Ranked #1916

Dear Boys

Animation:
The animation was acceptable, but got worse towards the end. Eyes that didn’t match, weird or wrong faces (and why did the girls look so much like boys with long hair?). The background was plain. The basketball actions weren’t drawn very well, sometimes making you wonder what they were doing and half of the time you didn’t really get how they got past their defenders. As for the OP and ED, they were pretty bad.

Sound:
This was very well done. Most (not all) of the voices were really good and were nicely complementing their personalities. The sounds were what you would expect, not extraordinary but not horrible either, just average. The music during episodes was also very good, the music you needed during the scene was used, and I was enjoying it. But again, the OP and ED were bad (that’s a matter of taste though).

Story:
The typical high-school sports story: Trying to win the nationals. It wasn’t really astonishing, but there was a little originality in the story. There was no basketball team to begin with (it was suspended from the tournament for one year). Because of that all the senpais quit the team and only 4 players remained. Then one extra player (Aikawa), a transfer student, came and the team was reborn.

Character:
The five main characters were nice, but nothing special. You’ll see a little about their background, about what happened to the former basketball team or why Aikawa transferred to their school, but it wasn’t anything impressive. Only three of them made real development, trying to get a little closer to Aikawa, while the other two (Aikawa and Taku) made almost no progress.

The other, less important (or not important at all) characters weren’t very good. The girls, from the girls basketball team, were more of a support for the five (main) boys than that they hade a real personality. The opponents weren’t good either. They were almost the same as the five main boys, except for the team aces and captains. The only difference was their look.

A couple of the characters started, or made progress with, their relationship with each other. The friendly relationships between the team players (from both the main team as well as their opponents) were pretty nice to see and made the basketball games more enjoyable, while the romantic relationships hade nothing to do with the story and weren’t really good.

Enjoyment:
I watched this series for the basketball, but I didn’t enjoy it. Mostly because of how the action was animated. During some games you finally got to see some real basketball, but it wasn’t much. Most of the time it was just seeing point after point (not much action) and when Mizuho (the main basketball team) was losing, Aikawa would speak to the rest of the team and Mizuho would get fired up, finally starting to play real basketball.

Overall:
Despite it’s flaws (bad animation & a little below-average characters), it had some strong points (very good sound & some nice relationships), which made it a decent (sports) anime. But I would rather (re)watch Slam Dunk which has a better (but older) animation, superb characters, little better story and gives you a better (basketball) enjoyment. And if you have already (re)watched it, you can always read the manga (which is even better in my opinion).
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Dear Boys focuses on the main characters and their emotions encompassed around the game of basketball. Hints of comedy and romance are noticed through out the anime. Watching this anime made me realize and appreciate how much more there is to basketball and in fact any team sport in terms of tactics, team spirit and abilities and a mere win or loss in a competition is the end result (though not necessarily a reflection of) after a long journey of physical and emotional challenge within the players.

The characters are well developed and each serves their purpose within the story. The animation though was a let down but after a while you get a hang of it and end up so engulfed in the plot-line helped with intense background music that complaining about the animation takes a back seat.

Dear Boys is an inspirational anime on the trials and tribulations of the sports world; expect a lot of hard work and sweat as winning is never easy but so worth it in the end!
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