Boys Like Cute Things Too!: Sanrio Danshi Review

The moment I saw the poster for this show, I knew I’d enjoy it. 

Sanrio Danshi follows the story of Kouta, a typical high school student. Although, he’s perhaps not your typical high school student after all. Why? Because he has a love for Pompompurin – the Sanrio character. By mere coincidence, he ends up meeting more students with the similar passion of liking Sanrio characters and they end up learning to embrace this rather than feel embarrassed about it.

This show was completely a show after my own heart. Sanrio characters, cute boys… Perfect combination in my eyes. But also the story of them feeling uncomfortable and anxious about other students around them finding out that they liked Sanrio characters really touched home. Despite me being a girl and not a boy, I could relate somewhat. I’m 21 years old and I still love Sanrio characters. It’s not a bad thing by any means, but I can tell that people around me think it might be a little weird. And honestly? That’s okay. The people around me aren’t used to cartoon characters being aimed at young adult women (or men). It’s just two different cultures that are slightly different and I see no issue with embracing both of them.

Sanrio Danshi is able to depict all the emotions that it should have. Anger, sadness, happiness, loneliness… It really does cover every emotion under the sun. The character development in this show, I think, continues to express these emotions in a way that’s done so well. Each character has their own problems, dilemmas and tricky situations and the show takes us through each issue in a good amount of detail. As someone who likes good character development, I appreciated this somewhat. Although the story featured on these issues, it also managed to maintain a comedic and light-hearted feel, creating a great balance in tone.

Persoanlly, I really liked the art. It was clean, sure, but it’s not as ‘shiny’ as some other shows. Instead, it was certainly a pretty art style, but not all of the characters were made to look like they’re all idols. There’s appearance diversity and that was something nice to see. There are boys that are skinny, there are boys that are buff. And this diversity continues into their personalities. There’s shy boys, outgoing boys, sporty boys, artsy boys… The mixture of characters in this show was certainly something that worked as a positive.

The music used was, for me, some of the best of the season. The OP isn’t Kiss of Death by any means, but it’s certainly still a jam in its own right. Background-wise, the music was quite average but it did seem to fit well in places. Meanwhile, the voice actors did a splendid job at bringing the characters to life, but then again there are some well-known names involved and bringing their talent to the table.

Don’t get me wrong, despite the amount of praise I’ve seemed to have given it, Sanrio Danshi isn’t spectacular by any means. It’s simply a show that you don’t necessarily have to concentrate much on with a sweet story line. However, this was the only show of Winter 2018 that I did keep up with on a week-by-week basis, so if that doesn’t demonstrate how much I enjoyed it, I don’t know what will.

I feel like Sanrio Danshi isn’t appreciated enough, but it’s certainly a show to watch if you like Sanrio, cute boys, shows that focus on the topic of bullying or if you just want a nice little show that you don’t have to intensely concentrate on!

Rating: 7/10