Review of Convenience Store Boy Friends

Convenience Store Boyfriends claims to revolve around six guys who meet their crushes at the convenience store, but the actual show itself doesn’t heavily involve the convenience store, nor does it equally focus on the six guys they introduce. Instead, this anime chooses to focus on two of the relationships and their evolution over the course of their first year of high school. Story: The premise of a slice-of-life revolving around a convenience store is interesting. Even if the convenience store does not show up in many scenes, it still serves as a symbol of stability amongst the four main characters. They meet up, talk, andmake plans at the convenience store, which leads to the core of the simple slice-of-life story.

Characters: The characters seemed bland at first, but they grew to be rather realistic. As high schoolers trying to balance their academic and social life, the characters are bound to make mistakes. After all, they’re confused, conflicted, and maybe even scared. Along the way, the characters learn to be honest with themselves. While the characters are not unique in terms of personality, they embody honesty and compassion.

Art: I actually found this anime because I saw Senzaki Makoto’s original character designs. I felt that the anime found a good middle ground between the original artstyle and a more versatile one for animating. The characters are not stunningly attractive, but I think they are appealing enough. As for the animation, I couldn’t gauge whether it was good or bad. At times, the animation looks choppy or off for some reason (Asumi running in the opening). Other times, the animation is beautiful when it comes to the landscape or to close-ups (scenes with the bridge come to mind). It’s not the best animation out there, but it shouldn’t deter anyone interested from watching. If anything, some of the expressions on background characters are pretty funny.

Execution: Convenience Store Boyfriends is an anime original based loosely around mooks (magazine books) and drama CDs. As such, it was probably a risk to create such a large scale project around a story that no one has heard about. While the monthly approach to the episodes was a fun idea, I thought that it would have worked better as light novels. In 12 episodes, I believe the anime would have benefited from a slower flow of time. The story itself is interesting, but the pacing and writing could be improved upon.

Overall, I rather enjoyed the show despite its flaws. It’s a rather simple slice-of-life, but it is full of compassion. I would watch a second season, but I also feel a revamp of the storyline would be a better course of action, especially to give the side characters a greater role and more character development.