Seiho Boys’ High School 5

Kaneyoshi Izumi – Viz – 2011 – 8 volumes

Have I mentioned how much I like this series? I like it a lot. It’s really hard not to. It’s full of humor and a lot of little nuances and insight into the lives of the characters, who are mostly just normal high schoolers with normal high school lives. Not too much drama, and what’s there is easy to address, overcome, or laugh at. The format is also perfect, with each chapter covering a mostly-standalone story. Maki always worries about his girlfriend, and Miyaji is always trying to get together with Kamiki, but other things happen, too.

I still love the running joke that all the students at Seiho are grossed out by the all-male status of their school. Not just because they want dates, but because teenage boys are sloppy and unkempt when left to their own devices. They bring this up every chance they get. There’s an entire chapter about how Hanai wants to “photograph the beauty around him,” but can’t find any and has to resort to selling photos of his classmates to acquaintances at an all-girls school. This ends in embarrassing photos of Seiho boys doing strange things, as you can imagine.

As often as it is serious, there’s usually a funny twist to keep things light, and vice-versa, things can turn bittersweet in the middle of a humorous story. The best example of the flip-flopping in this volume is the first chapter, where the exam-weary students swear there is a ghost haunting the grounds. Maki worries that it is the ghost of his dead girlfriend, but by the end of the story, it turns out to be… something a little less serious. Even so, Maki’s worry isn’t entirely groundless, and the story goes from funny to sad to sweet in just a few pages at the end.

And I know I’m like a broken record with this business, but really, this series has great characters. I say that every time. There’s just something likable and addictive about Maki, Nogami, Kamiki, and all the guys at Seiho. The stories would be mundane if they didn’t have such great personalities. And they never break character to get too serious or over-the-top. I really like that about this series.

Lots of good things happen here. Connections are finally made, and relationships re-affirmed. While I’m never on the edge of my seat waiting for the next volume, since there’s no ongoing storyline to look forward to, a new volume of Seiho Boys’ High School is an almost guaranteed pleasure to read all the same, and it’s easy to pick up and read for that reason alone. Highly recommended.

This was a review copy provided by Viz.