Story (7.34/10): The story of Bokura, as I call it, revolves around the life of Kazunari Usa, a new first year student who begins his life as a first year in high school, away from his parents, at a nearby boarding house. It is there that he finds that the girl that he likes at school, named Kawai Ritsu, is one of his roommates at this boarding house, prompting him to begin his journey of high school romance, one step at a time.
Now, we've all at one point or another have seen this sort of story in various kinds of slice of life's. A new person stepping into a new world that he must now try and adapt to. (Working!, Chuunibyou, Dog Days, etc.) What makes this story different from any other, is really nothing when you get down to the concrete part of the show. As a base idea, Bokura doesn't differ much from a good chunk of other shows. So what makes this show better/unique? Well, it's their comedy and tone of the show.
Bokura wa Minna does a very good job at giving off a very, very, very relaxed tone to the show. Nothing really feels serious in the grand scheme of things, and for the most part, the show really just shows the characters having a good time, and enjoying life as much as they can. It's this relaxed tone that makes the show so good-feeling to watch, and overall, a very good experience.
The comedy of the show is also quite excelling too. The show itself is quite heavily character-based, and shows that with the colorful characters that it has. The show never takes itself too seriously and tosses in jokes and other forms of sarcasm, comedic desperation, and other forms of moments in which some are actually quite memorable and provide a good laugh.
There are however, some downfalls. Depending on what kind of story you want, this can be seen as a good or a bad point. The show has a strange cohesion feel to it. Some things and plot points carry from episode to episode, while others are random and appear for only one episode. In short, the show has a mix of one-shot episodes that focus purely on one thing, and are resolved later, and others are plot points that span from one episode to the next, to the next. While personally, I never minded the fact that some episodes were smack dab in the middle of something new, it is something I felt like bringing up.
Another thing about the story that made it a bit meh, is its end. To put it bluntly, the show is incomplete. The way it ends feels like that something new has begun rather than resolved. While the main focus of the show has taken a step forward, it didn't feel like a real ending, leading me to believe that there will be a second season, in which I am not sure of.
Overview:
+ Great comedy
+ Wonderfully calm and pleasant tone
+ Simple idea
- Some cohesion issues between episodes
- Incomplete ending
Characters (8.79/10): For any character driven anime, the characters of course, are very important. They have to have a very memorable personality, quirks, and design for people to remember. While the characters in this show didn't fill in that last category, the first two are certainly filled to the brim.
Up first is Kazunari Usa, our main protagonist. From the beginning to the end, Usa is shown to be basically your average boring protagonist of being kind to everyone, having 1.5x the amount of common sense than everyone else in the cast, and just generally being, well, normal. Not that there's anything wrong with his character, since his quest for love is admirable given his obstacles, but compared to the other characters, he's the least memorable of the bunch. (He is still quite memorable nonetheless, as we do get a decent amount of backstory on why he is the way he is.)
Kawai Ritsu, or Ricchan as everyone in the series calls her, (except Usa, who says Senpai all of the time), the main female protagonist of the series. From her debut, it is apparent that she is a fan of reading. Well, that's an understatement. For essentially 75-80% of the screen time she gets, she is holding a book, either reading it, hugging it to her chest, or picking them out to read. To put it bluntly, she loves books like Keima from TWGOK loves visual novels. Over the course of the series, we, the audience get to know more about her character and see her grow as a person altogether as she tries to step out of the shell that she has confined herself in. You learn a good deal about her, making her character all the more developed and interesting.
Next is Shirosako, or Shiro, as he is known in the series. This guy is a masochist, and if you've ever seen MM, then that is essentially what you're going to see. This guy is literally the only other guy in the series next to Usa that you will care about, since his character is actually quite interesting. Outside of his masochistic nature, (which essentially makes up for every joke he tells more or less), he is shown to be a rather helpful and caring guy, helping out everyone as much as he can and has some pretty good ideas on occasion.
Next is Nishikino Mayumi. Ah, Mayumi. She is basically the desperate 20 something year old, that has big boobs. Her personality is quite interesting, seeing how most of the time she acts like a teenager than a grown woman, attempting to pry into Usa's love life and trying to make him seem like a pervert rather than anything else. While I'm not a huge fan of desperate females in animes, (quote Becki from Nourin. *shudder*), I find her quite an interesting character as on occasion, she does help to add to the plot while adding her own spin of comedy into the grand scheme of things.
Next is Watanabe Sayaka. This girl is terrifying. While her introduction to the series is a bit late in comparison to everyone else, she definitely makes a lasting impression as being a bit of a sadist. She in conniving, very luring, and overall, basically teases everyone on who and what they are (mostly Mayumi.) That's essentially what she does the entire series, and she plays that comedic part very well.
And finally, the owner of the Kawai complex, Kawai Sumiko. This woman is quite an interesting character. While for the most part, she acts very laid-back and calm, she, has a dark and terrifying side that has many times, terrified the residents of the boarding house. And also at times, she will do whatever she can to get things she wants, such as making Usa take a job in exchange for tickets to something.
Apart from these 6, whom I see as being the main characters, we have a whole slew of other oddball characters. Some of which, are quite memorable in the series, while others sort of just fade away. What I like about this series is the fact that the overall cast isn't so large that you would forget one person or another. It really focuses on the people it does have and makes them as good as they possibly can be.
On their own, these characters sound quite bland; nothing really seems too exciting. But, when you put them all together, the result, is magical. This series really puts emphasis on its characters by making them talk and interact with each other in many different ways. It is because of these interactions that the plot is enjoyable to watch, it is the reason that this series has great comedy, and is the reason why the show is so light-hearted and good.
Overview:
+ Memorable cast
+ Very good character interactions
+ Decent sized cast with some emphasis on everyone
Art and Sound (9.32/10 and 7.49/10): The art in this show is just staggeringly amazing. Every single scene of its normal animation look quite stunning and just so good.
There are two forms of art in this anime. One is the standard animation, and the other is a comedic chibi animation. Like I have said before, the normal animation of the show is just breathtakingly beautiful. Everything from the characters to the backgrounds looks stunning. If you don't believe me, just watch the five minutes of the first episode, and you'll see what I mean. (The last time I saw something this good was in Nagi no Asukara.)
Aside from that, the show has a very simple chibi animation in heavy contrast to the actual show's animation itself. For starters, there is little to no detail in the characters in the chibi animation whereas there is heavy detail in the designs of the characters in the normal animation. While I don't find any problems with the show intertwining its animation styles by putting both of the animations in the same scene, sometimes, the transitions from one style to another happen rather sudden and sometimes awkward. But for the most part, I'd doubt anyone would really care.
In terms of music, I find the opening and ending tracks to be relatively memorable. The opening is a very instrument heavy piece that gives off the show's casual and calm feel to it. Personally, I sat through the whole of the opening, as I enjoyed it very much. On the flipside, we have the ending, which to me, I also found enjoyable, but not as memorable. Sure, the tone of it sounded cute, quirky, and relatively nice sounding, but I didn't feel as obligated to listen to it as I did with the opening. The tracks in the show itself were mostly just background tracks, so nothing really stood out.
Overview:
+ FANTASTIC ART
+ Good comedic chibi art
+ Good opening and ending
- Some awkward art style transitions
- forgettable background tracks
Personal Enjoyment (8.45/10): I love a good slice of life. Whenever I want to watch something that isn't too serious in its plot, I watch a slice of life. This show definitely proved itself as a good choice. Aside from the distribution problem where I had to sometimes wait five or so days for the english subtitles release, this show was a very good experience to watch. It never had a serious tone with itself and made itself known to have probably the lightest tone that I have seen in anime in a long time. It was just good, classic fun that showed that you're never too old to have fun. If you want to watch a good slice of life with a very minute romantic subplot, this is a good show to watch. Personally, I enjoyed it a lot.
Overall Score: (8.31/10)
