Boys Be... 5/10

One of those "multiple leads search for romance" shows but these multiple leads are guys for a change. How did it turn out?

Boys Be... ran for 13 episodes back in 2000 and is loosely based on the manga of the same name. I didn't mind the style of this show but it looks pretty cheap overall with somewhat dated computer scanned and coloured animation. I didn't like the character designs because they simply look sloppy compared to the original manga art which I really like. At times the characters look worse than usual and I found it hard to root for the current lead since the girl he's after looks like hell. The music wasn't anything special and same with the VA's. Everything about the technical side of this show was mediocre.

Where most shows of this nature feature a new female lead every 1-2 episodes in a different situation Boys Be... has 3 leads and the show switches back and forth between them since they're friends and go to the same high school. There are also 3 female leads who get varying amounts of screen time, the sporty tomboy Chiharu, the goofy and practical Yumi, and the other girl Aki who has the least impact in the show.

Kyoichi is the "main" lead who's a painter and is childhood friends with Chiharu. His story follows how he asks her out, she kisses some college guy while she's away at a track training camp, he sees and dumps her ass, and how he drifts from girl to girl while carrying a torch for Chiharu.

The next guy is Yoshihiko who's clueless about women even though he's a star baseball player and they're falling all over him. He ends up with the female manager of the baseball team who basically chases him long enough for him to realize she likes him.

Makoto is the most interesting of the three. He's desperate for a girl and resorts to computer analysis and dating books to find one. He gets turned down again and again until he gets some advice from Yumi about a girl he likes and she's friend's with. This is the best of the stories since Yumi falls for the doofus when they're out on a practice date. Later, when Makoto is out with the girl on the REAL date, she realizes what's going on and dumps him so Yumi can have him.

I found myself rooting for Yumi more than the other characters since she'e the least retarded. Kyoichi's adventures with older women kinda suck and this show really doesn't portray guys very well. Where's the talk about tapping these chicks? Where's the "I totally saw her nipples in that T-shirt!" conversation? Not really recommended.