If you've watched Zetsuen no Tempest, you'll 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. It's 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 show's 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 there's really nothing on the line except for quasi-nationalist 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 Shakespeare's other works - particularly Much Ado About Nothing, which shares Boarding School Juliet's 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 doesn't exactly do it many favors.
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 rom-com 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 rom-coms in the first place. Yet if it doesn't try to experiment with those characters, you get the constantly creeping sense that you've seen it all before, and that there's nothing more worth watching.
Boarding School Juliet's characters are bestowed with some color by the quaintness of the story's premise, but outside of that they're exactly as bland as you would expect them to be. Inuzuka Romio is the strong, hard-headed, awkward beast of a man that you would want to lead a dorm house called "Black Doggies"; Juliet Persia is the petite, blond-haired, blue-eyed 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, self-appointed servant who transforms into little more than cannon fodder by the end of the show. Inuzuka Airu is the older brother whose straight-arrow 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. It's the sort of thing that would only feel inspiring if it had any substance to back it up, and there's 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 that's exactly the feeling I had as the cast eventually revealed themselves in full. When you've seen it all, you've really seen it all.
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 cutest-looking 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 it's pretty damn good. The action sequences are quite well-done for a comedy series, although many scenes suffer from "single-frame 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 you're given, and Boarding School Juliet does a good enough job with the visuals.
The soundtrack has a few nice touches to it - if I'm not mistaken, one of the tracks is an approximate rendition of Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet ballad - though it isn't always appropriately used, with dramatic scenes sometimes being overlaid with comedic music and vice versa. The OP is by fripSide, so it's guaranteed to be a good listen; the ED I admittedly didn't pay much attention to. Overall, the audiovisuals are the standout point of the series, fulfilling their roles and then some.
Execution (2/5): It's hard to fuck up a rom-com if you don't try to do anything special - read "stupid" - and throw the whole show off balance. In this sense, Boarding School Juliet is the least fucked-up rom-com I've watched in a long while. But given how weird and abnormal the premise appears to be, it just doesn't 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. It's all give-and-go, all rinse-and-repeat. It would be harsh to say that this is an example of lazy storytelling, but a rom-com 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 - it's a stream of pointless, mindless misunderstandings that fail to really get the story's feet off the ground. As with many rom-coms, 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.
Overall rating: 3/5
(As an aside, I anticipate that this review will be downvoted into hell because people don't appreciate it when you criticize their favorite cookie-cutter rom-coms that totally aren't 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.")