Dear Boys

Rarely do I watch anything to do with sports except for the occassional football matches where certain clubs are playing (like the game between the Red Devils & the Blues last Sunday), or when a certain No.23/No.7 is playing for club/country..*winks

So I wasn't expecting much when I watched Dear Boys, an anime centralizing on basketball.

Here we follow the Mizuho High School boy's basketball team in their progress to win the prefectural championship. All was not well at the start and there wasn't even a team to begin with! Well, there was a team until Takumi Fujiwara, a member of the team, punched the coach in an incident during his first year causing the entire team to be banned for a year while the coach was transferred to another school. With no coach and only 4 members remaining a year later, revival was literally impossible...until Aikawa came into the picture.

Aikawa was the captain of Tendoji High's basketball team and a famous player amongst high school basketball followers. Thus, everyone was shocked when he decided to transfer from a well-known team to an infamous one. The reason behind was because he no longer enjoyed playing basketball at Tendoji as he felt the fun of playing had been compromised in their strict quest to winning games/championships. At Mizuho, Aikawa is like the final piece to a jigsaw puzzle, helping to make the team whole again and with his passion & enthusiasm for the game, he convinces Takumi and the rest to play basketball again. Together, they manage to get Miss Himuro, the coach of the girl's team to coach them as well. And so begins their journey...

As I mentioned earlier, I didn't really had high hopes for the anime but before I knew it, I was following the story quite closely especially during the championship games. Caught myself leaning forward in anticipation when 3-pointers were taken (shown in slow motion for full effect!). And don't think because Mizuho is the main focus, they'll be winning games easily because they aren't! They have to fight for it and well, you need to fall down before you can grow up so it's not all a bed of roses. Furthermore, the anime focuses on the character development not only within Mizuho but rival teams as well.

Plus we'll find out that a 5-member team can be very risky because if one player garners 4 fouls, he/she is out from the game and when there are no substitutes to replace, playing with only 4 members is a handicap. Thus, towards the end of season 1, we see a new member introduced but we'll have to watch season 2 to find out what happen next. An interesting anime throughout though you won't see me watching real life basketball games anytime soon ehhe..I'm sticking to my old routine just yet.


P/S: Oh, in case you are wondering why Dear Boys is the title, it has something to do with Miss Mizuho. In the beginning, she seemed rather strict but later in the anime reveals her attachment to her "dear boys". And coincidentally Aikawa, the playmaker cum protagonist, wears the No.7 as well kekekke..


My Rating: