Before this review begins, a quick spoiler notification:
There will be spoilers for the entire show as we discuss every single arc in the story. This is all in the Story category, and follows a spoiler free general discussion. I will alert readers of when we discuss the arcs themselves. Thank you for your time.
After brushing off the affects of puberty, Nisioisin, author of the popular animation Monogato, created what has become to be known as the Beach Boys. It seems that the horny author has once again teamed up with studio Shift Key to show that the studio has what it takes to do something other than Magic Girl Madoka and Monogato. The show is a detective show taking inspiration from the likes of Nintendo’s very own Ace Attorney, The Hardy Boys, and the good parts of Erased and creates an anime with great dialogue, interesting characters, and a story that is very entertaining to watch.
To add a little background, the Beach Boys is about a purple haired crossdresser who has the ability of better-sight and her good friends the Beach Boys, for whom this show is named after. The Beach Boys get wrapped up in several mysteries which are partly due to everyone in this show being high off of some sort of cocaine, or because of the purple haired crossdresser being a better-sight seer and seeing shit.
Now that we are all caught up, this review is going to be told in 5 parts: Story, Characters, Animation/Music, and then My Enjoyment, followed by a Conclusion. Story and Characters are by far the meat of this review as they have the most to talk about. Animation/Music and My Enjoyment are somewhat on the shorter end but I wouldn’t say that they’re too short.
SToRy
The show goes through several arcs in its short 12 episode run as it tries to replicate the format of Bakemango while hoping we don’t notice. Each arc is, for the most part, self contained and as such one could watch a single arc in the entire series and be left satisfied. Now Bakemangatronics is probably what I would consider to be almost identical in pacing and in format which is not a bad thing. If anything the Beach Boys comes off as a spiritual successor or a fan game.
The Plot Structure of each of these arcs varies from arc to arc but at the end of the day the general format of our little rom hack show is that there’s a conflict/mystery that arises, the Beach Boys attempt to solve it, there’s a second conflict that is created because of the solving of the first conflict, and then a resolution to both of the conflicts. Despite there being a somewhat noticeable formula, the arcs never get stale or repetitive, taking our good loveable Beach Boys to a variety of locations and scenarios throughout the series.
Nisioisin’s spot to shine is the dialogue and boy does he shine. The dialogue is clever and unique, there are puns to be found throughout as there always are, and the characters have their unique dialogue structure which is always a treat. What more is there to say than I’m once again impressed with the dialogue of this show as I always have been with the horny-boy himself.
Many people, myself included, compare this show to Nisioisin’s other famous work, Monogatron. I have even done so in this review. If we’re to be completely honest, in the world where we are never going to get another season of Monogratuity, this is a good replacement, and in many ways outshines that of its spiritual predecessor. One example is that there is a severe lack of horny-boy jokes that exist in this show. Of course there is one or two that could be found throughout the entire show, but they are nowhere near as frequent as Momotaro. To some, that may take the appeal away but personally I can’t stand the amount of times those jokes appear, so having very few within the Beach Boys feels like a breath of fresh air.
If I’m to divulge away from comparing this show to Mogotropica, this show reminds me of older detective shows such as Ellery Queen, or older detective books as the aforementioned Hardy Boys. This is not a bad thing let me say, rather a good thing because I rather enjoy these two examples.
Now that we’ve done a brief overview of the plot and discussing the generalities, let’s divulge into discussing the individual arcs themselves.
After long talks the crossdresser decides to have them help her out, which leads them to having a barbeque on a beach in the middle of the night after flying in a helicopter. Just an ordinary Thursday if I’m to be honest. After searching some more, the Beach Boys come to the conclusion that what the purple haired crossdresser saw years ago wasn’t a star, but rather an illegal satellite that was shot down by a nuke. Hold on let me read that again… “illegal satellite that was shot down by a-” What?!? Not only that but this satellite was shot down in the middle of the day and was only seen by our lovely purple haired crossdresser. Not to mention it was done by a nuke!
This causes the second conflict: purple haired crossdresser is now a target of the state. In other words, she is on the FBI’s most wanted list. Now personally that’s good for me because it takes their attention away from the several war crimes that I’ve committed against the 7 nations I was a citizen of. Maybe I should remove that from the review. I’ll remind myself to do so when I’m finished writing.
This introduces us to the new organization the “Twenties”. Most likely named after the age that they want to be because they all look 40, these people are not good. In fact, they are bad. They capture our purple haired crossdresser and a crossdressing blue boy (ok mr. horny-boy please explain what the immense amount of crossdressing is for?), and then chaos ensues. This is all resolved after the yellow boy is captured and then the twenties are captured. Imma be real I was high as a kite while watching this episode so I’m just gonna say this: everything was resolved in a good way and everyone lived happily ever after.
Now this arc is honestly one of my favorites from the show and it’s not because I have a bias because I like space. I swear! This arc does a wonderful job introducing us to the main cast of characters and even gives us insight to the red boy and blue boy. I liked the two-conflict format of the story and it went places I would have never guessed it would’ve gone, good job horny-boy, you win this round.
The bills are taken to the Beach Boys as they figure out that this is for a secret club for middle schoolers. Not just any club, this is a gambling club! The Beach Boys head out to the casino which is held inside a middle school gym and find that there are tables, slots, and anything else you can imagine would be in a normal casino. There’s even bunny girls! (horny-boy you’re beginning to walk a fine line...)
Everyone other than purple haired crossdresser plays at the tables (blue boy told her she couldn’t because her better-sight ability would be cheating wink wink nudge nudge) with white boy at poker, black boy at slots, yellow boy at roulette, blue boy at blackjack, and red boy at baccarat. Purple haired crossdresser doesn’t know the rules to any of these games which in all honesty is understandable because I don’t even know what baccarat is. I stick to more simple games like blackjack. Did I ever tell you that I was down to 1 dollar when playing with my friends and then after a few more rounds came home with 40 bucks?! Insane!
Anywho, white boy wins big at poker and then is challenged by pink boy. After a little bit of playing, purple haired crossdresser removes her glasses and puts them back on for about 1000 times and realizes there’s a secret dude behind white boy who is invisible to the naked eye and is helping pink boy cheat. Blasphemy!!!
We find out that this is because there is a group creating these invisibility cloaks like Harry Potter and are basically investing in the pink boy to test the cloaks out in the casino. Clearly they work because nobody is catching on. The Beach Boys, after figuring this out, head back to the casino and have everyone dress as employees with the purple haired crossdresser as a bunny girl (horny-boy i swear…) and have the blue boy crossdressing as a girl (again? does blue boy have something to share with us?). This time blue boy plays blackjack and purple haired crossdresser calls out pink boy for cheating. The casino shuts down, everyone goes home empty handed, and pink boy becomes depressed.
This arc is a lot better than the first and if it had space that would make it that much better. Writing is a lot better, the mystery is a lot less mystery and more about “how the fuck do we stop this school”, and honestly I enjoyed the casino setting a lot more than the beach setting. We get insight into the white boy this time around which makes viewers believe that the other characters are coming, and of course, you can’t have an arc without blue boy going as a girl. I swear blue boy has something to share with the class, and I stand by that!
Up in the attic, the purple haired crossdresser finds that there are not 1, not 2, but 33 paintings just chilling up there not really doing much. It is now the job of the beach boys to find out what the heck the paintings were doing up in the ceiling. Oh shit wait hold up these paintings are actually really famous paintings. Wait a minute… these don’t have people? Now I’m no Leonardo de Caprio, but going through the trouble of recreating 33 paintings from around the world without any people in them is just tedious and kinda dumb.
After discussing it some more, we find that these paintings were likely made by an old teacher fired for some reason, in other words, a criminal. (This makes 2 people on the FBI’s most wanted list) We go to the auditorium and find that there is a gigantic painting of the auditorium with nobody in it. The rumor surrounding this painting is that the people in the painting were ‘stolen’. Enter the teacher who was fired and badabing badaboom we find out that she made her students paint over the previously present students in the painting to ‘steal them’.
Look, I don’t know if you could tell by my very short summary of this arc compared to the others, but this arc is just plain uninteresting to me. I think that the storytelling is still extremely good and the new teacher character was pretty dope and reminiscent of the Gaen Izuko from Mobogobo. Otherwise I’d say that this arc was just not fun to watch. That’s a lie, it was fun to watch, but nowhere near as interesting as the first 2 arcs.
Anywho the loli disappears and when the purple-haired crossdresser comes to the art room she is met with the beach boys surrounding a big thing. I’m not exactly sure what it is supposed to be, and quite frankly it looks like a modern art piece that takes 0 effort yet is work hundreds of thousands of dollars cough cough banana on a wall. After some discussion, it is revealed that the loli is indeed the fiance of the white boy! In other words, this loli who seemed to be having a midlife crisis at the ripe age of 8 is the fiance of quite possibly the most powerful member of the beach boys.
White boy states that the big thing (from here on I will be calling it the Loli’s Muse) is made by the loli herself and that we have no idea how it was brought into the room. Similar to the paintings, it is a question of how the Loli’s Muse was made, as it is too big for the loli to bring in herself. That is, unless she’s secretly the hulk in disguise. Loli Hulk. Don’t get any ideas internet. White boy pleads the purple-haired crossdresser to become friends with the loli because the loli has no friends and none of the beach boys want to become friends with her because 1) she was denied access to the beach boys, and 2) she pushed blue boy down the stairs. I’m not joking, this is what drives the plot.
Purple-haired crossdresser (which is a canonical nickname I guess cause it was mentioned in the show) becomes friends with the loli and finds out that she only pushed down the blue boy because he wouldn’t allow her to come with the beach boys on a vacation. Ok, look, I’m ok with petty characters, but this loli chick needs to chill out with the pettiness goddamn. We also find out the way the Loli’s Muse was put into the room. Did you guess it? It was a secret room underneath the table in the art room where the carpet was cut and restitched. Of course!!!!! How come I didn’t think of that? Did you? Don’t lie you didn’t think of that and if you say you did stfu you didn’t. Even if you did you didn’t.
This arc is kinda hit or miss for me. It reminds me a lot of the previous arc, but the bad stuff done better. The loli chick is extremely petty, but at the same time it is hilarious watching a literal 8 year old with the vocabulary of a chuunibyou. Overall a solid arc, could’ve been better, but could’ve been a whole lot worse.
Enter this bland guy. By bland I quite literally mean it. While every character in this show has proved to be high off their gourd due to some illegal drug, this guy is just straight normal. No funny gambling scheme behind it, no FBI watchlist, no 8 year old chuunibyou, just a normal guy who does normal things. You know, I’ve become so accustomed to everyone in this show being batshit insane that a normal, functioning human being is jarring to me. I think there might be a problem with me.
After researching into the car accident some more, the purple haired crossdresser is ran over herself! And it was none other than the bland guy too!!! Man here I was thinking that he was just a normal dude but I guess everyone’s got their fucking drugs in this show. Luckily, purple haired crossdresser survives but now everyone is sad and doesn’t want to be the Beach Boys anymore. The purple haired crossdresser is like “NO! WE’RE A TEAM” and other fun jazz like that. This immediately changes their minds and the purple haired crossdresser with her new found friends, wins the election.
This being one of only two 3 episode arcs in the show, I quite enjoyed it. I’d say overall the second episode of the three felt a little lacking but other than that I quite enjoyed it. The concept itself wasn’t all too incredible, but I think that the way that the plot took itself as well as the 3 new people who were brought in this time around were all quite good.
Throughout the show, there are moments where I would wish that the story would move a little faster than it does. Yes, I’m aware of the pacing that horny-boy likes to have and I’m aware of the very dialogue heavy writing that I signed up for, and to be completely honest I really like slow paced shows and dialogue heavy shows. But still there are moments within the show where I would wish they spent a little less time on a scene, or a little more time on a character. Cough cough the fucking glasses putting on and off for 1000 times in the second arc. For the most part I don’t have this issue and in fact this issue only popped up a few times in the entire show, but if I had to criticize this show for anything, that would be it.
CHaRaCTeRS
There are six main character people within the game and throughout the series you get to interact with most. Obviously with a large cast such as this, one could never spend a whole 12 episodes with each and every one. If you couldn’t tell, that was sarcasm.
Mayumi Dojima is the purple haired crossdresser that we get to follow throughout the show. Voiced by the same person as Shinobu from Manogambo, she is probably the most realistic character if by realistic you mean not batshit insane. As stated previously, she has the power of better-sight which basically means she has HD glasses on at all times which also serves as x-ray glasses. This comes in handy when trying to look through shit which seems to happen a lot more than I would like to admit. Ironically, the only HD glasses she has on throughout the duration of the show actually hurts her eyes more than helps. As someone who actually wore glasses for a time before switching to contacts, why? Why subject yourself to the pain that is glasses? Digressions aside, throughout the story we get to see our purple haired crossdresser go from outfit to outfit, which as the name suggests, falls within the category of crossdressing. In the wise words of a friend of mine, seeing her in the bunny outfit in episode 5 is reason 492949 to watch this show. That said, he said it ironically and also is not into lolis so don’t go cancelling him.
Our next character is the blue boy himself Manabu Soutouin. As the leader of the Beach Boys, it is his goal to solve all the mysteries that come forward within the show. His main schtick is that he’s into aesthetics, whatever that means, and means that every single case that he picks up is for the sole reason that the mystery is beautiful to him. How a mystery can be beautiful is beyond me but let him live his life I guess. Blue boy will often go undercover as a knockoff Hatsune Miku and use that disguise combined with purple haired crossdresser crossdressing to do the sneaky sneaks. How nobody sees through the disguise is beyond me. He doesn’t even sound like Hatsune Miku!! Blue boy has to work on his microwave impression in order to pull off a good disguise smh my head. Oh yeah I forgot to mention that this dude is in 5th grade so don’t get any ideas.
Next up, let’s see, who to cover next? Red boy? Yeah let’s go with him. This guy is a delinquent and I mean a real bad boy. What makes him so bad? Oh he can cook. Absolute scum of the Earth! This guy is basically the bartender of the group and he basically makes really good food. Other than that, he’s a voice of reason for the purple haired crossdresser. He has some of the best dialogues with our purple haired crossdresser and is honestly a really cool dude. Maybe Tokyo Avengers is making me like delinquents a little too much idk. He’s always at odds with white boy which an interesting detail, other than that he’s a solid addition to the roster. Red boy for smash!
Since we mentioned white boy, might as well do him next. White boy is the student council president of the middle school that all of our characters attend, well apart from blue boy. I already mentioned that he’s always at odds with red boy, but I did not mention that this guy is pretty much the main source of the horny-boy jokes. Basically this guy has a fiancee at the ripe age of 14. The catch? His fiancee is a first grader. I don’t know about you, but when I heard that, the “not okay please move on show please I beg of you I don’t want this joke going on any longer please” alarm inside my head was going off at all hours. An oddly specific alarm I know but you’d be surprised how often it goes off. Besides that, this guy can imitate any voice. Like you name a voice and he can imitate it to perfection. I’m pretty sure that this is illegal in several countries around the globe but I won’t press any further.
We’ll follow up with the yellow boy and his deal is that he likes his legs. A lot. So much so that he violates the school’s dress code everyday with wearing shorts instead of pants. Not only do his legs look really good, but apparently theres some muscle in there as well because he can ride a fucking bike and catch up with a car that’s easily going 45 or 50 mph on the highway (80 kph). I’m well aware that bikes can go these crazy speeds but let’s not forget that this guy is a fucking 1st year in middle school which is the equivalent of a 7th grader. This man can probably compete against Usain fucking Bolt and not break a sweat and he’s 12. Soon this man’s gonna need to follow the speed limit because of how fast he can go god damn.
Taking up the rear and the final member of the Beach Boys, we’ve got black boy. He wears an oversized lab coat everywhere which just looks like an inconvenience to be completely honest. Like I understand if you’re trying to fill the shoes of a mentor or a role model, but come on at least wear a lab coat that fits you. This guy’s ability is that he can create really good art. If he wants to recreate a famous painting, he could and would do so in such a perfect way that even the purple haired crossdresser with her better-sight ability couldn’t tell a difference at first glance. Speaking of first glances, black boy can tell if a piece of art is fake at a single glance. Whether this is out of jealousy or purely because he is a fan of the arts, he can sniff out counterfeit works of art with ease.
Overall we’ve got a whole bunch a weirdos. From a first grade fiancee to Usain Bolt competition, there would never be a dull day at the Beach Boy headquarters. I quite like this cast. There’s enough variety to keep things interesting but the cast is never so large that I can’t keep up with the amount of characters. Each person has their own schtick which is a great way to identify who is who. If I see food I immediately know it was made by red boy. If I see art, I know it’s black boy. So on and so forth. To top things off, each character has their own dialogue structure that goes like this:
Blue boy: always screaming at the top of his lungs about aestheticism and the beauty of things
Red boy: realistic and casual
White boy: formal and refined
Yellow boy: childish and jumpy
Black boy: he’s like ferb. not talking much but saying so much when he does
The side characters are interesting as well. Most of the time they too have their own schtick that they follow. Unlike the main characters, however, the side characters’ schticks are less general and more pertaining to the arc they represent. What I mean here is basically there is generally 1 or 2 side characters per arc and they stick to that arc or in a few cases appear in 2. Overall, wonderful cast of likeable and sometimes horny characters.
aNiMaTioN aND MuSiC
Of course what else is there to say other than full points to my favorite studio. Call it being biased, but Shift Key’s animation (regardless of how the story goes cough cough the fireworks movie) is always stellar. There’s a simplistic aura about the animation and even then every shot is so complex that I could pick a single frame and find several things to discuss. Background characters are rarely shown which allows the viewer to keep their eyes on the people of interest. Not only that but all of the set pieces have this larger than life feel to them which provides a lot of eye candy for the viewer. Character designs are awesome, and overall the animation is once again incredible from studio Shift Key.
As for the music, it’s once again very good. There isn’t anything outstanding from the series in terms of background music, but the OP and the ED are just a bop to listen to and the OP is my favorite OP of this season. I’m sure if I went out of my way to listen to the soundtrack of this show on youtube, I’d enjoy myself, but I can’t remember any bgm standing out to me where I have to listen to the song.
My eNJoyMeNT
I very much enjoy the horny boy’s writing and this is most definitely one of the good ones. While I can’t quite say that it reaches the heights of Monogatari, it definitely serves as a very good spiritual successor. This said, there are some episodes where I did not quite enjoy as much as others but at the end of the day that is what we expect from shows. All of the characters are great, the animation is always stellar, and the music is addicting and fun.
Beach Boys was one of the few shows this season where I would always watch first or close to first when it came to ‘end of the week anime catchup’ that I always do. I knew I was going to like the episode I was in for, and that no matter how badly of an arc it may be cough cough 3rd arc, I knew it was going to be better than a good chunk of this season. Suffice it to say that I thoroughly enjoyed the Beach Boys and their misadventures.
CoNCLuSioN
At the end of the day, you don’t get much from studio Shift Key anymore that isn’t a new season of an already existing IP, so to see a new one that is just as good if not better than their older stuff is amazing. Not only that, but it shows to us NISIOISIN fans that the guy can do much more than horny writing and in some cases can create extremely good pieces of work. Because I’m that kind of guy, I’m going to rate each arc and then do the final scoring and thoughts.
First Arc - 8.5/10 - I think that this arc was such a good introduction and honestly it further proves my point that NISIOISIN does better when his ideas are new, rather than doing new seasons of old stuff.
Second Arc - 9/10 - The best arc in the series in my opinion. The atmosphere, characters, and plot are all absolutely fantastic and leave a lasting impression that this arc is numba 1.
Third Arc - 6/10 - My least favorite arc of the series, but by no means a bad arc. I think that while the plot is still fantastic and that the new character was great, the overall feel of this arc just didn’t do it for me and honestly was rather forgettable.
Fourth Arc - 6.5/10 - While better than the third, it rehashes a lot of the same beats as the third arc which, again while done better, just doesn’t shout “Oh this is a good arc” to me.
Fifth Arc - 7.5/10 - This is what an arc we like to see is like. While a lot of the mystery is just not present here, the overall plotline and atmosphere is stellar. The ending was a little rough for me which keeps it away from an 8/10, but overall a fantastic way to end the series.
Overall I say that this show is an 8/10. Some great stuff here and some not so great stuff here, but you can’t complain when the characters back up what makes the show already good. The writing from the horny boy is, as always, amazing, and I would most definitely recommend this to anyone who is a fan of Mogobomo, and even ig you aren’t there’s a little something for everyone.
Thank you for reading, and have a nice day.