Daily Lives of High School Boys Review

An anime that’s light on the get-go yet can be both profound and senseless at the same time? A recommendation for Daily Lives of High School Boys (Danshi Koukousei no Nichijou) is in order. Best for those who don’t want to follow out-of-this world plot-lines and ultra-complex characters, you’ll have a good laugh with its unique yet familiar brand of slice-of-life comedy. ‘Slice-of-life comedy’ here heavily implies to high school curiosity to the opposite sex-themed tsukkomi (straight man) and boke (funny man) slapstick punchlines, most of the time implicating how unthinkably amusing and stupid students can be. Ah, it’s good to be young.

One episode would contain multiple 3-5 minute skits usually building up for the punch line at the end. And each skit mostly aren’t related to each other so you don’t have to watch them sequentially- there’s no real story to follow just like Nichijou.  By the way, this is a collaboration manga-anime project by Square Enix and Sunrise, so put those lingering doubts away and enjoy the ride!

Plot: Nothing in particular. It’s just our main characters Tadakuni (Yadomi Jinta of Ano Hana), Hidenori Tabata (Gintoki of Gintama) and Yoshitake Tanaka (Kokutou Mikiya of Kara no Kyoukai) bumming around on their ordinary hormone-filled school days at an all-boys school called Sanada North High, mostly discussing amongst themselves their curiosity about girls and their mysterious species.

Here are a couple of scenes from the anime to help you decide if their brand of comedy is for you.

The first scene of the pilot episode ensues: While hanging out in Tadakuni’s house, they suddenly got in a talk about high school girls, their skirts and wondered about why they would wear something that could potentially and easily expose their undergarments given the right circumstances.

To feed their curiosity, Hidenori and Yoshitake sneaked out Tadakuni’s sister’s school uniform and underwear. We already know where this is going lol.

After a weird, mind-numbing unexpected turn of events, we find Tadakuni caught by his imouto (younger sister) trying out her stuff with the help of the Hidenori and Tadakuni. Their reaction after this scene is just priceless!

Next skit: While at school, Yoshitake and his classmates see Tadakuni walking with a girl outside.

Being at an all boys school, their jealousy gets the best of them. And they launch an all-out attack to break the relationship between Tadakuni and the mysterious girl.

But in the end, the punchline would be just Tadakuni accompanying a lost girl to the train station. Lol!

This one’s from the second episode: Tadakuni’s imouto gets angry yet again because her underwear is missing. She blames the three again after remembering what happened last time.

Confident that it wasn’t them this time, Yoshitake tries to convince little sister to calm down and that it wasn’t them. Until he sees Hidenori wearing a bra from inside his polo. WTF haha.

Troubled on what to do, he turns to Tadakuni for advice, but sees him wearing a bra as well :))

After reflecting on how he should help his deranged friends, he decides not to lecture them indiscriminately, and walk alongside their perverted fetishes. Because for Yoshitake, a true friend is “someone who walks with them, even if they walk a different path!”

Tadakuni and Hidenori finds him wearing a panty on his head, and blames him for everything. Yoshitake gets a beating from little sister after. Standing up for his friends was all for naught haha

Summer vacation: Hidenori, along with his other guy classmates, plans out a trip that would hopefully revert them from their group’s sausage-fest status. Ah, nostalgia. This was always our situation when I was still in my graders ’til high school. Seriously, being cooped up in an all boys school for ten years made me scared to approach girls for awhile XD

They go to the beach, but couldn’t find anyone interested in them. How sad.

Then Hidenori comes to a realization: That they can’t get any since girls like their men and noodles the same way: Hot. Priceless! He gets rewarded with a slow-mo slap on his face :))

To balance out the guys, the anime also focuses on the student council girls of Sanada East High. We have President Ringo-chan, and her two nameless subordinates. They get invited to Sanada North High for a meeting, and that’s where their story begins.

Having decided that all men are dirty irresponsible scum, she confidently enters the guys’ school to show them how dignified high school girls are. But upon entering the guys’ student council room, they felt they made a mistake and thought they entered a delinquent’s hang-out place instead.

Seeing that they have visitors, the guys immediately catered to them like educated gentlemen, though in a delinquent kind of manner.

This insulted Ringo-chan to no end because the guys she despised were actually better than them girls. Oh, the inferiority complex!

Worsening the situation was Sanada North High’s student council president, who actually noticed Ringo-chan’s inferiority complex, and uses that to toy with her.

Both of their schools’ cultural festival ended up in a death match with the band performing their BG music lol.

Another factor to balance the anime’s gender equity, is the Funky High School Girls part at the end of each episode, starting at episode 3. We have their boyish leader Yanagin, follower Ikushira and ex-bully but now super shy girl Habara. They’re basically the female counterparts of our original protagonists. Little do guys at an all boys school know, that girls in an all girls school are just as curious. And their segment is there to show just that. A unique variety of this anime’s comedy, really.

Here’s a funny segment from a random episode:

Anyway, I hope you enjoy this review! ‘Til next time! :)

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