#i know for bokuhaka the parts that i think are funny are the ‘are you fucking kidding me’ kind of moments

[millennialdemon]

When I first started Bokuhaka, I found it unexpectedly charming because Hanadori the hopeless chuuni wasn’t the one being ridiculed, it was his “normal” classmate Seri who tried his best to not go along with his ridiculous roleplaying. By virtue of not being a cruel comedy when it easily could have been, I figured I could add it to the pathetic single piece of paper that comprises my Anime Comedy Good Book. 

12 episodes later, I’m not so confident. While the series does hand Seri the L in every situation, I find that by relentlessly doing so it actually loses the touch of kindness a series like this could benefit from. Seri’s assumptions, even the wholesome ones -- like his worries about Hanadori’s wellbeing, social or otherwise -- are uno-reversed the same way his negative assumptions are. You could argue his self-sacrificing assumptions are driven by a sense of self-importance he shouldn’t have and him getting unwittingly checked by Hanadori or Tsukimiya is satisfying, but after the first time it just started to feel a little malicious. Even if Hanadori never means to insult Seri by rejecting his rare offerings of kindness or concern, it left me waiting for a pay off when he would accept and there would be some normal bonding moment uninterrupted by cynical comedy, but that moment never came.

And, really, I think his “sense of self-importance” is validated by the fact that every other character is demonstrably obsessed with him, until they suddenly aren’t just in time to humiliate him for acknowledging them. I get that it’s funny that the times when Seri gives in and tries to be nice to his wildly annoying friends who are obsessed with him, that it backfires because haha, he thinks they’re obsessed with him!... but like, they are…?

And so the usual episode format goes one of two ways: 

Seri gets wrecked by his annoying friends who can’t leave him alone and he eventually snaps and yells at them for embarrassing him

Seri gets wrecked by his annoying friends but something happens that makes him feel guilty about how he reacts, or worry about their well-being, and when he expresses these things it is revealed that he shouldn’t have and it bites him in the ass, and he snaps and yells at them again for embarrassing him

It does get tiresome to see the same formula again and again and again, and by the end of it, I was there in despair with Seri and wondering if he would ever escape his friend’s tormenting. When Seri becomes more soft, it just backfires on him and the universe proves that he should stay cynical. When Hanadori reveals any other aspect of his character other than just being a chuuni, it’s backpedalled into him just being a chuuni actually. When Tsukimiya actually says something with an ounce of truth to it, he then twists it to be another part of his game of 4D chess he’s playing to make Seri suffer. And so it turns out there are consequences to making literally every scene a joke: nothing happens and no one changes. 

It made for a rather insincere final impression, even if Hanadori and Seri are endearing… their endearing traits go nowhere because it wouldn’t be funny if they did. But it would be better. 

Oh, and the side characters are either useless (Hibiki) or annoying (Tsukimiya and Mogami). Hibiki’s entire thing was just being unlucky and getting ignored by Hanadori and I found him easy to ignore as well. He really has no presence whatsoever after his introductory episode. I don’t care about Tsukimiya and him “being a God '' with literally supernatural abilities like being able to read Seri’s mind and always knowing where he is just felt like Godmodding. Like, is there anything more annoying than Godmodding? I don’t get what’s “cool” about the kid that ruins a D&D session by rambling about how unexpectedly invincible his character is against the boss that should wreck him. Shove him in a locker already! And Mogami is just… a masochistic teen boy… really don’t care about a teen larper begging to be stepped on. Just stop. 

So considering we have an ensemble cast where only 2 characters have anything resembling development, and that development is caught in a perpetual state of Take-Backsies, I would say Bokuhaka deserves its middling score and rather poor reception, even if I enjoyed it more than the average critic by the looks of things. I didn’t find it cringeworthy, and I did find it funny enough, but there really is no substance. And I am not of the belief that comedy is magically exempt from expectation. 

5/10

#:A Destructive God Sits Next to Me #a destructive god sits next to me #bokuhaka #it ended up just feeling Hollow. and like #they set up some kind of Message about them playing pretend bc they're vulnerable #in early episodes. and that is just Abandoned. Shame

[intomybubble]

I’m sure I havent posted about it here, but my favorite anime of Winter 2020 has to be A Destructive God Sits Next to Me (aka Bokuhaka). I watched Hanako-kun too but prefer the manga and I couldn’t help myself comparing the two.

Anyways. I don’t really watch comedy series that often but I thought that Bokuhaka was really funny. The animated was good and I actually really liked a lot of the characters. The series follows Koyuki an average guy who just wants to get through high school in peace but his life is disrupted by a bunch of chuunibyou who won’t leave him alone.

I’m actually not the biggest fan of Koyuki, but I think his interactions with Tsukimiya via his mindreading is really funny. I also think Mogami is really cute and I wished he had more screentime but his debut episode was good (him arguing with Hanadori in Koyuki’s bathroom stall was really funny). Hibiki gives me the most stress (please leave the scythe at home you’ll hurt someone on accident). Hanadori is actually a pretty good kid and I think hes actually really interesting seeing him be serious.

Anyways I’m sad the series is over bc there’s only 12 chapters of the manga translated and theres like 12 volumes out in japanese ㅠㅠ

#desiree talks #i can see this as a series i can def rewatcc #*rewatch #the only other comedy that comes to mind i really like is gekkan shoujo nozaki kun #and then theres the comedy moments in hanako-kun i really like too #i think its the sudden change in mood that gets me? #i know for bokuhaka the parts that i think are funny are the ‘are you fucking kidding me’ kind of moments