Sanrio Boys Ep 8 – Cute Boys Doing Cute Things (Winter Games 2018 )

• Genre : Comedy, Drama, Slice of Life
• Studio: Pierrot

We brave warriors of the Winter Games, occasionally discuss the shows among ourselves.. Discuss is a big word. We throw one liners around and wander away in the middle of conversations. Well I do. I’m get distracted by shiny objects. Early in the season, I was assured that watching adorable young characters do everyday tasks with light touches of humor was enjoyable regardless of who the characters were. I’m thinking this weeks Sanrio Boys will put that to the test.

I had already been pleasantly surprised by Grancrest when I sat down to watch this week’s Sanrio Boys and was expecting more or less the same as the last episode but in the school. I must admit I was pretty bewildered when I caught myself sincerely laughing at the opening tag. The rest of the episode kept up the fun and light mood and clearly reminded me what I had so enjoyed in episode 1.

Hase’s classroom chums once again make a cameo appearance and once again are thoroughly delightful. The show has decided to play Hase’s rather cruel dismissive attitude towards his old friends for laughs and it works really well. I hope they keep it up.

The beginning of the episode plays well into my dark psychological thriller theme, as the boys all seem to be humoring a slightly frantic Hase whose going through some sort of mild existential crisis and trying to find a niche for himself. He just wants a thing he’s good at and he’s pestering of everyone else to help him find it was both adorable and funny.

When they finally hit on the idea of putting on a play for the school festival, the episode smoothly transitions into a bit of workplace manservice and more lighthearted hijinks. It’s a well-worn cliché but we do love to see a man in uniform, even if it’s a fast food uniform. There’s just something so gosh darn attractive about someone working hard.

And the show carefully hits up all the proper tropes. Aside from the above mentioned fats food Yuu, Shuu and the Prez both get to show off their strong physic as movers, Ryo is adorable as a high-class waiter complete with bow tie and Hase was an endless source of amusement as the most awkwardly broish life guard ever. Those sunglasses are everything! Let me just mention this here, Shuu came up with the perfect suggestion at the very last-minute and did so quite stoically (cough, cough)

This weeks episode stayed as far away as possible from even the slightest hint of drama and that proved to be very much in its favour. The clearly comedic tone of the episode suited both characters and unassuming story line perfectly. This is really what they should have been doing all along. We even saw the return of Yuu’s sister and it was funny and pleasant, managing to throw in a touch of brotherly over protectiveness.

Structurally, this episode was a prototypical school slice of life. All the familiar elements were there and clearly recognizable. You could argue that the entire thing was pretty shallow. You would be right. You would also be arguing for deep emotional or intellectual depth in a show that’s openly a fanservicy commercial for cutesy merchandise so maybe your debate skills could be put to better use.

Sanorio boys did exactly what it was supposed to do this week. It made me smile and even laugh a bit. It reminded me that Sanrio characters exist and that I could purchase merchandise of them but it didn’t insist on it (in fact it was quite light on the product placement this week). I will most likely forget about it in the next few days but when next weeks episode becomes available, I will be happy to watch it again.

Much like Grancrest, the fact that I found the episode enjoyable means that I didn’t spend my time misinterpreting it in my head. I really liked the alternate dark thriller I was putting together… Man I am just never happy, am I?

Predictions:

We know that next week is a beach episode so… manservice???

Plot: One of the boy’s can’t swim

Character: Ryou will try to get Sei’s attention.

I am really curious to see if Astral Gemini, Leap and TPAB, liked this episode. From what I know this is the type of thing they usually really go for so I assume they at least didn’t hate it. Anywho, I can’t wait to see!