So I managed to sit through the whole thing in two days even if I had huge prejudices against the show - most of them turned out to be justified.
Let's split up this review into the five categories as usual:
Story (4/10):
Boku wa Tomodachi is what seems to be a basic harem anime. You have the more or less dense main character, in this case an outcast who is seemingly "bullied" because of his foreign appearance. This is most likely referring to his hairstyle because he has blond hair while basically looking like everyone else in this show.
From this point on everything is pretty straight to say the least. Kodaka meets a new member for his "No Friends"-club, everything gets quite ecchi-y and in the end he has a whole harem surrounding him. Oh, while we are at it, how come that attractive young girls have no friends whatsoever? I know it's a harem but hey, every guy is popular now at school? It's mostly the male students having trouble finding friends from my experience.
The only thing notable and standing out was the background Kodaka had with his former best friend who he never got to say goodbye to before switching school as well as the little plot twist in the end which was rather predictable because they more or less gave it away a few episodes beforehand.
Art (6/10):
While the art does not offer lots of variety in terms of character design with everyone looking quite plain, also revealing lots of similarities in their design which is most noticable at the girl’s character designs. Pretty mediocre is also the animation as well as the backgrounds. What I did like a lot were the bright colors. They really gave a comfortable mood and fitted the comedy-ish approaches the show had to offer.
Sound (5/10):
The voice actors did a good job on acting the characters and also the opening and ending theme were quite enjoyable. During the watch I didn't really catch any outstanding pieces of music. Most of the time the ambient music was pretty standard.
Character (3/10):
The main issue I had with the show leaving the story aside was the rather dull characters. Again, I know it's a harem but what's wrong with having some standards? The characters were unpopular for quite no reason. The whole "talking to an imaginary friend"-thing seemed more like a plot device to get Kodaka and Yozora into bumping into each other than a real barrier on trying to establish social ties with class mates.
In general the cast was as generic as it could get with Maria being one of the most annoying characters I got to meet in anime.
Enjoyment (5/10):
Despite the shows obvious flaws in major categories I did enjoy it as a flat-humor ridden anime. I watched it in two days so I'd be lying to myself if I said I didn't enjoy it the least.
For fans of comedy shows and the harem genre there is no way they could not like this.
Verdict (4/10*):
I didn't start Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai with lots of expectations. I didn't expect the new messiah of anime itself but it still had some obvious issues in my two most important categories for me, which would be the story and the characters. It's not like it wasn't enjoyable - as said, I have been through it in two days watching five episodes after each other. Maybe I'm just not made for this kind of genre.
A recommendation to harem-fans everyone else should rethink twice if they are looking for a good story and characters. I personally didn't get lot out of it besides the revelation I don't like harem shows.
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*) Score is not an average
