Title: Danshi Koukousei no Nichijou
English title: Daily Lives of High School Boys
Genre: Comedy, slice of laifu
Sub-genre: Shounen/seinen
Flavor/Theme: High school
Character design/Original artist: Yasunobu Yamauchi
Source media: Manga
Seriousness factor: Low (but in this case it’s a good thing)
Studio: Sunrise (thus the Gundams)
Episodes: 13, “half-season” (as aired)
OP: “Shiny Tale” by Mix Speaker’s,Inc.
ED: ED1: “Bungaku Shōjo” (文学少女) by ENA (ep 1) (Literary Girl theme, ep. 01 only), “Ohisama” (おひさま) by Amesaki Annainin (雨先案内人) (eps 2-)
Airing status: Recently finished airing
Aired by: TV Tokyo
Watchability factor: High
Rewatchability factor: High
Hateability factor: Low
Recommendability factor: High
Characters: (see article below)
Characters I like: Literary Girl, Nago-san, Funky High School Girls, Tadakuni no Imouto (or just ‘Imouto’)
Characters I’d like to beat to a pulp using a spiky baseball bat: All ‘sisters’ (including the ‘Imouto’). Not that I hate them but sometimes I feel like doing that when they treat their brothers badly
What I’m in for: Nothing in particular, just want some good laughs
What I hate about it: I want to see those sisters’ face dammit! (>_<)
Other noteworthy remarks: None in particular
Danshi Koukousen no Nichijou is an anime project from a collaboration between Square Enix and Sunrise. The proof of the collaboration is so obvious in the anime that you’d see numbers of references to Square Enix games and Gundam too.
This series itself is perhaps analogous to the other series, Nichijou, except the fact that unlike Nichijou, it is more true-to-life because you wouldn’t find a robot and a talking cat here. You’d also find a few similarities with the Haruhi series here. For example the characters’ little sisters are nameless but are called “little/big sister” (imouto or oneechan). Remember “Kyon’s sister” in the Haruhi series?
I almost could not forgive myself for starting this anime late. To be honest I only started watching it by the time episode 7 was already airing. I managed to cope up with it though in no time. Actually what’s made me reluctant to watch it back then was the fear of this could be a yaoi-flavored anime, thanks for the “highschool boys” in the title as well as the all-boys highschool setting. Lucky I never lost contact with the anime community and I witnessed extremely good reactions/responds towards this anime as well the high rating and recommendations it received.
So I started watching it and turns out that this is not only about bros, there are considerably high number of moe girls too. Well, maybe not moe in appearance to certain people but their presence and actions do add a moe factor to this show. At some point this show feels like a deconstruction of moe schoolgirls anime, which is one of its good/strong point, and I like it like that (^_^)
The story revolves around the Sanada North High School (all boys), Sanada East High School (all girls) and one more high school, a co-ed one where the “Literary Girl” goes to. Since there are many schools involved, you can expect different varieties of characters inside. Delinquents? Check. Twintails? Check. Little sisters? Check. The best thing about this anime is there is no “perfect” character that usually tend to make people pissed-off because no matter how perfect a character in this anime seems to be, everybody inside have their own fail and embarrassing moments too. Not even those “strong sisters” are spared That said, no matter how much “right-minded” the character appears to be in this anime, he/she would be found doing something weird/stupid too sometimes.
By the way let me warn you that this is going to be a super lengthy post to make up the time I wasted for neglecting this series. That said I’ll make the following words a review but it will be a character-based one instead of episodic. I make it that way because I found many interesting characters in this series, very interesting that many of them are very memorable due to their ‘interesting’ traits. Be prepared for a wikipedia-like text below.
Well, let’s start with Tadakuni first. Like most other characters in this anime, Tadakuni and friends are usually seen in trios. Let’s call them “san baka” (Japanese equivalent of “Three Stooges”). Tadakuni (whose surname is unknown) , together with Hidenori and Yoshitake. He for me is analogous to Mio in the Nichijou series. I found him to be a perfect match for Nago-san (you’ll find the reason behind this later).
Hidenori Tabata is that only glasses dude in Tadakuni’s clique. If you happened to have watched the Haruhi series you’d found his voice familiar. It’s because he is voiced by the same person who voiced Kyon. And Just like Kyon, he happens to have lotsa unspoken thoughts too in this series. When it comes to romantic relationship, I must say he is an airhead, always failed to read the atmosphere in romantic encounter or always failed to work out a romantic relationship when he actually had a very good chance. However one girl is so dedicated to him, which is the “Literary Girl”.
Yoshitake (Yoshitake Tanaka) is the dyed-hair dude in the trio. When he was in elementary school, he used to be a feared masked hero among elementary kid bullies called Rubber Shooter. He got the moniker from his ability to shoot rubber bands from his hands with extreme accuracy (using it as his weapon), thus granted him the position as one of the “strongest warriors in elementary schools”. In his normal appearance however he always had embarrassing moments that years later his friends always mistook it for Mitsuo though. In one event, together with other “elementary school warriors” and also Yanagi, they defeated Habara who was the most brutal bully back then whose nicknamed Archdemon.
The sisters trio. They are Tadakuni’s little sister, Motoharu’s big sister and Yoshitake’s big sister. Those sisters share the same traits, being ‘eyeless’ and ‘nameless’, signifying their unimportance and importance at the same time. Despite their small body frame, they are really strong. When I said “really strong”, I really mean it. For example Tadakuni’s little sister could lift both Hidenori and Motoharu on her shoulders. Not to mention in one occasion in an arcade, she could ‘shake’ a crane-game (UFO-catch) machine, something that the whole Tadakuni trio did try but unsuccessful.
Of those ‘sisters’ I found Tadakuni’s little sister being more interesting, perhaps because this series had more focus on her than the other ‘sisters’. She seems favoring Karasawa, hinting that she might have taken a liking towards him. She even felt offended when Karasawa made fun of her preferring to date Karasawa over the rest of Tadakuni’s friends although Karasawa was only joking, further proving that she might look at Karasawa as somebody special.
Now let’s meet the Student Council trio, comprised of Motoharu, Toshiyuki Karasawa and “The Vice President”. Apparently there’s the Student Council President (whose only known as “The President” throughout the series) but he’s not in the trio. In fact most of the time he seems does not exist at all!
Toshiyuki Karasawa is the dude who always seen with his baseball cap on. He is actually hiding the scar on his forehead, a result from an injury he got when he was in elementary school. There’s a hint that Yanagi might be responsible for the injury, that he always used it against Yanagi whenever she harass him to make her feel sort of guilty. How this is connected however is unknown. By the way Karasawa appears to be the most right-minded person in this series.
Motoharu, despite his delinquent appearance, complete with beard, happens to fear his older sister very much. He however seems to depend on his older sister most of the times when it comes to preparing food, though he in fact is better in cooing than his older sister, much to his sister’s disapproval. He is also a very helpful person, just like Karasawa who couldn’t stand idle watching other people who needs help.
The Vice-President is yet another delinquent-looking dude, even have his hair dyed. He admitted that he used to be a real delinquent too, until he was invited by “The President” into the student council and successfully changed him into a very kind, gentle and softhearted person as he is now.
The President who is always less significant (or should I say uncompetitive?) in the Student Council. Most of the time he was like does not exist! There’s a high possibility that his incompetency became apparent since the “Vice-President” joined the student council, to the point that now the Vic-President and the other members handle the student council tasks. He is kind of an airhead (an idiot to be exact) and always being hit by Ringo-chan. Not sure if he was just noncompetitive against a girl or he was just don’t want to hit her and purposely allow himself to get hit? (I said so because I saw him made almost no effort in fighting back). However I must say they look good together (both of them are idiots after all) Come to think of it don’t you think The President looks like some flirtatious playboy from some other anime? Regardless of that look he have many fail moments too
So I did mention about Ringo-chan. She is the ‘idiot’ President of Student Council from Sanada East Girls High. She was first introduced in the series when she was invited by The President for discussing the matters about a collaborative high school festival between their schools. At first she was seriously scared of the Sanada North High student council who look like delinquents. Gradually she became accustomed to it and even irritated that they boys school looks and feels better than their school. Later on she always found hanging out casually at the boys school student council room, as if it’s her school. She has a weakness for cats and would quickly act/feel moe whenever she heard cat meows around. I found this to be one of her cute traits, other than having a complex of her height, always being made fun of and easily being tricked. In the end of the series she happen to have grown quite close to “The President” and both of them appears wearing the Sanada High jackets on the graduation day, signifying she must have rushed over there of managed to get the jacket for herself somehow. She has some sort of inferiority complex but full of pride and saw The President as a rival and always tried to win against him, although The President has always proved himself “a better president” than her, much to her disapproval
Then let’s meet the “Literary Girl”. This is perhaps the most interesting character in the whole series. She is known by the nickname “Yassan” (or probably “Yasu-san”) among her schoolmates. One day while looking for ideas for her romance novel, she saw Hidenori reading a book by a riverbank. The situation matches one of the settings in her novel that she approached him purposely, probably trying to simulate the setting. However as the time goes on the encounter becomes more often and things become less awkward between them. It can’t be helped that from those occurrences she must have developed romantic feelings for Hidenori though too bad that Hidenori is an airhead who couldn’t get her intention.
Now let’s move to the next trio, the “High School Girls Are Funky”, consisting of Yanagi, Ikushima and Habara. They are the “real world parallel” of Tadakuni’s trio, meaning that they ARE in the same world and not genderbent or alternate female version of Tadakuni and friends like some media and fan blogs have pointed out. In fact they do have indirect connection to each other (like Karasawa being known by both groups).
Yanagi, called “Yanagin” by the other two is a ‘seemingly’ leader of the Funky High School Girls. Tomboyish in appearance, she wears glasses due to her bad sights, a trait that sometimes Ikushima toyed with. She is proficient in karate and was part of the elementary school’s strongets warriors to fight against the ‘Archdemon’ Habara. After the ‘battle’ she was chosen to monitor Habara due to them living close to each other, only to become friends as the time goes by. Now she seems to despise Karasawa although back in elementary school she fought against Archdemon for him. Back then she must have seen Karasawa as someone important. Probably due to her wasn’t around when Karasawa was attacked she volunteered to avenge him. She goes to the same school as Nago-san (a co-ed school) and sees Nago-san as a rival in both studies and athletics. However she always falls right behind Nago-san in those terms. She is analogous to Hidenori.
Ikushima is the twintail in the Funky high School Girls trio. She attends the Sanada East Girls High (same school with Ringo-chan). She is analogous to Tadakuni. Nothing much to write about her though as most of the times she feels more like Yanagi’s ‘shadow’ or even an underling. Still an interesting character too that I can’t simply ignore and forget.
Habara is Karasawa’s neighbor. She was once known as the “Archdemon” back in elementary school due to her being the huge and most brutal bully back then. It was after her defeat that she gradually become softer to the point of being the most normal girl in this series. She seems to harbor a romantic feeling towards Karasawa and this is probably the result from her trying to make up for what she has done to him when they were younger. She might be the one who have left the scar on Karasawa’s forehead. She probably attends the same school as the Literary Girl.
Last but not least, Nago-san. She is the top student at her school, followed by Yanagi. She works a part time job at a pizza shop with Tadakuni. She somehow has a complex about her looks. She seems to have sealed her cute side inside her which is very much unknown to most people. She only revealed it once via a convex mirror to Tadakuni where it fooled him into thinking she was a different person.
I could write about a few other characters too but the above are what I think the most memorable ones. If you ask me, those characters, especially the girls are cute in some ways. I didn’t expect it to turn out this way to be honest. I haven’t laugh like this for quite sometime. Since last year I think only BokuTomo and Thermae Romae managed to give me good laugh like this. Because of this series I started to follow the manga as well. This rarely happens to me, I mean for me to chase after a manga (or the source media) after seeing the anime adaptation. At this point I think I prefer the anime better not because it is “better” but because the extra elements I’d not get from reading a manga, such as the awesome voice acting that comes with the anime.
I wish this anime could last longer, or at least to have a second season or something. I mean this is too good to stop watching. Some might feel uncomfortable with the presence of ‘violence’ (if you think of them as violence anyway) but for me that is part of what makes this anime so interesting and funny too. Believe me if it wasn’t this good I wouldn’t have written a lengthy article like this. Much like how I feel reluctant when this anime finished I also feel the same way that I have to stop around here although I wanted to write longer.
Before I finish this let me add a little more. I found the romantic parts in this anime really surprising and interesting. They could have turned it into a high school romantic comedy and it would still sell well too, I think, but they chose to strictly follow the manga. Either way this isn’t bad either and for it to have some romantic parts is good enough already than not having any at all. At least the importance of romance in daily lives of high school boys/girls is not ignored. I highly approve of this and couldn’t get enough of it. I mean it.
