Story: Candy Boy's story is that we have a pair of twin fraternal sisters, Kanade (or Kana) and Yukino (Yuki), that live together in a dorm room for high school. The tricky part? They're actually very romantically interested in each other. They are very clearly dating from the start of this series. Kana and Yuki have a hard time finding time to be with each other, due to the constraints that come with being in high school. Together, they try and find time to both, be with each other, and solve each other's problems.
One very real strength of this series is that it tackles very real issues that come into play when one is furthering their education. You may wince at some of the solutions that the twins eventually come up to, but I found myself not terribly hating the way the storyline went. It flows really well together. They honestly could have made this a movie and been fine. There weren't any times where the sisters were super lovey-dovey into each other, but the simple stuff like hand holding were additions that I loved.
Later in the series, we are introduced to a character that seems to be the "band-aid" to solving some of the girls' problems and I'll openly admit that I wasn't super into how they went about it. We have two girls in love with each other and I feel like having them solve problems in different or more interesting ways would have made for a slightly nicer story. Once, I'll buy it, but they overstepped a little.
Realizing that this series is actually only seven episodes with roughly fifteen minutes of runtime, each, it does obviously suffer from solving all the girls' problems. There will likely not be enough meat in here to satisfy people that really get into this. And that's unfortunate. It still ended off okay, but the conclusion didn't feel as complete as I would have liked. (7/10)
Characters: There are literally only four characters worth mentioning here. With such a short series, it does seem to work, as all the attention on Kana and Yuki is an attempt to draw out who they are.
Kanade seems to be the more realistic thinker of the two. She's doesn't seem to be overly book-smart, as we saw of her dislike for "anything with numbers in it". Her dream seems to be to go to art school, but the girls aren't terribly well off and art school does unfortunately tend to be more expensive than more academic avenues. Her desire to always be with Yuki is so strong though. Yukino takes a less serious approach to life, though seems to be a lot more adjustable to being friendly with people. She seems perfectly content with putting a burden on herself in order for her sister to succeed, as we see later in the series. That's what her best trait is here. It's not that Kana doesn't care for her, but it seems that she feels there are less limitations to be with her... if that makes sense. Oh, and she loves to eat snack foods.
Sakuya's character is... puzzling. Maybe I just don't find her memorable, but her storyline is pretty strange. You know why she's there... but you don't really know "why". She's basically a plot device for certain aspects of the story, but I wouldn't say her character shines anywhere. Shizuku is the younger sister of the twins and she's actually pretty interesting. She is shown to have some distress in her life mounting around the twins and I really liked the angle they took to trying to repair it. She has times where she acts younger than she is, but she does have points where you can tell that she'll mature really well. I liked what they did with her. She's only in a few episodes, but they're pretty impactful.
The cast is generally pretty strong, even if Sakuya isn't the most memorable character or Kana's not the deepest. But that's okay here. (7/10)
Art: Watching this in 2021 and judging it accordingly is difficult, but I thought it looked fine. You can tell this isn't the most high budget show, which is fine. There are times when they use still-photos at points of talking and this can drive some people a little nuts. But the times they show the twins together is always awesome. (7/10)
Sound: I wouldn't say there was anything super special about either the music or the VA cast. They were all solid for what this is and I didn't have any real complaints. (7/10)
Overall Enjoyment: With 7s across the board, count me in for a solid 7, overall! Candy Boy doesn't do anything particularly special, but there wasn't anything wrong with it either. It was just very good in every aspect. The touching moments with Kana and Yuki were the definite strong points. There were flaws here or there, but if you want a decent Girl Love anime that's just good all around, Candy Boy isn't a bad place to start. (7/10)
