Sekkō Boys

• Genre: Comedy, Slice of life, surreal
• Episodes: 12
• Studio: Liden Films

As her dreams of becoming a famous artist become more and more unattainable with every passing day, Miki Ishimoto decides it’s time to settle and takes an artist adjacent job as a band manager at Holbein Entertainment Co. She’s very surprised and a little nervous when on her very first day she is assigned to the up and coming idol boy band: the Rockies. Miki must quickly figure out how to make these boys a success while trying to keep them in line and navigate the high-pressure world of the entertainment industry. Luckily, her band has a unique hook to set them apart from the herd. The Rockies are entirely comprised of chiseled stone-cold hunks! Seriously, they’re statues…look at the pic!

I got three puns in a single sentence and I’m still waiting for my trophy. I bet it got lost in the mail. When I read the much less punny description of this show, I knew I had to give it a try. I mean, when have I ever turned down rock hard abs? Ok the boys are just busts so no abs to speak off. Give me a break, they can’t all be gold!

A bit after finishing this series, I saw somewhere that this show was a collaboration between Zargiani Works, which make merch, Kadokawa Corp a rather large media company and the mega art supplier Holbein Artist Materials (as in the in-show Holbein Entertainment Co. – subtle right!!!). So the natural assumption would be that this is basically just a commercial in show form, like the old GI Joes or something (we can argue that all anime – if not almost all entertainment – in fact falls into that category but let’s not). When taking this into consideration Sekko Boys goes from quirky to mind bogglingly weird. What exactly were they trying to sell and to whom? Did it work? This metamystery is going to keep me up at night.

One has to imagine that there was some budget available for this thing and they made the absolute least of it. The art is good but completely pro forma, the animation is minimal and unmemorable. This said the use of what was possibly photographs of statues and their realistic complete lack of movement, with no effort made to integrate with the rest of the animation was a really nice touch and the only interesting visual element in my opinion. The voice acting was disappointing with many characters sounding unnervingly alike and one would think that a show about a “boy” band would have at least some music in it. It does not…

The premise is absolutely bonkers and definitely interesting. The show follows the initially optimistic Miki around as she becomes increasingly disillusioned with her insane job. There was a real opportunity there to poke some tongue  in cheek fun at the entertainment industry or Japanese work culture but the show made no attempts at all in that sense. As a short program, every episode was essentially one or two vignettes dealing with random daily tasks Miki has to take on for the boys and their various eccentricities. The one and only twist is of course that everybody acts like nothing out of the ordinary is happening but they remain busts, unable to move by themselves and Miki has to somehow make them interact with the rest of the world. One of the most used running gags is that she has to physically carry them around and they are very heavy. I actually found this pretty funny almost every time.

I don’t particularly have a problem with repetitiveness. After all, this blog is dedicated to drinking every time something gets repeated so shows that rely on doing to same gag over and over again tend to have a special place in my heart – if only I could remember them… But in Sekko Boys, every single joke basically boiled down to “look – they’re statues! Ha!” It worked decently for a little while, but even at only roughly 6.5 minutes per episode, it started wearing real thin before the midseason mark. It was a pretty weird premise to begin with so I wouldn’t say they wasted it, I’m not sure what else could have been done really, but in general the show is just kinda boring and despite everything nothing special.

Favorite character: Mira

What this anime taught me: I may have too much free time.

Alcohol doesn’t solve any problems, but then again neither does milk.

Suggested drink: Rock ‘n Rye

• Every time the punch line is that they’re statues – take a drink!