- Titles: Young Disease Outburst Boy, Chuubyou Gekihatsu Boy
- Genre: Comedy, school, slice of life, CBDCT
- Episodes: 11 + OVA
- Studio: Studio DEEN
You know the drill. Hijiri just transferred to a new school and she’s desperate to make friends. Through a series of circumstances, she ends up in the hero club. A club full of really attractive boys who just want to help everyone around them. Will Hijiri finally find the friends she has been longing for?… or more! Ha! That’s what you thought I was going to say, wasn’t it? I don’t blame you. It’s a pretty accurate synopsis now that I think about it. I guess I could mention that Hijiri doesn’t want to join the hero club or make friends with any of these weirdos though. That would be a little more accurate.
Another amazing alternate title!
Outburst Dreamer Boys has been on my to-watch list pretty much since it came out. I was completely certain that it was a reverse harem and put off watching it for quite some time. It’s not that I have anything against reverse harems it’s just that I have to be in a specific mood to enjoy them.
And before you think I’m shallow and judged an anime by its cover, I’m not the only one that made this mistake. You should read some of the MAL reviews for this show. Let’s face it, anime has conditioned us to have certain expectations when we see one girl character on a cover and a whole bunch of boy ones. But that’s not fair, I’ve been in plenty of situations where I was the only girl and it has never turned into a reverse harem. Not even once… Seriously, is it too much to have to just get one measly little reverse harem going? Sheesh…
Production
If I had to put Outburst Dreamer Boys into an actual genre box, it would most likely be CBDCT. I don’t know why I’m being so hesitant, that is 100% what genre it is. I’m telling you this now because production-wise, it looks like a CBDCT show. You know, the designs are cute and unintimidating, the colours are fairly soft, and the animation is perfectly suited to the needs of the show which are themselves modest.
The voice acting is quite fun because the characters are a little out there. Generally speaking, I would say that Outburst Dreamer Boys has a production that works with the show but doesn’t interfere in any way. Which is a nice way to say that it also doesn’t stand out that much.
Story & Characters
But it doesn’t need to stand out. Because Outburst Dreamer Boys is delightful!
I know that my impression is in good part due to the fact that I was expecting the show to be a lot more tedious than it ended up being. The fact is, Outburst Dreamer Boys is a straight-up goofy comedy about a bunch of dorks. And for those new here, I love both comedies and dorks so I was very pleasantly surprised. It also seems to have taken a lot of inspiration from Sket Dance, even in the character design. I have a very soft spot for Sket Dance so that was another plus for Outburst Dreamer Boys.
The show is a series of episodic slice of life type events. The hero club takes on various jobs each week or sometimes just do things together and Hijiri is exasperated by how a group of capable handsome boys could be such idiots when it comes down to it. Towards the end of the season, there’s a mini-arc parodying classic school club animes where the student council wants to shut down their club. Except it turns out it was never an actual club and the boys just randomly started using a free storage room as a meeting spot…
The show is light, fairly inconsequential and entirely harmless. I wrote a post about Seinen and Shojou overlap in anime some time ago and Melancholy3004 in my comments mentioned the lack of Cute Boy shows which are constructed and presented in the same was a CGDCT. Well, Outburst Dreamer Boys is one of them. There’s even some boy-only fanservice in the OVA.
I personally had a great time with the show, I can’t find any major flaw to pick at. But I know that I’m not representative of the larger anime community on this one. AniList has the show at 63% which is frankly better than I expected and Mal has a slightly more generous 6.8. The thing is though, I can’t tell you why exactly. The actual written reviews by users on MAL rate the show at 10, 8 and 7.
Don’t get me wrong, I personally don’t think the show is a 10 or anything, but I do suspect that the exact same show with an all-girl cast would have gotten an extra point across the board. It’s a cute show that made me giggle at several points and never made me uncomfortable. And sometimes that’s exactly what you want in an anime. And for me personally, it was a great watch. I enjoyed it thoroughly!
You might like this anime if:
you want to watch a quintessential CBDCT
My favourite character:
You know what? I liked all of them. Stretching the definition of “favourite” I’m going to say they are all my favourite…But more specifically Rei is my favourite.
Suggested drink:
Much Fuss for the Conquering Hero Cocktail
- Every time Hijiri makes a face – take a sip
- Every time Noda calls Hijiri “pink” – take a sip
- Every time Nakamura is tortured by..his power – gasp!
- Every time Noda is super excited about something – take a deep breath
- Every time Rei is being ominous – take a sip
- Every time we see Faust – get some crackers
- Every time Rei bursts into laughter – take a sip
- every time he hides behind someone – laugh at him
- Every time Noda uses searchlight – take a sip
- Every time we see any of Rei’s siblings – either be charmed or worried
- Every time Futaba speaks in “English” – take a sip
- Every time anyone has a colour fail – take a sip
- Every time Hijiri does a puzzle – relax
- Every time we see Benjamin the cat – take a sip
- Every time Nakamura talks about himself in the third person – take a sip
- Every time Takashima gets shy – awwww
I save all my screencaps on my Pinterest and you can find more there if you are interested. But I still like to show you a few in the post. If you’re like me, screencaps are something that really helps you decide to watch an anime or not.
Did you say feel good anime? On to the queue it goes! It does sound, and look, like fun. We do need more CGDCT dammit. I mean, I’m bi and thoroughly enjoy the girls but guys deserve some more attention. I think it’s clear there is a considerable female audience for anime these days. I’m watching Bastard! over on Netflix and one of the things I like about this ridiculous over the top show written for Heavy Metal fans (of which I am one, I admit) is that yes it has some really over the top naked girl fanservice, but we also have some very attractive and very often naked males to look at as well. About damn time.
Equal opportunity fanservice is the best
Looks like another one to add to the queue!
Honestly, it was my feel good anime for a while there