#159: Sekkō Boys (2016)

 

Director: Seiki Takuno

Screenplay: Michiko Yokote

Voice Cast: Shiho Kokido as Miki Ishimoto; Yui Makino as Mira Hanayashiki; Tomokazu Sugita as Saint Giorgio (聖ジョルジョ, Sei Jorujo); Shinnosuke Tachibana as Medici (メディチ, Medichi); Jun Fukuyama as Hermes (ヘルメス, Herumesu); Daisuke Ono as Mars (マルス, Marusu); Takaya Kuroda  as Hanzō Horibe (堀部 半蔵, Horibe Hanzō); Rena Maeda  as Kinue Yamashita (山下 絹枝, Yamashita Kinue); Takahiro Sakurai  as Hironori Yanagisawa (柳沢 宏典, Yanagisawa Hironori)

Viewed in Japanese with English Subtitles

 

Another micro series, and like many of them, this is slight but there is a pleasure in experiencing them, to watch (no matter how long it takes to view all the episodes) and experience their jokes and moments of playfulness. Especially when, at seven minutes per twelve episodes, Sekkō Boys is running with a strange premise it milks a lot of great content from to a virtue.

Namely the tale of a young female art student Miki Ishimoto, disillusioned with her previous aspirations due to being sick of drawing sculptures, getting the chance in a lifetime to manage an up-and-coming male boy band. Aside from the fact, however, the titular Sekkō Boys are four living statues, and not just plaster busts of anyone. They are of actual stone, as Miki got the job partially because the other staff have back injuries due to carrying them around, and are personifications of actual historical and mythological figures. Mars, the Roman God of War; Hermes, a Greek God; Saint George, as Saint Giorgio here, a real life figure accepted as a saint in Christianity and Islam famous for fighting a dragon in lore, and is the older leader of the group; and (Giuliano di Lorenzo de') Medici, an Italian nobleman and ruler of Florence, who is the youngest and the heartthrob.

Half the humour and why Sekkō Boys worked is that the humour, and the various strains of it, all play off enticing ideas such as these being living figures or mythological deities who just happen to be statues. Sometimes their limitations are enforced, as baring Hermes with his spare body they do not even have anything under the top of the shoulders, the reason why most of Miki's work is as much to carry them about or drive them. Other times a lack of logic is part of the joke. Sometimes there is, like one of the members being posted as a delivery to travel around secretly, but they can apparently drink and even beat each other up off-screen among other scenes witnesses. The lines are blurred whether they are viewed as just statues, and thus dismissed, but also celebrities. One gets a cameo in a popular crime show as a murder weapon, and that is not even the best part of the joke.

And the show plays to their cultural histories, exemplified by the fact they idolise a two men group who are also stone busts, not obvious figures either but Roman general Marcus Junius Brutus, and French playwright and poet Molière. Likewise, here the Gods will be the most recognisable figures but the jokes play with probably more knowledge of who they all are then even I picked up. Yes, there is a scene of Athena, calling to let one of the members know how embarrassed they and Zeus are when he looks terrible on a TV show interview. Yes, Hermes, considering he was a trickster God, is discovered heading a sneaky snake oil scheme. And, as a stoic saintly warrior of yore, Giorgio is the stick in the mud in the group with a habit of terrible Dad level puns, proof that the concept is a universal one that exists in both British and Japanese culture even if puns are a fine art, especially in anime scripts, for the bad ones as much as the funniest. He does however manage to trend online and in general in popularity for "Giorgio-ing" which helps the saint's confidence immensely.

Most of the show is episodic, as with most of these micro series, but like the best, even if the shows are slight their characters are memorable, which is clearly their goal in that, if they stick, these figures in any scenario if there were more than one season would be fun to imagine in. Even side characters are memorable here in the little we get, like a female idol singer Mira Hanayashiki who is significantly more popular than the Sekkō Boys but both likes them, developing friendships with the band, and also (in her costume inspired by a moth) really likes insects, leading to a scandal when one of the boys is caught at her apartment even if she is just showing him her favourite live beetle. That this is still a show about a male idol group trying to success is inherently interesting as, if any of it is accurate to the truth, it could have been made into a great drama show just from all the stress and anxiety.  

Even in this absurd comedic form, many of the jokes are not the band as statues but the strain of trying to succeed. Having to dodge around interviews, making sure they are not destroyed by an interviewer notorious for her ability to crush interviewees with her questions, or getting enough time to perform on a big TV variety show because another group, a whole squadron of golden Buddhist statues, has to have introductions for them all. Even a very dark joke which could be seen as problematic, that of one of the Sekkō Boys having to sleep with someone to help to band, has the added absurdity to soften the touch of, well, being a stone bust without even arms.

Honestly, the only real disappointment with this show is that it had to end - after only twelve episodes, the joke could have been taken further or a better ending was found. Especially for a micro series, the final episode is of importance for me, and this one, of Medici vanishing, does not really stand out. More so as the dynamic and emotional turn, of Miki quitting her job, was played out an episode or so before and a more appropriate ending.

The one detail worth covering, enough to create a more elaborate review, was that I stumbled across Sekkō Boys due to its mention on a list online for the weirdest anime. Sekkō Boys to an outsider would be bizarre, and the premise is, but it is a noted detail of anime that many strange premises have passed my eyes, and for anime fans able to watch even more than I have, but do not cause us to bat our eyelids. Especially with comedy, unless they are very strange, humour softens the premise when you know it is not meant to be taken seriously, and the tone here is more conventional than something truly weird would be. What instead stands out instead is that, whilst not the most distinct micro series I have encountered, it does enforce how this type of show really develops talent. For once, rather than a group of actresses, this show is about a quad of male voice actors being allowed to show their talent, especially with the added difficulty that they are voicing statues who never emote or animated, petrified stone statues with one facial expression throughout. In itself, this is the real virtue to take away from Sekkō Boys alongside how, with a nice and pleasing aesthetic with a distinct strange touch, the show won me over.