Kōta Hasegawa is a high school boy who loves the yellow Pom Pom Purin dog. By mere coincidence, he ends up attending the same school as Yū Mizuno, a boy who likes the bunny My Melody. Yū tells Kōta that there’s nothing to be ashamed of for liking Sanrio’s cute characters. Together, Kōta, Yū, Shunsuke Yoshino, Ryō Nishimiya, and Seiichiro Minamoto learn to accept their love of the characters instead of feeling embarrassed. – ANN
Streaming: Crunchyroll
Source: Original
Episodes: 12
Review: This review may contain spoilers for the series.
When was the first time you felt ashamed for liking something? When I was in elementary school, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was huge. I loved the cartoon series and the video games more than almost anything else. I really wanted to own some of the toys, but as a fourth-grader without a steady source of income, it was up to me to try to get my parents to buy them for me. Looking back as an adult, I can logically say that there’s nothing wrong with a girl wanting to own action figures, but all the toy commercials had boys in them and even at my young age I was afraid of being judged or laughed-at for wanting to play with toys made for boys. The happy ending to my story was that my mother never once judged me or made fun of me for my preference, and I went on to build a large collection of action figures, Star Trek figures, and other miscellaneous fandom toys that eventually led to the overgrown collection of anime figurines I have today.
That, of course, was just my experience, but not everyone has the luxury of crossing society’s arbitrary gender boundaries with their likes and dislikes, especially boys and men who enjoy things typically aimed at girls and women (because believe it or not being a girl or woman is valued as lesser by our society, even by people who might not necessarily think so consciously). I know my husband has gotten some flak for his enjoyment of My Little Pony and preference for pinks and purples, and in an even broader sense, there are people who are harassed and harmed because their gender expression doesn’t fit into a certain narrow binary. Sanrio Boys isn’t a heavy hitter when it comes to discussing the latter; in fact, the series doesn’t really touch on gender itself very deeply. But it does spend a lot of time looking at the former – boys who express themselves through their enjoyment of characters and products typically aimed at women.
Each of the five main characters in this series exemplifies the different ways that people experience liking things outside the mainstream. Kota, the everyman protagonist, was picked on by his peers as a child because he carried around a Pom Pom Purin stuffed animal. Yu loves My Melody without shame, but his younger sister finds his hobby disgusting. Ryou is the youngest sibling in a family of older sisters, and fears being pigeonholed into the role of an effeminate younger brother. There’s nothing particularly complicated about any of the guys’ circumstances, but the simple injustices of their situations are laid bare for the audience in a way that I find very relateable. I like to think that most viewers would tend to realize how hurtful bullying someone for their hobbies is (and I imagine there are a lot of anime fans out there who have gotten picked on for being into “weird cartoons”), but the straightforward, sometimes ham-handed way the series insists upon the fact that young men can and do like cutesy characters and merchandise is something some fans may not have thought much about, even considering their own circumstances.
Beyond its central message, the show is pretty light on narrative and hits a lot of trope-y beats that would be at home in any high-school-based anime series. There’s a strong emphasis on friendship and relationship-building between the boys, a sprinkling of dramatic interpersonal conflict, a whole boatload of earnestness (and some dramatic overwork-to-the-point-of-self-destruction) from our main-man Kota, and a school culture festival to tie the entire thing up with a sparkly bow at the end. It also spends some time paying attention to its assumed viewer base (young women, the same individuals who tend to be major consumers of Sanrio products) by not only featuring cute guys being cute together on a regular basis, but also getting those same characters into situations where they hang out together buying merchandise or take on princely personas for the sake of a school theater production. There’s certainly nothing wrong with this; as far as fanservice goes it’s easily some of the more innocuous I’ve seen lately. It does distract a bit from what I see as an atypically good toy commercial disguised as an average anime series.
The commercialized bits of the series are admittedly pretty entertaining and mostly forgivable. The boys go shopping for Sanrio toys and merchandise on a regular basis (naturally) and those bits made me long for the days when there was still a Sanrio store at the Mall of America (I’m probably showing my age by saying that). They also make a big mid-series trip to Sanrio Puroland, the Sanrio theme park in Tokyo with costumed characters and themed areas and performances. There’s a particularly ridiculous montage in the episode where the boys wander through all the areas and big attractions, dressing up in costumes and interacting with their favorite characters. It’s pure fanservice in more ways than one, but it’s indulgent rather than trashy – I’ll give it a pass (and be jealous that I’m not in their place). Having seen many more shameless toy commercials disguised as anime in my time, the fact that this series blends the fluff with some fairly substantial character moments is pretty good by me.
Ultimately whether viewers are likely to glean anything from Sanrio Boys’ lessons in subverting gender essentialism will be based on how much they can also tolerate being advertised to and whether they enjoy cute-guy pandering. I happen to be a Sanrio fan who likes shows starring cute guys, but it’s obviously not everyone’s specific cup of tea. I’d argue, though, that those who go in with an open mind will likely come away with something worth more than the price of admission (and some stickers and key chains).
Pros: The show is strongly in favor of people enjoying what they enjoy, gender roles be damned. If you like Sanrio, that’s an added bonus.
Cons: The second half of the series is especially filled with common tropes that stray away from some of the positive messaging in the first half.
Grade: B-