightful and well thought out. In the end, I found the anime to be a piece of art, something to appreciate on a whole different level. I also think that a lot more thought was put into it than meets the eye.

I have no complaints about the music. I also watched the episodes both dubbed and subbed, and the Japanese and English dubs offer quite different experiences. I’d recommend both, as there was actually some decent acting involved in some of the English dialogues (not all, mind you).

That’s my two cents, and what I thought as I was finishing the last few minutes of the last episode. A great experience, as it turned out to be, and unexpected.

As we all know, life is not a fairytale. It’s cold, mean and will beat you to your knees and keep beating you if you let it. Boys Be… only scratches the surface of reality.

Plot

Here we have a decent story about a group of friends finding their places in life. Some might fall in love with a star crossed partner, while others perish in utter defeat and depression. As in many love animes, most of their characters are portrayed as those who are deeply in love with their lovers and won’t mind spending their lives together for eternity. In Boys Be… hearts are broken, mended, ... twisted, doubted and even scared. In essence, this anime does not emphasis on a fairytale, where people marry each other and have many babies. This anime not only emphasizes on the harsh realities of love, but also even on one’s choices.

Character

Though they aren’t the best characters out there, they are surely the ones we will mostly find relevant and comparable. Their actions are heading the right direction of everyday decisions that we make or will make. To be more specific, when we doubt those we love, we tend to medicate ourselves and bend the rules in game of love. The main protagonist will come off as a guy who is always dragged around, just like he would in most love anime series. Only this time, his revelations, thoughts, actions, and even conclusions are realistic. Not only him, but we also have a common perverted male (who always tries to get a glimpse at girl’s panties) and a hot-ignorant male. As for the womens, they’re spread out from a childhood friend to a unrequited lover. Each archetype is unique in his or her way and goes through problems we all have faced in the past.

Sound

The sound would be a 6. Not the best out there, but certainly better than a cassette tape.

Art

To be honest, the art is horrible. Though made in the 90’s I guess I’ll give it a 7 since some women character in this series actually looks like a women.

Overall

Every review I give, I try to give a complete and honest opinion about it. This series is absolutely underrated and I truly advise you to watch it. In most anime relationships, characters are portrayed as star crossed lovers and monogamous swans. In this series, they are finally and realistically portrayed as sharks. We are not animals made to support each other but ourselves. Like in relationships, if a bigger fish arrives, we’ll pounce on them like there is no tomorrow. Our greed and temptations is what defines our true selves, hidden behind a mask of lies and bitter sweet indecisiveness. I will have to acknowledge only one character in the series that is truly well played. The male protagonist reveals a side we all have inside of us. How we deal with our problems is up to our little hearts content, but this character’s decision is perfectly realistic. Love is like a bus, every 30 mins a new one arrives. If its broken down, then we’ll politely get off and walk ourselves.

The anime begins by mentioning the vastness of space and time, endless stars, the meaning of life, it hypes you up for something that rivals Legend of the Galactic Heroes in scope, and then… it becomes a generic romantic school comedy where nothing ever happens. Thanks for nothing, you piece of shit.

Whatever the show pretends to have as a plot is no more than done to death hentai premises where a bunch of teenage boys are objectifying women, before conveniently bumping onto said women who immediately get interested in them, and silly adventures begin.

And by adventures I mean endless cock teasing where you are constantly ... made to wonder do they like each other, will they kiss, will she hit him for being a peeping tom? To its defense, everybody eventually kisses some girl for a couple of times.

To its offense, the plot is basically episodic so no matter what progress seems to be achieved in one episode is immediately rendered meaningless by the next one, and the boys keep jumping from one girl to another, essentially sleeping around without ever showing us anything besides kissing. Their love is so meaningful.

And I have to question the intelligence of these girls. They seem to be oblivious to everything that is going on around them. Half the time they have derpy faces and they are spacing out as if their brains stop working. No wonder they don’t even see how they are being sexually manipulated.

The show as a whole was promoted as a well-made romance when it first came out, which is why it was recommended to me. Which is a lie, since just like any other romance in anime, it’s only about sexual frustration and awkwardness to speak with members of the opposite sex, before ending when an actual relationship is about to begin.

In reality, this anime is not about meaningful romance. It’s aimed at virgin teenagers who want to escape reality and be in a simulation where women are stupid and love you for no particular reason. Proof of which is the promotional art, which only shows the girls and never the boys, since you are supposed to self insert instead of considering men as actual characters.

The lamest part is that the anime in general is very low budget, so it’s not even doing a good job as escapism fantasy. The characters are often off-model, have derpy faces, and the animators went as far as using live action footage in the opening and during the intermissions, in a cheap attempt to save budget and enhance realism. Yeah man, show an actual half naked woman in suggestive poses; this will totally enhance the illusion of you watching a plausible animated romance.

It is far from the first time anime try to save money with live action footage, but this does not excuse the lazy way it is used. Kare Kano used it in a way that was more about artistic expression and psychology. It was enhancing the romance and the characterization, instead of simply covering up animation weaknesses and objectifying the female body.

Boys Be is a throwaway show, made for virgin teenagers with very low expectations who have no idea what romance is and who for some reason cannot watch any other harem anime. I do not recommended it, it’s bad.

Overall
I have tried to start watching this anime several times the last couple of years, but I always quit during the first episode due to bad animation, awful directing and general dullness. At last I managed to make it through the whole thing and it actually wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. That's not to say it was good. More like a pale, anonymous "not-a-complete-waste-of-time"...

Animation
The last couple of episodes actually look decent, but for the most part, this anime just looks really bad. The animation is stiff and the characters are ugly and unpersonal.

Sound
I consider the following sound related variables "ok", no ... more, no less: Voice acting, opening theme, ending theme, background music. Actually, background music was very repetitive, I think there was no more than a handful of tunes that got repeated episode after episode.

Story
Very episodic and not too imaginative. It's fun to see people actually confessing their love to eachother in an anime, that doesn't happen that often. But the story itself just wasn't very interesting. Very linear and no actual tension.

Every episode tries to be a bit philosophic, but it fails due to the story being so uninteresting you don't really care about the message.

Character
The characters are somewhat likeable (if you disregard the fact that they all look ugly and suffer from a severe loss of depth) and are not as irrationally stupid as in some other animes. The characters were actually the reason I kept watching "Boys be"; they managed to (barely) keep me interested throughout the episodes despite a boring story and bad looks.

Value
Will not watch again. Too boring.

A few reviewers mentioned how this anime is slightly more realistic with its depiction of relationships, and that is true for the most part. Many character fall in love and out of love, are rejected, and circumstances keep them apart.

The problem is that for one or two cases it seems like a romance was just cobbled together, and sometimes the reason for it working/ not working is so "anime" it takes away from the realism of the others. The episodic nature of the show also means that its swings from cliched over the top anime romance to drama style romance, only sometimes finding a ... happy medium.

The characters aren't something we haven't seen before, but their interactions are feel a bit more natural than most anime. But like I said, some are grounded in reality, while others feel like they should've been in a different show altogether, the problem being the stories intertwine and these clashing depictions of people and their interactions meet.

Finally, there was a clear point in time where the art suffered from budget or time constraint, one episode being painfully obvious. The show picks back up to a point where its art is comparable to become, but by this time the use of stock footage from previous episodes came more into play.