Common Name: Sanrio Danshi
Alternative Names: Sanrio Boys
Score: 6/10, 4/5
Length: 12 Episodes
Genre: Drama, Shounen, Slice of Life, School Life
Summary: Hasegawa Kouta is pretty average and unassuming as far as high school boys go. The only thing about him that could be considered particularly strange is his love for a plush doll of Pomupomu Purin, one of several characters of the Sanrio brand, he got from his grandmother years ago. Until recently, Kouta always assumed it was better for him to keep quiet about his love of Sanrio. When he meets a couple of boys who are unashamed of their love for Sanrio, he realizes there's nothing wrong with liking something different. Now he has a group of friends who share his passion and are more than happy to help him sparkle with the same kind of loving happiness that can be seen in every Sanrio character.
Review: Product placement and merchandising have never particularly been an issue for me. Sure, it can be garish and distracting but I usually find the blatant and unavoidable featuring of a product just as funny as the concept of Japanese anime knock-offs like "WcDonalds." I won't deny, though, that I normally guard my expectations when it comes to titles that seem to have been made purely for the purposes of promoting some brand or service. After all, such creations rarely have any heart, soul, love, or effort put into them what-so-ever. More often than not, these kinds of titles are little more than cash grabs directed at anime fans, since this is a fandom that practically fountains money; so it's kinda hard to judge them for wanting a piece of that pie. While Sanrio Danshi is, most certainly, a perfect example of the promotional genre, it somehow finds a way to excel beyond the heartless and stale standards of its kin to become something I'd go so far as to call worthwhile.
To be clear, though, as much as I like it both personally and critically,
it is 1000% an ad for everything Sanrio.
For those who are not familiar with the brand, the Sanrio Company is renowned for the creation and merchandising for the worldwide phenomenon that is Hello Kitty & Friends. Before you as, yes, there are more characters to the franchise than just the titular Kitty. There are, in fact, quite a few. For the sake of simplicity, Sanrio Danshi, thankfully, only focuses on the most popular and iconic characters of the franchise and a group of five boys who love their respective characters a great deal. Beginning to see why I might have come into this title with a little hesitation and maybe a few negative biases? Initially, I wanted to simply write off this show and assume that it was just going to be some hyper-generic otome game premise centered on a bunch of hot guys whose personalities ended up being vaguely gap moe with a their respective Sanrio character being the base of their softer sides. Far-fetched though that assumption might sound, such characterizations are actually kind of the norm when it comes to otome titles. Once I actually gave this show a shot, though, it quickly became clear that my assumptions weren't just wide of the mark; they didn't even exist in the same reality this show occupies. In fact, I found myself pleasantly surprised that this show actually spoke to me on a personal level--as someone who has a deep-seated love for cute things.
I'm pretty sure this is a message everyone should hear at least once.
To be fair, the premise that Sanrio Danshi is actually built on isn't that much better than the one I assumed--going instead for the standard "pretty boys with problems" plot with a yaoi-bait tilt to it. In spite of that clearly generic premise, however, at least the show gained the one thing I feared it would lack from the start, a heart. The main push of this show is quite simply that it's better to be honest about the things you love, rather than hurting yourself by shunning those parts of yourself to better fit into society. So long as you're honest with yourself, you can be honest with other people which will, in turn, draw them to you regardless of how "weird" you are. In short, if you can be honest with who you are, value who you are, and trust in the people who you call friends, then you'll be happier in turn. As simplistic as that sounds, though, those three things aren't exactly easy to achieve in one's life. The main story of the show, centered primarily around Hasegawa Kouta, is actually a fairly accurate representation of how difficult it is to accomplish those things and then maintain those beliefs amidst the onslaught of what is considered "right" or "normal" in our communal societies. Yet, in spite of all his initial hesitation and later struggles in finding his own worth, Kouta ends up discovering who he really is as a person and how much all of his friends mean to him.
It does, admittedly, take him a frustratingly long time to do
all the soul-searching necessary to realize that though.
Since Kouta functions as our "good guy" protagonist, it eventually becomes his duty to become the solver of problems and giver of revelations for the rest of the show's cast since they helped him rekindle his love for Pomupomu Purin and his late grandmother. For example, Kouta helps Mizuno Yuu, an open and unapologetic fan of My Melody, reconcile with his bratty little sister when their misguided attempts at selflessness turn toxic. He helps Yoshino Shunsuke, a stoic but proud fan of Hello Kitty, learn to rely on other people rather than trying to shoulder every burden himself. He makes Nishimiya Ryou, a closet fan of Little Twin Stars, realize that denying his own nature in an effort to be more masculine harms him and those he might want to get close to. Lastly, he almost single-handedly reveals to Minamoto Seiichirou, a quiet but stern fan of Cinnamoroll, that it's fine to relax and let people help him from time to time. Once he's helped everyone "solve" their various problems and hang-ups, though, the plot returns to Kouta's own insecurities as the show draws to a close. It's all very by-the-book and can be grating at times since the show struggles to make their characters' moments of anger seem like anything more than bratty petulance. Still, I'll take a clumsy drama over an exploitative romance any day.
What good boys these guys are, so long as their not being
melodramatic in the most typical ways possible.
Despite how much I like this show, however, "clumsy" is the ideal word to describe the product as a whole. On top of being fairly typical in almost every respect, there are a lot of weird little missteps the show takes along the way; the kind of missteps that make it seem like the production team wasn't entirely sure what they were going for. For starters, the show has an of tiptoeing around the concept of homosexuality in the most Japanese manner possible. Even though the show's message of "love what you want regardless of what others think" would be a perfect parallel to a finding love that society doesn't deem acceptable, i.e. homosexuality, the show tries to cough and change topics every time questions of relationships between the characters come up. This approach is made all the more frustrating when it gets into Ryou's arc, which seems to focus on tackling the issues of toxic masculinity while he struggles with his closeted feelings for the unapproachable Seiichirou. Rather than feeling like someone struggling with a variety of complex feelings that contradict a variety of societal norms, the show makes his initial character absolutely intolerable since all he does is lash out with tantrum after tantrum. Once his issues are resolved, though, he magically becomes the stubbornly likable tsundere boy he was always meant to be.
To think, if this show only knew how to handle Ryou's feelings he might have been made one of its most compelling and relatable characters. I mean, just look at his crush. Even I'm comfortable saying Seiichirou is a Grade-A catch.
What makes this kind of clumsy confusion all the more obvious, though, is the weird way the show tries to pander to a clearly female audience. It's not a common occurrence but, every now and then, the show transitions to the characters interacting with some unseen viewpoint character when the characters bump into them in the most otome manner possible. To elaborate, in one such instance of this weird transition Shuunsuke angrily kicks a wastebasket into the camera. In response, the camera blinks, refocuses down on a girl's legs, and then looks back up to Shuunsuke as he smolderingly apologizes to this quite literal "female gaze." While cute and a bit funny, considering how pervasive and offensive the "male gaze" ends up being in visual media, these segments never actually add anything to the show and seem either like unnecessary padding or something left over from what might have been that otome game angle I feared from the start.
Still think my initial fears were unreasonable? I couldn't make this shit up if I tried.
While these kinds of weird and clumsy issues bother me enough to find it distracting, I will reiterate that I do ultimately like this show. It taught me a good deal about Sanrio's myriad characters and engaged me with some characters that were, while fairly generic, fleshed-out enough to be engaging in their own right. I found myself rooting for these characters as they came to terms with who they are and relating to them on a very personal level given my own love of cute things. Even if my experiences aren't parallel to theirs, the fact that I even wanted to connect their hangups to a few of my own should speak volumes about how the show handles those issues. Apart from that level of quality, though, I'll admit there really isn't much else to the show. The art and animation are as basic as they come and I never really engaged with the show's musical numbers apart from its very J-Pop / Boy Band OP. So, in the end, I'm inclined to just kinda shrug my shoulders when it comes to whether or not I'd encourage others to watch it. There are better shows to watch, sure, but you could also do far worse. Ultimately, I think it depends on whether you think the show's central theme will connect with you or not. If so, I'd say go for it. If not, no harm no foul. You're entitled to like what you like just as much as I am, after all.