The lack of background sounds and noise is really unnerving.
What They Say:
The series will be about 12 “pillow boys” (makura no danshi) with a diverse range of personalities. They all reside in a town and each individual pillow boy will star in his own episode on a weekly basis. It’s also revealed that the series will take on a first-person perspective to detail their story in a smooth and elegant way.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
After a less than compelling third installment, this one shifts to Eiji Kijinami as its pillow boy. In this, he’s known as a dialect boy that’s fourteen years old that we get to meet riding a very busy and crowded train. Here, he’s giving us a bit of grief over the fact that we were up late, figuring we were reading manga when we were actually doing homework. That reminds him that he hasn’t done his, but hey, we’re sweet on him so we’ll let him copy ours. Eiji is pretty much a difficult personality in some ways and is pretty rough around the edges, though easy to shake up since we see how being nice to him gets him all out of sorts. The show gives us a decent look at his sweeter side as well, some of the ways in which he’s “wounded” as well, in an effort to make him more sympathetic.
In Summary:
With only the second episode clicking for me so far, the pillow boys aren’t doing all that well for me. I certainly can’t imagine listening to them before going to sleep and being relaxed, at least not with Eiji here. This character is played by Sora Takahata, a true newcomer to the anime game as this is only his second role after having a smaller background part in the second season of My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU TOO. He’s certainly not bad, but he’s certainly cast to a character that utterly fits his voice. And it’s not exactly a character I find all that compelling.
Grade: C
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment:
Sony KDL70R550A 70″ LED 1080P HDTV, Apple TV via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.
