Oops, wrong show! I’ve always wanted to do that
(Spoilers below. You know the drill.)
Storyline and Plot
This…is a story about people who have no friends. No joke. One day one of those people, Mikazuki Yozora approaches a transfer student named Hasegawa Kodaka and together they make a club called the Rinjinbu, with the hidden agenda of making friends. Slowly, other loners in the school join them and together they have fun in the clubroom for shits and giggles.
In all seriousness, that’s what the story is actually about. Sounds pretty bland, but it’s actually quite the opposite. There are many shows out there that try to be funny, but not all of them succeed. And yet those fails still think they’re funny. LMAO. I’m glad to say that this isn’t one of those, and that I enjoyed almost every episode of BokuTomo (or Haganai, whatever floats your boat) to the full. From the introduction to each of the haremettes to simpler things like a summer festival, this show exploited a lot of already overused anime cliches and somehow managed to make them work. Except for the spamming of episodes concerning swimsuits, AIC has some kind of wierd mizugi fetish. Oh it’s Sena isn’t it. Yeah that explains a lot. Somehow in a comedy series, a plotline concerning Kodaka and Yozora’s childhood was stuck in there, which only made each ep all the better.
9/10
Characters and Development
The only thing all the characters have in common is that they have a lack of friends, and given their personalities, I can understand very well why they are loners. For the main, Kodaka, its more a case of bad luck than anything else, as his yankee-looking face and hair give loads of people a bad first impression, as well as their misunderstanding all his conversations. Yozora’s hair getting burnt once ended up as: “OMG, he dumped some weird white stuff that was hard to wash all over her hair?” Fellow student: “OMG, the yankee raped Mikazuki-san?”
Sena, the pretty blonde with the trademark huge boobs has got her own fanbase in the show and IRL, but the best thing I liked about her was the endless bitchfight between her and Yozora. Actually scratch that, Yozora manages to con/bully everyone except Rika, resident yaoi fangirl and the most awesome pervert of the season. For people in for the fanservice, there’s an endless wave of that as well, ranging from lolis Kobato and Maria to more than one slow-movement streaking scene with Sena. Just clean your keyboards regularly, guys.
Since this is, at the very least, a harem show, I would have expected to say that there isn’t any development at all. However there was a quite major revelation between Kodaka and Yozora, as well as a glimmer of something between Kodaka and Sena (at least Sena’s father approves of it). Yozora’s obvious revelation of being Taka’s childhood friend Sora was obvious, but, as all proper dense harem leads must be, it took her cutting off a good chunk of her hair and looking like a bishie for Taka to even recognize her facepalm Still, their reunion meeting for the first time in 10 years is more than many harem shows offer, and it was a lovely heartwarming scene to boot.
8/10
Animation and Music
It’s a bit of a shame really, since I didn’t really enjoy the music of both the OP and ED, and ended up skipping through both of them. In particular, the OP tried to do a Lucky Star, but unfortunately, nothing of that style would beat Lucky Star. Sorry! The OST and Insert Songs were nice though, like the ones everyone sang at the karaoke session.
AIC did a really good job with the animation, pretty much everything was in top-notch quality with that trademark style we last saw in Denpa Onna to Seishun Otoko. I don’t recall a moment where I wasn’t satisfied with the art, so that’s a clear achievement on that front.
8/10
Recommendation
Definitely. No matter how boring or dodgy it looks, just give it a try. You won’t be disappointed. If it helps much, there’s boobs and fanservice!
Overall Rating: 8.5/10