Apr 14, 2024
If you've come far enough see this review you're probably wondering whether bokuyaba is actually a great romcom worth watching or just another overrated mess that won't have such a high rating in one or two years. Answering that question is surprisingly pretty easy. It comes down to one thing and one thing only : how much escapism do you want in your anime?
Throughout both S1 and S2 there's a shit ton of moments when ichikawa just goes around the school or even OUTSIDE the school, following yamada's ass because he's "worried about her" in a manner that is nothing short of stalker behavior.
...
And what happens when he's finally caught in the act? Ichikawa rambles on about how he's so disgusting for doing this(which is true duh) but yamada just thanks him for worrying about her and some other anime bullshit that I don't remember cuz anime bullshit always sounds the same. Obviously not the reaction you expect from a real person. In the real world your girlfriend would want you to just tell her that you wanted to come with her or she'll say that she has her own privacy and you don't have to follow her everywhere. And there are LOTS of illogical stuff like this happening in every episode of this show that are played off as sweet or comedic. Now I can hear you practically screaming my imaginary friend that " THIS IS ANIME IT DOESNT HAVE TO BE REAL WORLD" and you know what? You're absolutely correct.
Anime as a whole is a medium about suspension of disbelief. There's a reason why we have words like anime logic because (excluding outliers like monster) only by accepting that the logic existing in anime is different from the real world you can start to enjoy the plot and characters presented to you for what they are. Problem is bokuyaba doesn't present you with anything too crazy in any area.
I will admit the animation can be stellar at times and it's pretty cool overall. Music is passable. The plot...well romcoms are never about their plot so let's skip this one and then we have the characters...ugh.
The characters here are either pretty generic or one dimensional stereotypes without any exception. I've seen a lot of praise for ichikawa's character development and I just don't agree. He gets some development sure. But There are so many other characters with the same premise that are done way better (like hachiman and gintoki imo) and compared to them ichikawa is just average. And that's the main character. Yamada is paper thin and her whole character is based on her feelings for ichikawa and her love for modeling. None of which are well explored. The remaining cast is also trash but I don't remember their names and don't care enough to look them up just to explain why they're trash so you'll have to forgive me for that. But if you've watched your fair share of anime there's nothing here you haven't seen before. There's the gyaru, the silent girl who actually cares about her friends, heroine's childhood friend , the womanizer senpai who is MC's rival and get this... THE PERVERT BOY WHO TALKS ABOUT BOOBS ALL THE TIME! IN A ROMCOM ANIME!! HOW IS THAT EVEN POSSIBLE AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
So with all that out of the way. Why this show has become so beloved despite its flaws? It's the escapism. The male fantasy. And romantic moments so sweet they will give you diabetes. The most popular girl in the class who is also a model Falling for the edgy unattractive loner is a pretty sweet fantasy but everything else about this show is so half baked that I didn't really understand the hype surrounding it.(and yeah it won't have such a high rating in two years)
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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