DVD Review: DAILY LIVES OF HIGH SCHOOL BOYS Has Never A Dull Moment

Daily Lives Of High School Boys is an absolutely hilarious anime series. The title already tells you all you need to know about the show - the main characters are high school boys and the series focuses on their daily lives. Like most teenage boys, their common interest, and therefore the focus of their conversations, is a certain mysterious species known as girls. Due to a lack of experience, their behavior and attempts to engage their 'targets' often have disastrous results. And much of the joy of this anime comes from laughing at the characters and thinking back to a time when we were all doing the same embarrassing things. 

Tadakuni, Hidenori and Yoshitake attend Sanada North Boys High School. These good friends spend a lot of time together after school, engaging in imaginary games, fantasizing about the opposite sex and trying on their friend's little sister's underwear. Their silly and idiotic behavior all point to one simple fact: they are utterly clueless when it comes to getting girls to like them. 

The girls are not the main characters of the anime, even though each episode ends with a segment dedicated to them called "High School Girls Are Funky". In the rest of the show, they are portrayed as fierce and obnoxious. So when the innocent (and clueless) boys come across the scary (and equally clueless) girls, hilarious situations arise and the poor boys get teased, bullied and even beaten up by the girls. 

Each episode of the series consists of a number of short segments. The pacing is fast and the story moves along quickly. While a few of the gags are lost in translation, the majority of them work and many are laugh-out-loud funny. The episodic structure of the show also allows viewers to watch for a few minutes and then come back to it when time allows.

 

The animation is basic but effective, and the bright colors match the tone of the anime. The opening and closing theme songs are cheerful and again fit the show well. The Japanese voice actors do an absolutely stellar job delivering the dialogue, and it is hard to imagine the series being dubbed and still having the same comic effect. One limitation of the anime is that there is little plot or character development, which means that its rewatch value may be limited.  

A live action adaptation of Daily Lives Of High School Boys is currently being made. If done right, it could be a very funny film, but I really wonder if it is going to be as good as the anime, which is amongst the funniest I have ever seen.