Boys Be… the 2000 manga and anime series for adults
Boys Be ... (original title: ボ ー イ ズ ・ ビ ー Bōizu Bī) is a Japanese manga series for teenagers and adults on the sentimental genre, written by Masahiro Itabashi and illustrated by Hiroyuki Tamakoshi. Three different manga series Boys Be… Were serialized by Kodansha in Weekly Shōnen Magazine. A fourth series, Boys Be… Next Season, was published in Magazine Special from 2009 to 2012. The second manga series was licensed in North America by Tokyopop.
The anime first aired. It was later adapted into a 13-episode anime television series by Hal Film Maker, which aired on WOWOW from April to June 2000. It was licensed by The Right Stuf International. The first DVD volume of the series was released in North America on February 28, 2006. Comcast and several other cable service providers showed Boys Be On Demand in the United States through Anime Network.
History
The title of the series is explained in the first chapter where the author refers to the quote "Guys, be ambitious", uttered by William S. Clark and has become a popular motto in Japan.
The anime focuses on the ups and downs, joys and sorrows of first love and teenage romance. Six students struggle to find the perfect partner and their teenage limitations. Although several characters are drawn from the manga's stories, the anime's story is unrelated to the manga. Each episode begins and ends with a philosophical quote that summarizes the episode's content. The anime, although centered around Kyoichi and Chiharu, revolves around seven or eight main characters and their love lives.
Characters
Kyoichi Kanzaki (神 崎 恭 一, Kanzaki Kyōichi)
Voiced by Kenichi Suzumura (Japanese); Sam Regal (English) [4] [5]
A typical high school student who, in the opening episode, realizes he has feelings for a childhood friend, a track star named Chiharu Nitta. Their relationship develops slowly over the series, however, she encounters turmoil when he leaves the area to do a summer job and, upon returning, sees Chiharu kissing another boy. Kyochi is heartbroken and has a short relationship with Shoko Sayama and copes with loneliness with the help of another schoolmate. His interests are in the visual arts, mainly drawing. In the final episode, he travels to Hokkaido to clear his mind and work on some sketches and get a new perspective on relationships.
Yoshihiko Kenjo (剣 城 美 彦, Kenjō Yoshihiko)
Voiced by: Hideo Ishikawa (Japanese); Patrick Seitz (English)
Yoshihiko is talented in sports (especially baseball), but has no interest in it (in a way similar to Initial D's Takumi Fujiwara). He also seems to have no interest in girls… until he meets Aya Kurihara in the library and kisses him. He meets Natsue Horikawa, who inspires him to continue pursuing baseball and, knowing her, and more than himself, they become a couple. He also spent a full day with pop idol Jyunna Morio when she ran away from her recording studio.
Makoto Kurumizawa (胡桃 沢 マ コ ト Kurumizawa Makoto)
Voiced by Akira Ishida (Japanese); Liam O'Brien
Makoto is the epitome of a girl obsessed guy, who keeps an electronic database of Otowa-no-Mori beautiful girls with him and checks his guides and magazines for love advice. At the beginning of the series, he was trying to catch a glimpse of a schoolgirl in a short skirt as she was climbing the stairs of an overpass and her scooter crashed into a mini-truck. He then had a crush on the intern nurse. Later, he used a computer dating program that paired him with Erika Kawai. Since he lacked a real dating experience, Makoto had a fake date with Yumi. However, his real date doesn't go quite as well when Erika sees a photo of him with Yumi and promptly downloads it. Makoto ends up being comforted by Yumi when she offers him her self-made cookies, and he realizes that they had fun together during the mock date and end up becoming a couple.
Chiharu Nitta (新 田 千 春, Nitta Chiharu)
Voiced by Kazusa Murai (Japanese); Amy Kincaid (English) [5]
Chiharu is Kyoichi's athletic love interest, who runs for their school's track and field team. She has been friends with Kyoichi since childhood, but she also has a hard time expressing love, eventually making her move at the end of the first episode holding Kyoichi's hand while they are out of her. When she goes out for summer training with the track and field team, she is courted by a college boy named Okazaki and she struggles to know if she really is having an affair with Kyoichi. Okazaki continued her advances to which they spent a night together at an observation point, even though she says nothing happened between them. She wanted to keep her date a secret, but Kyoichi, coming to see them, saw them kissing, so a rift formed between them that lasted all summer. Towards the end of the series, when she sees her friends entering into a relationship, she thinks about reconciling.
yumi kazama (風 間 有 美 Kazama Yumi)
Voiced by: Miki Nagasawa (Japanese); Jennifer Sekiguchi4[5]
Yumi is a girl with glasses with a sarcastic attitude towards relationships, usually to counter the idealistic sayings of her friend Aki. She likes to occasionally dress up in weird clothes, like a sea otter costume at the beach and an animal hat on New Years Eve. After accidentally destroying Makoto's laptop, she tries to train Makoto on her how to go out with her friend Erika Kawai, and even goes on a fictional date where she shows X signs and teases Makoto every time she does. make a mistake. But over the course of the fake date, she realizes that she's having a good time, that Makoto has some good qualities, and she ends up falling in love with her, feeling a little lonely that Erika can go out with him for real. However, as fate would have it, Makoto's date with Erika didn't go well, and she ends up comforting him with her homemade cookies, and they eventually became a couple.
Aki Mizutani (水 谷 亜 紀, Mizutani Aki)
Voiced by Yuri Shiratori (Japanese); Michelle Ruff (English) [5]
Aki has a rather idealistic view of romance. In the opening episode, she talks about how she fell in love with a guy on the train in two minutes. In one of the episodes, she reunites with her former middle school friend with whom she spent a lot of time in her photography hobby of hers and that she was totally unaware that she liked her. Her boyfriend now works in Hokkaidō and they maintain a long-distance relationship. In the New Year episode, she worries that the world may indeed end.
Sayaka Kanzaki (Kanzaki Sayaka)
Voiced by: Fumiko Orikasa (Japanese); Karen Thompson (English)
She is Kyoichi's smart sister who loves to tease him. She takes control of the Kanzaki family when their parents aren't around.
Mizuki Takano (Takano Mizuki)
Voiced by: Junko Noda (Japanese); Tara Platt (English) [6]
When Makoto broke his leg in a scooter accident, he was confined to the hospital where Mizuki was an intern and she became his nurse. At first, Makoto's crush on her causes problems as she makes embarrassing mistakes in front of her superiors. She eventually she warms up with him.
Aya Kurihara (Kurihara Aya)
Voiced by: Misato Fukuen (Japanese); Rachael Lillis (English) [7]
A student who had a meeting with Yoshihiko when she searched for a ball that passed through the library window. When he crawled to look for it, he bumped into the stool she was standing on as she put a book back on the right shelf. She caught her and unwittingly got an idea of her "lumpy" side of her, but she was grateful for saving her and rewarded him with a kiss on her lips. The potential romance was cut short when she returned to France, as she was just an exchange student, and Yoshihiko learned that kissing is just a European custom, although it turns out she Aya has a different view. love story.
Tsuyoshi Ueno (Ueno Tsuyoshi)
Voiced by: Yuuji Ueda (Japanese); Kevin Hatcher (English) [8]
Tsuyoshi was Aki's classmate from the third year of middle school. He has a passion for photography and often spends long hours for the perfect shot, taking Aki with him. But in high school he lost his passion for photography until he meets Aki again and she makes sense of him. They form a long-distance relationship and now works in Hokkaidō. His inspiration is none other than Aki herself.
Daisuke Nitta (Nitta Daisuke)
Voiced by: Yasunori Matsumoto (Japanese); David Earnest (English) [9]
He is Chiharu's cousin and Nao's overprotective brother, and is the boss of Kyoichi and Makoto in the summer resort. He is so overprotective (due to his frail health) that he hasn't seen his beloved sister grow up. Mostly he is in conflict with the cool Makoto.
Nao Nitta (Nitta Nao) Voiced by: Chie Sawaguchi (Japanese); Carrie Savage (English)
She is Chiharu's cute but frail cousin (prone to sunburn) with an overprotective brother who lives by the sea. Makoto has tried to woo her, but her brother is always one step ahead of him.
Natsue Horikawa (Horikawa Natsue)
Voiced by: Manabi Mizuno (Japanese); Sonia Scrancia (English) [10]
He dreams of standing on the pitcher's mound during the annual Koushien (Japanese high school baseball championship). The problem is that she is a girl and the girls cannot participate in the tournament. This girl with immature emotional fluctuations drove Yoshihiko out of her disinterest in sports and they become a couple.
Yuki Okazaki (Okazaki Yuki)
Voiced by Shinichiro Miki (Japanese); Jason Miller (English) [11]
He is the charming young man Chiharu Nitta met during the summer retreat. She is a city savvy with a penchant for nature and many hobbies such as collecting cockroaches and fishing. Chiharu shook him off at first, but since she was alone and she was arguing with Kyoichi, she almost gave in. Although he had a girlfriend waiting for him in the city, he continued his advances and managed to make Chiharu fall in love with him, although, during a date in a spot overlooking the city, Chiharu says nothing happened between them.
Shoko Sayama (Sayama Shoko)
Voiced by: Yuka Imai (Japanese); Zarah Little (English) [12]
She is a renegade student who hopes to make it big in the music business. She and Kyoichi get involved after she recruits him to retrieve the confiscated MD player. During her time with Kyoichi, she planned to audition as a singer in a J-pop band, but she loses faith when she sees a younger rival. She one night she asks Kyoichi to go out, but he doesn't come and she wanders the street in search of her soul. At the end of the series, she is on the radio with her latest single of hers called "Hatsukoi" ("First Love").
Erika Kawai (Kawai Erika)
Voiced by: Michiko Neya (Japanese); Jennifer Rau-Ramirez (English) [13]
Erika is a good friend of Yumi and the girl that Makoto's latest matchmaking software selected. Erika comes from a fairly wealthy family and presumably has refined tastes according to Yumi. Erika and Makoto go on a date, but she notices that Makoto has a lot of notes on "training" with Yumi, and that Yumi really likes Makoto, so she quickly leaves him.
Takuya Yokota (Yokota Takuya)
Voiced by Takehito Koyasu (Japanese); Yuri Lowenthal (English) [14]
Takuya is a schoolmate of Kyoichi and they work together part-time at the video store. He wears a cross-shaped earring, which Kyoichi notices after being haunted by the same dream involving downed windmills and airplanes. Though calm and one of the most handsome men in his school, Takuya doesn't have a girlfriend, even though he was interested in someone. He me He's so shy that he drowns in solitude, but he has found the courage to express how he feels about that person. Makoto thought Kyoichi was getting desperate when she notices that she was spending too much time with him.
Jyunna Morio (Morio Jyunna)
Voiced by Rika Komatsu (Japanese); Wendee Lee (English) [15]
She is a famous pop idol. Her image is imprinted on everything from TV commercials selling bottled water to magazine covers. Yoshihiko mistakes her for a generic girl in a Santa costume handing out flyers. For the rest of the day, Yoshihiko became her unwitting "reindeer". At the beginning of the series, Yoshihiko and his girlfriend Natsue went to one of her concerts.
Chiharu Reicha (Reicha Chiharu, also Chiharu XXXX)
Voiced by: Megumi Hayashibara (Japanese); Kirsten Potter (English) [16]
She is a Japanese-Finnish girl Kyoichi met when he went to Hokkaidō, serving as an impromptu tour guide who "charges a kiss per transaction". She is more flirtatious, bolder and freer than the Chiharu she knows and rides a Harley-Davidson Softail motorcycle.
Technical data
Manga
Author Masahiro Itabashi
Drawings Hiroyuki Tamakoshi
Editor Kodansha
Magazine Weekly Shōnen Magazine
Target shonen
1 edition 1991 – 2001
Periodicity weekly (chapters)
Tankōbon 32 + 20 + 6 (complete)
Italian publisher Play Press
Date 1st Italian edition 25 December 2001 - 25 May 2005
Italian periodicity bimestrial
Italian volumes 20 (complete) (second part only)
Manga Boys Be… Pre-Season
Author Masahiro Itabashi
Drawings Hiroyuki Tamakoshi
Editor Kodansha
Magazine MiChao! (on the Internet)
1 edition April 24 - October 9 2009
Tankōbon unique
Manga Boys Be... Next Season
Author Masahiro Itabashi
Drawings Hiroyuki Tamakoshi
Editor Kodansha
Magazine Magazine Special
Target shonen
1 edition November 2009 - February 20, 2012
Periodicity monthly (chapters)
Tankōbon 6 (complete)
Manga Boys Be… Adult Season
Author Masahiro Itabashi
Drawings Hiroyuki Tamakoshi
Editor Kodansha
Magazine Evening
Target seinen
1 edition August 2012 - ongoing
Periodicity quarterly (chapters)
Anime TV series
Regia Masami Shimoda
character design Itsuko Takeda
Music Be Factory
Studio Hal Filmmaker
Network WOWOW
Date 1st TV April 11 - July 4, 2000
Episose duration 24 min
Italian publisher Dynit
Italian network ka-boom
Date 1st Italian TV 9 - 21 January 2014
1st Italian streaming Popcorn TV
Italian episodes 13 (complete)
BOYS BE ... Jr.
Original title BOYS BE ... Jr.
Country Japan
Year 1998
Format TV series
Gender romantic comedy, teenage drama, musical, anthology
Seasons 1
Episodes 13
Duration 15 min
Original language Japanese
Relationship 4:3
Credits
Narrator Hideaki Takizawa
Interpreters and characters
Jun Matsumoto
Tomohisa Yamashita
Toma Ikuta
Shunsuke Osaka
Shingo Murakami
Kazuo Asakura
Masaki Aiba
Yuki Kohara
Premiere From 4 October 1998 to 27 December 1998
Television network Nippon television
