If youve watched Zetsuen no Tempest youll know that anime adaptations of Shakespearean works are nothing new. But Boarding School Juliet appears to pay homage to its inspiration purely at the surface level the anime as a whole seems little different from most other generic romantic comedies of its ilk. Its a straightforward unabashed dash towards the finish line comprising a barrage of characters that constantly get bounced off the impregnable relationship between the two destined lovers coupled with a dogged unwillingness to stray from the beaten path despite its potentially fascinating concept. Ultimately the shows stubborn refusal to commit to one of comedy or romance means that it ends up being neither a slipshod amalgamation of poor pacing and uninspiring cast members that relies on its excellent audiovisual spectacle to keep viewers entertained. This vagueness of narrative culminates in a climactic final battle that is both farcical and unsatisfying in equal proportion which fittingly sums up Boarding School Juliet in general. The series can be and surprisingly often is good fun but the lack of overall adventure and ambition comes back to bite it in the posterior. Ratings for each aspect of the anime are given in brackets. Premise 3/5: Dahlia Academy is composed of two school houses: one that represents the country of Touwa the quintessential traditionalist caricature of Japan and one that represents the Principality of West a.k.a. a puritan and bastardized microcosm of Western and in particular English culture. The school serves as a proxy battlefield of sorts for their host countries which are only held apart by a tenuous peace treaty. The respective dorms engage in regular fruitless skirmishes in order to decide a victor despite the fact that theres really nothing on the line except for quasinationalist pride. The more the events of the story unfold the less the anime resembles a rehashing of Romeo and Juliet and the more it feels like some of Shakespeares other works particularly Much Ado About Nothing which shares Boarding School Juliets emphases on initially opposed lovers jealousy and betrayal sibling problems and the notion of a big deal being made out of what essentially amounts to nothing in the eyes of outside observers. Everything about the premise screams absurd comedy so it inevitably feels quite jarring whenever the story tries to take itself seriously. Nevertheless the setting is fascinating enough on its own though the rest of the anime doesnt exactly do it many favors. 500https://i.ur.com/4bDke38.png The beginning of something special... or not much in particular. Characters 1/5: The conflict that lies within the genesis of any romantic comedy spawns from amongst other things the standardization of its characters. A romcom must in some way kowtow to the array of cliches laid out for it otherwise it would not be able to draw on what attracts people to romcoms in the first place. Yet if it doesnt try to experiment with those characters you get the constantly creeping sense that youve seen it all before and that theres nothing more worth watching. Boarding School Juliets characters are bestowed with some color by the quaintness of the storys premise but outside of that theyre exactly as bland as you would expect them to be. Inuzuka Romio is the strong hardheaded awkward beast of a man that you would want to lead a dorm house called Black Doggies Juliet Persia is the petite blondhaired blueeyed beauty who can do everything you ask of her except of course for cooking. Surprise surprise Char and Hasuki are the envious childhood friends whose unspoken loves for their targets of affection are doomed to remain forever unrequited. Scott is the devoted selfappointed servant who transforms into little more than cannon fodder by the end of the show. Inuzuka Airu is the older brother whose straightarrow approach to everything estranges him from his sibling. And so on and so forth. The love between Romio and Juliet blossoms inexplicably out of years of conflict though those years of conflict in themselves are barely explored at all whether via flashbacks or other indirect means. Persia mouths vaguely about wanting to change the world in order to please her father or whatever her motivations are supposed to be and Inuzuka haphazardly goes along with it. Its the sort of thing that would only feel inspiring if it had any substance to back it up and theres regrettably a clear dearth of any such foundation in this series. Above all what the characterization suffers from most is a lack of development each and every character remains essentially the same person throughout with little room for elaboration or transformation save for the shallow and superficial realization of mutual love. The more I go on the less interesting it gets... and thats exactly the feeling I had as the cast eventually revealed themselves in full. When youve seen it all youve really seen it all. 500https://i.ur.com/iVvjN0M.jpg Love isnt blind but it sure is myopic. Audiovisuals 4/5: Even though the characters are for the most part monochromatic puppets with no redeeming qualities you really have to hand it to the animators for making their designs look appealing. Persia in particular is one of the cutestlooking creatures in recent memory. Everything she does from her elegant strides to her puffy pouts reflects her personality and her emotional turmoil to a tee. The minimal fanservice is relatively tasteful the background art is of an average quality for an anime which means its pretty damn good. The action sequences are quite welldone for a comedy series although many scenes suffer from singleframe syndrome where a single picture is displayed for ten seconds whilst the sounds of people yelling and beating the shit out of each other blare out from the background. Still you can only go so far with the budget youre given and Boarding School Juliet does a good enough job with the visuals. The soundtrack has a few nice touches to it if Im not mistaken one of the tracks is an approximate rendition of Prokofievs Romeo and Juliet ballad though it isnt always appropriately used with dramatic scenes sometimes being overlaid with comedic music and vice versa. The OP is by fripSide so its guaranteed to be a good listen the ED I admittedly didnt pay much attention to. Overall the audiovisuals are the standout point of the series fulfilling their roles and then some. 500https://i.ur.com/MwgUieW.jpg Visually comedic where it needs to be. Execution 2/5: Its hard to fuck up a romcom if you dont try to do anything special read stupid and throw the whole show off balance. In this sense Boarding School Juliet is the least fuckedup romcom Ive watched in a long while. But given how weird and abnormal the premise appears to be it just doesnt feel right that the overall narrative structure reads like an algorithm. Inuzuka and Persia go from one tribulation to another in exactly the same fashion with Inuzuka trying too hard to please Persia and inevitably screwing up but somehow making Persia fall for him even harder in the process. Its all giveandgo all rinseandrepeat. It would be harsh to say that this is an example of lazy storytelling but a romcom should never give off such a lackluster aura. In the end this show feels like Much Ado About Nothing in name just as in substance its a stream of pointless mindless misunderstandings that fail to really get the storys feet off the ground. As with many romcoms Boarding School Juliet tries to make mountains out of molehills in order to make you laugh but if you keep digging in the same spot you eventually run out of things to excavate. The humor in isolation is good and I did enjoy the show when it was actually being funny which happened more often than this review might make it sound. Unfortunately the series peters out with a whimper after its cringeworthy climax and its strengths are ultimately somewhat forgotten. Thus without a kiss Boarding School Juliet dies. 500https://i.ur.com/Lcowt5S.jpg Much ado about nothing indeed. Overall rating: 3/5 As an aside I anticipate that this review will be downvoted into hell because people dont appreciate it when you criticize their favorite cookiecutter romcoms that totally arent carbon copies of a million other different shows. To that end all I have to say is: A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.
55 /100
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