Manga / Daily Lives of High School Boys

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Daily Lives of High School Boys (also known as Danshi Koukousei no Nichijou, literally meaning Daily Lives of All-boys' High School Students) is a slice-of-life comedy web-published manga from Yasunobu Yamauchi^note Many suspect that he is also the prominent Touhou Project doujinshi artist Bomber Grape., which began its run in Gangan Online in 2009. It follows Yoshitake, Hidenori and Tadakuni, three perfectly normal students at an all-boys' high school and their not-so-normal (read: side-splittingly hilarious) daily routines, and frequently applies several lampshade hangings and parodies of anime tropes.

The anime adaptation, produced by Sunrise, premiered in January 2012 and has been licensed by NIS America.

In September 2012 the author abruptly ended the manga. There was no announcement prior to the last chapter nor did that chapter offer any kind of wrap-up to the story. The reason for the cancellation remains unknown. The artist has since begun working on Zai x 10, indicating that an un-cancelling is unlikely.

In April 2013 a live action film adaptation was announced starring Masaki Suda (Kamen Rider Double), Shuhei Nomura (GTO live action movie) and Ryo Yoshizawa (Kamen Rider Fourze) as Tadakuni, Yoshitake and Hidenori, respectively. This was initially presented as an April Fools Day joke from Square Enix but filming had already began in January and was released on October 12, 2013.

Long after its ending, the manga was licensed for English-language release by Kodansha Comics under the Vertical imprint in North America and released in August 4, 2020.

Not to be confused with that other Nichijou that's very popular on certain image boards. Compare to Wasteful Days of High School Girls (Joshikousei no Mudadzukai), a manga by Bino, which has a similar tone and premise but with girls.

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Daily Lives of High School Boys is brought to you by these tropes:

• Action-Hogging Opening: The opening sequence could fool you into thinking that there's more to the series than 'High school boys doing nothing'.
• Actor Allusion:
  • When Emi performs a dropkick on Hidenori, he screams "Tiro Finale!" — an obvious nod to one of her voice actress's most famous roles as Mami Tomoe.
  • Kiyotaka looks like Makoto Hanamiya along with the same seiyuu except he has glasses and thin brows.
• Adaptation Expansion: The manga kicks off with Tadakuni wondering why his two friends are still in his room without any prior context but the anime preceded this with the three of them chatting more amicably about Square Enix and Sunrise's collaboration on the series.
• Affectionate Parody: The High School Girls Are Funky segments almost always have Yanagin ranting about how, as high school girls, they should immediately be more popular than the high school boys and have their own Cash-Cow Franchise rather than be relegated to a Credits Gag, a clear jab at the Joshikousei genre.
• Against the Setting Sun: Parodied. Instead of celebrating Motoharu's feat of successfully riding a bike, aren't they supposed to do something else?
• All Just a Dream:
  • High School Boys and ... in episode 12; the only non-Funky skit that is not based on manga. Interestingly enough this has generated a fair bit of discussion [1], as the punchline to the skit as presented in the anime (incredibly similar to the start of a skit way back in episode 4) makes it seem that 9 of the 12 episodes of the anime never happened, invalidating all of the characters introduced since then. This is strictly anime-only, as the setup in question, with Tadakuni lying alone at home reading, does not appear in the manga.
  • In the un-animated skit High School Girls Are Funky — Tolerance, Yanagin again dared NAGO to test how long can they stay in the sauna. While most of the skit showed Yanagin winning it turned out Yanagin passed out first and the previous pages were dreamt while she was unconscious.
• All Love Is Unrequited: In order to maintain the No Hugging, No Kissing environment of the series, the creator actively sinks any possible hints of romantic pairings — so Hidenori thinks Literature Girl is a weirdo, the Convex Mirror Girl is an illusion, Emi is Hidenori's cousin, and Karasawa is Habara-phobic. This does not prevent others to ship, though.
• All Men Are Perverts: The three main guys and Hidenori's brother Yuusuke have all stolen Mei's (Tadakuni's younger sister) lingerie at some point.
• Always in Class One: The eleventh graders are all in Class 2-A.
• Art Evolution: The art style of the manga has certainly evolved. Compare Hidenori's appearance in from the first chapter to that after chapter 100.
• Artificial Riverbank: Justifiably the backdrop for many skits, mainly the Literature Girl skits.
• Battle Aura: Played for Laughs during the High School Boys and the Accompanying Girl.
  Virgin Power!
• Big Eater: Lampshaded, discussed and parodied within the context of whether or not a girl who's a big eater would be cute. First, Takahiro and his friend talk about how (among many other strange physical and personal qualities) a girl who eats messily would be cute only for reality to ensue as a girl walks by with a hamburger smeared all over her face and find them both repulsed. Later, Hidenori and Yoshitake agree (after some deliberation) that for a girl to have to eat a lot wouldn't be cute by itself, but her trying to hide the fact from others would be.
• Big "NO!": Part of Hidenori's Internal Monologue in Episode 5 at the sight of the Literature Girl once again behind him.
• Biting-the-Hand Humor:
  Daily Lives of High School Boys was lazily brought to you by these sponsors...
  Daily Lives of High School Boys was intermittently brought to you by these sponsors...
  Daily Lives of High School Boys should have been brought to you by these sponsors...
• The Blade Always Lands Pointy End In: Variation. in High School Boys and Frankfurter the titular frankfurter manages to spear three different characters with its pointy end despite being tossed around randomly.
• Bland-Name Product:
  • WcDonalds often.
  • GanGan, Square Enix's manga anthology, is now GaniGani.
  • Pepsi, together with its logo, was replaced with that of Sunrise's.
  • Hidenori's cell phone is a Zperia from Zany Ericsson.
• Blatant Lies:
  • In Episode 1's High School Boys and Scary Stories (1), Tadakuni tells a story about drinking at a friend's house. Not alcohol, of course.
  • In Episode 2's High School Boys and Traditional Events, the three guys and Karasawa go to the principal and discuss the school's 70-hour fast tradition. The latter, having only been on his position for three years but unwilling to leave them in the open, makes up a story about how, back in 1984 (Showa 59), the principal saved the school from complete shutdown due to low attendance by pleading with prefectural authorities for 70 straight hours. Then Karasawa reveals that Sanada North High was only founded in 1989 (Showa 64/Heisei 1).
  • In Episode 9's High School Boys and Wiring, Central High's Student Council President made up a story about how the Vice-President follows her. The Vice-President was clearly nonplussed but had to comply.
  • Episode 12 even has a segment CALLED High School Boys and Lies, which involves Motoharu asking Yoshitake what various things are, only for him to make up phony explanations.
• Blue with Shock: The first reaction Hidenori and Yoshitake have to Tadakuni's horror story.
• Bookends: The anime ends with a small variation of the Late for School scene in the beginning.
• Boy Meets Girl:
  • In general, this trope (specifically, Meet Cute) is invoked by the (Literature) girl, and recognized by this name by the boy (Hidenori).
  • In Episode 9's High School Boy and Drop-kicks, Emi wondered if the sudden closeness between Hidenori and Kiyohiko was ''Boy Meets Boy''.
• Brain Bleach: Motoharu's reaction to seeing an upskirt of Ringo. He's so traumatized he skipped school for three days.
  • Though it's not for the reason you might initially think. Motoharu just suffers from massive guilt over taking advantage of The Ditz.
• Brick Joke:
  • Episode 10's High School Boys and Winter involves Hidenori asking Literature Girl to return the blazer he put on her 3 episodes before (see Comforting Comforter), leading to a Chase Scene as described in its entry.
  • The faux High School Girls Are Funky — The Movie trailer at the end of Episode 12 is basically a continuation of a joke Yanagin made in Episode 6's Funky— the made-up band of theirs (playing with brooms, mops and trash bins), if going on this way, will never drive up the sales of cleaning tools nor can they go to London. The trailer continues the joke about K-On! — The Movie.
  • In the third manga chapter High School Boys and Horror Stories (1), Yoshitake told a story about having shaved off his nipple as he tried to remove nipple hair. In the unanimated Chapter 97 High School Boys and Secrets, he admitted that was a lie.
  • The incident in All Just a Dream above.
  • Viewers of this series will certainly remember the following things from High School Boys and the Literary Girl: the Artificial Riverbank and the conversation Today... the wind is noisy. / But this wind... is crying... a little. These two things would appear exactly 100 chapters later, in High School Boys and Boys. Literature Girl is distressed by these developments.
    • And then in the chapter right after (105, High School Boys and Wind), Yanagin just ignored that pick-up line.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: If anyone is hyped up to be competent or respectable, chances are they are actually a bumbling idiot. The only exception is Toshiyuki.
• Call-Back:
  • When Yoshitake explained how much of a jerkass his older sister is in High School Boys and the Holy Night, he just used a single example: she was the reason why Motoharu was shaved in High School Boys and Seniority.
  • When the sisters of the main trio complain to Yuusuke about the main trio's Manchild tendencies in High School Boys and the Older Brother they mention both their lingerie stealing in High School Boys and The Power of Friendship and their triggering Yoshitake's sister's Berserk Button in High School Boys and the Holy Night.
  • Takahiro reminded the Literature Girl of what happened in High School Boys and Running in High School Boys and Assertiveness to show how hypocritical her statement about open courting was.
  • High School Girls are Funky — Women Who Left a Scar starts when Yanagin tried to apologize to Karasawa of her abuses in High School Girls are Funky — Resentment.
• Casting Gag: Literature Girl looks like an Aloof Dark-Haired Girl but soon subverts the personality by being shy and awkward. Together with her taste for literary subjects, the casting department must have thought of Mio Akiyama when they cast Yōko Hikasa as her.
• Chased Off into the Sunset: In the strip High School Boys and the New Term, Yoshitake and his group attended school one day before the term actually starts because the teacher misinformed them. It ends up with the students chasing after the teacher.
• Chase Scene: Episode 10's High School Boys and Running — the Literature Girl is shocked out of her wits upon running into Hidenori before getting pissed and chasing him all over downtown in one of the most hilarious scenes in the series — just to yell at him that the guy she was walking with when she ran into him — Takahiro — wasn't her boyfriend.
• Chekhov's Gag: In Episode 2, Tadakuni made up a story on how he saw what was under Karasawa's cap, remarking that it was hilarious. Hidenori also mentioned Karasawa has tons of experience with horror stories. Then came Episode 5. It's nowhere near funny at all in High School Girls are Funky — Archdemon, which retold most of the backstory from Yanagin's point of view.
• Childhood Friend Romance: Emi may have a crush in Hidenori, but Hidenori sees this kind of relationship between her and Kiyohiko.
• Chuunibyou:
  • The three protagonists are seen as chuunibyous, in which in various scenes they played as they are part of a RPG.
  • Motoharu the Delinquent, despite his notoriety as a delinquent, he only really looks the part, and is one of the main group's friends.
• Club Stub: A mini-arc in the manga showed a few examples in Sanada North: the Chemistry and Movie Research Clubs.
• Color Failure:
  • The boys' reaction when Mei finds Tadakuni using her skirt (plus a few other items) in High School Boys and Skirts.
  • Again in Episode 2 when Tadakuni and Yasunori discover Nago can look pretty in a convex mirror.
  • Yanagin discovered in High School Girls are Funky — Ramen that NAGO didn't even knew it was her who was making a duel.
• Comforting Comforter: Hidenori lays his blazer over the Literature Girl after he accidentally headbutts her unconsciousness, a merciful end of sorts to her incredibly humiliating day.
• Comic-Book Time: Episode 7's intro downright declares Second Year Protagonists would always be Second Year Protagonists!
• Comically Missing the Point
• Comic Trio: The protagonists have shades of this. Hidenori is the loudest and usually comes up with zany schemes, Yoshitake is somewhat dense and goes along with whatever Hidenori suggests, and Tadakuni is the Only Sane Man who gets dragged into everything whether he likes it or not.
• Content Warnings:
  • In High School Boys and Mochi Soup, there is an on-screen advisory each time one of the main trio chokes on mochi. By the third time the on-screen advisory gets annoyed:
    This might seem annoying, but please eat mochi slowly by carefully chewing small portions.
  • In High School Boys and UFO Catchers, the main trio try to shake a UFO Catcher machine to get a teddy bear plush which narrowly missed the hole, while the following advisory appears below:
    Good boys and girls mustn't do this.
• Continuity Nod: In High School Boys and Seniority, Mino's classmates came to her and Motoharu's house for a sleepover and, among others, were quite interested in seeing him shaved. The following Eye Catch features them trying to forcibly shave him... and in High School Boys and the Savior, he is seen shaved and with a few bandages on his chin.
  • Happens constantly, but more subtly, in the manga; covers from a given chapter often portray the result or aftermath from an event that happened in the previous chapter.
• Credits Running Sequence: The opening.
• Cringe Comedy: In any circumstance where boys are interacting with girls.
• Crossover: GanGan Online promoted this series and No Matter How I Look at It, It's You Guys' Fault I'm Not Popular!, two of their best school setting hits, by making flyers and posters with Yoshitake and Tomoko riding a train on way to their schools.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Rubber Shooter, the masked Bully Hunter who saved Hidenori eight years ago, is suggested to be Yoshitake.
• Custom Uniform: Technically speaking, Sanada North's students are supposed to tuck in their shirts,, button their collars and wear a striped necktie. Don't count on their students doing all these. Nobody tucks their shirts in or buttons up their collars and only Tadakuni, Hidenori, and Karasawa wear ties on anything like a regular basis.
• Cut Short: Abruptly ended in September 2012.
• Dangerous Forbidden Technique: Parodied in High School Boys and the Sure-kill Shot. Mitsuo claimed he sealed his reflection shot because it's too unfair. He's right; the soccer ball reflects because of the piece of plastic he planted on the field. Mitsuo being Mitsuo, it still got saved by the self-proclaimed Non-Action Guy Hidenori.
• Deadpan Snarker: Nago and Karasawa.
• Death Glare: Parodied with Kiyotaka's sister, though mostly due to poor eyesight and missing contact lenses.
• Decoy Protagonist: While Tadakuni is ostensibly the main character, the show is more of an Ensemble Cast piece, with a small leaning towards Hidenori.
• Delicious Distraction: Episode 4's High School Girls are Funky — Humor, the girls discuss why boys are boring to watch and wonder how they even got an anime. Then Yanagi and Ikushima got the idea of asking (read: screaming at) Karasawa, who lives next door to Habara (where the girls meet). Then Karasawa throws them sweets, and the two girls stop screaming at him and gorged on the food like there's no tomorrow. This was eventually subverted in the next skit Resentment, when it turned out those snacks were expired— and the girls proceeded to try and beat Karasawa up only for them to fail.
• Distaff Counterpart: High School Girls Are Funky, a series of post-credits skits, features Habara, Yanagin and Ikushima, three girls who look, act and talk remarkably like their male counterparts Tadakuni, Hidenori and Yoshitake. As bonus, Mei has her own counterpart in the form of Habara's older brother. Although once the girls' backstories surface, the boys look generic compared to them.
• The Ditz: Episode 7's High School Girls are Funky — High School Girl Power parodies the frequent use of this trope as a charm point — Yanagin gets her sempai to teach them how to be cuter, and the correct answer is...
  Yanagin's Sempai: Pretending to be an idiot who doesn't even know common knowledge^note (like not recognizing Oda Nobunaga) is what makes high school girls cute! Listen up, their brains and eyes are directed right here...
• Double Standard: Abuse, Female on Male: Played with. Most of the show follows it straight, but when it comes to Karasawa and his scar, it's treated as serious business... and even that is Played for Laughs.
• Double Standard: Rape, Female on Female: Subverted; in High School Girls are Funky — the Past, Yanagin threatened Ikushima with being ***ed with a stick when the latter complained about the former's not fitting the personality archetype usually associated with glasses-wearing girls. Yanagin just beat Ikushima up with a wrench instead.
• Dramatic Wind: Invoked in the Literature Girl skits, because the protagonist in her novels (whom she has a crush on and is eager to re-enact in real life) can control wind.
• Dude, Not Funny!: Subverted In-Universe. While Habara literally invoked that line in response to Yanagin's "Just Joking" Justification in High School Girls are Funky — Archdemon, that was because she was also a party in the story Yanagin told (i.e. the eponymous Archdemon. The real audience, Ikushima and Takahiro, were not offended at all.
• Early-Bird Cameo: Downplayed — Yoshitake's older sister was one of the girls bullying Motoharu in the previous episode before her debut.
• Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": Everyone calls Mei Little Sister (Imouto).
• Everyone Went to School Together: While most of the cast is still in high school, with the exception of Hidenori all of them went to the same middle school together, which is when most of the important background information happened.
• The Faceless: Mei, Mino and Yoshitake's older sister. Habara's older brother is also faceless.
• Five-Man Band: When the trio pretend to be in a Dragon Quest game, they form a party that fits one quite well. As all but The Hero are played by Yoshitake and Hidenori, Tadakuni has to constantly be reminded who's who.
  • The Hero: Tadakuni
  • The Lancer: Depp, who claims to always have Tadakuni's back.
  • The Big Guy: The Captain, the biggest and toughest member of the group.
  • The Smart Guy: Hopper, who explains the plot to Tadakuni.
  • Tagalong Kid: Markovich, the youngest and most innocent of the group.
  • The Sixth Ranger: Jack, the Anti-Hero Demon from the previous game they pretended to play who Hidenori forgot was from a different plot entirely.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: In Episode 5, if one pauses at the beginning of two related skits where the main characters of each skit are walking down a busy metropolitan street, the group and pairs of Ringo and the Student Council, Hidenori and Yoshitake, and Tadakuni and Nago can be seen walking obliviously by one another in different areas of the street. Anime watchers may not recognize why Tadakuni and Nago were there, but High School Boys and Counseling — animated in Episode 4, when Tadakuni and Nago left the pizzeria together — was published one chapter before High School Boys and the Saviour in the manga.
• Frothy Mugs of Water/Suspiciously Specific Denial: In the first scary stories skit, Tadakuni mentioned he and some other buddies went to another person's home to drink... while the manga he made it clear it was alcohol, in the anime he denied it was alcohol (so as the on-screen note) though the drink obviously has alcohol-like effects.
  • On the other hand, completely averted by Yoshitake's sister, who was shown drinking from a can clearly labeled beer despite being underage. This was edited in the anime to look like a can of soda, although she still talks in a drunken slur.
• Fun with Acronyms: In High School Boys and Lies, Motoharu asked Yoshitake what does KY — which actually stands for Kuuki Yomenai, or cannot read the atmosphere — stands for, and Yoshitake made up an answer about Kankyou Yougo Kigaku — Environmental Protection Convention — and explained what that is.
• Gag Series: The entire point being making boring High School Boys' lives actually funny.
• Golf Clubbing: In High School Boys and Fathers, Hidenori's father used a golf club to play a game of baseball with Hidenori, and then uses it to break the window of the Tabata household—all the three guys in the household forgot their keys.
• Graduate from the Story: Not in the manga, but in the anime, as they end on the short "High School Boys and...", which focuses on the cast's graduation from high school... until it's revealed that Tadakuni was dreaming the whole thing.
• Gratuitous English:
  • Hidenori in Episode 5's High School Boys and the Literature Girl (3):
    Hidenori: Shikashi, ore mo ENTERTAINER...^TranslationHowever, I am an ENTERTAINER...
  • Yanagin in Episode 6's High School Girls are Funky — the Past:
    Yanagin: (to Habara) Furatto Chesuto Gaaru! ^TranslationFlat-chest girl
• Heel Realization:
  • This is the entire point of High School Boys and Panties — peeping at a girl's panties does not make a guy feel good, but guilty and depressed... especially when a ditz like Ringo got tricked into unwittingly flaunting hers. Motoharu slipped into a Heroic BSoD so hard he skipped school for three days.
    Motoharu: We've done something that can never be undone!
  • On a bit more serious note, Habara almost always ends up crying whenever her past as the infamous ''Archdemon'' is brought up.
• Hidden Depths: Take any character at face value and what you will find may surprise you.
• Hidden Eyes:
  • Anyone (mostly female) except the main male population of Sanada North High, as well as a few recurring females, such as the Literature Girl, Nago, NAGO, Ringo, Habara, Yanagin, Ikushima, Emi and Episode 11's Mitsuo-lookalike.
  • Zig-zagged with Kiyotaka's younger sister when it zooms in to reveal her unintentional Death Glare.
• Hypocritical Humour:
  • The intro to Episode 1 showed a Late for School scene for the main trio—Tadakuni, Yoshitake and Hidenori. Tadakuni was eating toast per this trope's tradition, and then he saw Yoshitake eating curry, and then Hidenori opined Yoshitake should have eaten toast—despite eating noodles himself.
  • In High School Boys and Culture Festival (3), Ikushima put on the air about boys liking to put on the air. Her Distaff Counterpart Yoshitake is smart enough to keep himself silent.
  • In High School Boys and Assertiveness, the Literature Girl commented it's shameless for a girl to flirt a guy in the open. Takahiro reminded that by the time everybody knew she chased down Hidenori (who studies in another school) to the next town, in High School Boys and Running.
  • In High School Boys and Loneliness, Tadakuni, Yoshitake and Motoharu all told Hidenori they were occupied during Christmas (a traditional date night in Japan). When Hidenori decided to go into a manga cafe to kill time, he found all three of them were cooped up in the same manga cafe.
  • In High School Boys and the Worst, Yoshitake spent the whole skit listing examples to prove his sister is the worst, only deducing at the end that he would be the worst by trying to prove himself somebody is worse than himself.
• Identical Stranger: In High School Boys and the Literary Girl (2), Motoharu wanted to find his sister Mino on the Artificial Riverbank... and mistook a similarly long-haired, Sailor Fuku-wearing girl as her. She's actually the Literature Girl.
• Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: High School Boys and (subject)
• Implausible Deniability: In High School Boys and the Power of Friendship, Hidenori denied stealing Mei's lingerie while wearing her bra.
• I'm Standing Right Here: In High School Boys and Mitsuo-kun, Mitsuo walks his classroom in which his friends are telling embarrassing stories about him. They notice his arrival, pause for a second, and then continue laughing at him as if he isn't there.
• Japanese Delinquents: Motoharu is called one and looks like one, but is otherwise a pretty sane guy. The same goes for the Student Council of which he is a member... whose members, seemingly delinquents all, are actually sensible and well-mannered, save for the Student Council President, a Bishōnen (complete with being voiced by Akira Ishida).
• Jerkass: Most girls in the show (especially if they're the main characters' sisters), with a few exceptions, such as the Literature Girl, Emi, Ringo and Habara (or at least she used to be a jerk herself).
• "Last Day of School" Plot: The last sketch in the last episode of the anime skips forward to the last day of school. All the characters are graduating, complete with Cherry Blossoms, and all of the characters' individual subplots are resolved (Hidenori and Literature Girl finally get together). This turns out to be All Just a Dream by Tadakuni, and what's actually happening is a reprise of the first episode's Late for School plot. The narrator assures the audience that the characters will remain in high school forever.
• Lampshade Hanging:
  • As early as the intro before the opening in Episode 1 there are already two: Hidenori calls out Yoshitake for not eating toast when they're Late for School despite he not doing the same, either, then denies the possibility of mecha and/or RPG elements being incorporated into their show despite it being a collaborative work between Square Enix and Sunrise.
  • In the prologue of Episode 3: The trio recognized that the anime aired in winter, and that by starting the story in summer instead of spring (the start of the Japanese school year), it misses many High School anime tropes — but this is a Slice of Life, either way. Later, while in the hot springs, the boys all comment on the unusual amount of steam on the baths.
  • In the prologue to Episode 6, the boys ask: Why are there Magical Girls but not Magical Boys? Then they think that Harry Potter may be a Magical High School Boy. Also, the first half of High School Boys and the New School Term was basically about Nintendo Hard, using the third Sherlock Holmes game (on NES) as example. The Legend of Kage was also referenced.
  • The prologue to Episode 7 assures viewers that Comic-Book Time would be in full force in this show like Sazae-san, so the Second Year Protagonists would always be Second Year Protagonists.
  • In Episode 8's High School Boys and Manga, Hidenori recognized that while in any other manga boys of his age would be doing something else, the guys here are doing nothing. The written message of the sponsor section also recognized that Tadakuni doesn't have a family name.
• Literal Asskicking: In this scene of High School Girls are Funky — Resentment.
• Lost in Translation: The title. Danshi Koukousei is not only High School Boys but Students of All-boys High School.
• Love Letter Lunacy:
  • Parodied in High School Boys and Love Letters by Motoharu giving a faked love letter to Yoshitake.
  • Ikushima received one from her nameless classmate as well, but as expected from a One-Gender School student, she'd rather fantasize over it.
• Loving Bully: Deconstructed. Habara was a feared bully known as Archdemon who terrorized every boy in her neighborhood, but especially Toshiyuki Karasawa, her next door neighbor, eventually giving him several large scars that would never go away. Fast forward eight years, and it becomes clear that she harbors a small crush on Karasawa, who, unfortunately for her, is traumatized by her bullying to the point where he can barely interact with her normally.
• Lyrical Cold Open: Shiny Tale, the show's opening theme.
• Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy: The girls are all played as hyper-violent, bordering on delinquency, while the boys, though they occasionally try to act tough, all dislike violence and tend to end problems through friendship.
• Medium Awareness:
• Men Use Violence, Women Use Communication: Gender flipped. The girls are mean & openly provoke fights, the men try to avoid them.
• Mistaken for Gay:
  • High School Boys and Horoscopes: Motoharu saw Hidenori kissing Yoshitake. The former was only trying to squish a hornet perched on the latter's nose. When they run into Karasawa, he whips out a can of pesticide and sprays it onto their faces.
  • High School Boys and Drop-Kicks: The sudden physical closeness between Hidenori (on a visit to his maternal grandparents' hometown) and Kiyohiko was seen by Emi as Boy Meets Boy.
• Moment Killer: Invoked by Tadakuni in High School Boys and the Literature Girl when Hidenori requested him to break the unwanted sexual tension between Hidenori and the Literature Girl. He came to the scene with:
  Tadakuni: Hey, this is bad! The potato chips at that convenience store are half-off! Let's get going! [punched out by Literature Girl]
  • In the beginning Hidenori thought Tadakuni was too Genre Blind to say this, but eventually realized he said that because he's smart enough to invoke this trope.
• Nausea Fuel: The story Tadakuni made up about Kugihiko vomiting out a centipede is a literal In-Universe example; Hidenori, Yoshitake and Mei all purged themselves upon hearing the story.
• No Ending: The manga ends with everyone attending a joint School Festival. A lot of plot points aren't resolved, and the series doesn't really make a point of doing so.
• No Hugging, No Kissing: According to Word of God, the show isn't so much about romance than teenage boys (and some girls) doing things. In fact, the closest things to romance the series have are the Literature Girl and Emi's crushes towards Hidenori, and even then they are one-sided (and in the latter's case, it was even grounded by Surprise Incest).
  The main characters are almost never there, the female characters don't even get faces and love flags get destroyed all over the place... so why is this so popular?!
• No Name Given: The Literature Girl, Yoshitake's older sister, and a female Mitsuo-lookalike in Episode 11.
• "Not Making This Up" Disclaimer: This was used in High School Boys and Horror Stories (2) when Yoshitake mentioned inadvertently causing a nosebleed when he washed his face.
• Not What It Looks Like: Oh, the things the Literature Girl will do to tell Hidenori that the boy who walked next to her wasn't her boyfriend (it's just her classmate Takahiro)... and it's not like Hidenori was dating her.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • When Mino said she's inviting her classmates for a sleepover, Motoharu's heartbreak ensues.
  • In High School Girls are Funky — Conflict, Yanagin and Ikushima stare in horror as Habara innocuously asks why they need rules when fighting. Given her past as a Combat Pragmatist, their reaction is justifiable, more so after they see her casually throw away a large rock in front of them.
• One-Gender School: Sanada North (all-boys) and Sanada East (all-girls) Prefectural High Schools.
• Only Six Faces: Even some males and females share the same face.
• Ordinary High-School Student: A hilarious enforced aversion, where all the characters are indeed entirely ordinary high school students.
• Out of Focus: The main three have gotten a mild case of this as more focus is placed on the rest of the cast. Tadakuni got it worst of all due to being less entertaining than Hidenori and Yoshitake.
• Parlor Games: The boys play shiritori in Episode 3, except for Tadakuni, who hates the game. He then accidentally joins in several rounds completely by accident.
• Periphery Demographic: The ending credits message for Episode 6, aired on the midnight before Valentine's Day, lampshaded the series' sizable female readership despite being written for the Seinen Demographic: [invoked]
  It may be Valentine's Day, but don't send the characters chocolate or anything. If you're sending it anyway, please send it to the studio, not the TV station.
• Pixellation: The centipedes in High School Boys and 100.
• Placeholder Titles: Episode 1's ending, which used lines from one of the skits in the episode instead due to a last-minute change of the ending theme. Like anything in this show, it was lampshaded.
• Poor Communication Kills: Many of the skits could have been resolved in a far less humiliating way if the character(s) involved had actually spoken out instead of monologue-ing for five or so minutes. The frequency of this theme is actually one of the main points of evidence for the author being Bomber Grape as most of the latter's Touhou Project comics use it for Running Gags.
• Potty Emergency:
  • In Episode 10's High School Boys and Limits, Mitsuo has apparently been hogging a one-stop store's toilet, forcing Hidenori to search elsewhere. He finds one in the public park... only to be forced to go elsewhere upon sighting the Literature Girl.
  • In the un-animated High School Boys and Elevators, this is the reason for an Uncomfortable Elevator Moment between the Literature Girl and Hidenori.
• Potty Failure: Yoshitake seemed to have it when he was younger. It was, as a matter of course, misattributed to Mitsuo.
• Print Bonus: High School Girls Are Funky are omake of the manga volumes—hence those skits were made into stingers in the anime.
• Quivering Eyes: In High School Boys and Cakes, Tadakuni had one after being grossed out by Hidenori's answer to Yoshitake's question of what he wanted to do for the day: piss in his pants.
• Rescue Romance: Parodied in High School Boys and the Savior in which a bystander sees three delinquents harassing Ringo and steps in to beat them up... except the delinquents — Motoharu, Karasawa and the Student Council Vice-President — were just asking her a favor, and allow themselves to get beaten up to spare him the embarrassment of having misunderstood the situation, as well as to invoke this trope.
• Rule of Three: Most of the skits rely on a triple repeat of the same joke or three jokes with the same theme.
  • Three students slip on frozen puddles in one skit.
  • Yoshitake's Paper-Thin Disguise as Karasawa by wearing a white cap works three times in the Kick The Can skit (twice on Mitsuo).
  • Mitsuo makes three attempts to get a soccer ball past Hidenori during the Sure Kill Shot skit. Third time is the charm in this case.
• Running Gag: The sponsor sections are always in line with the tone of the skit immediately preceding it.
  Episode 1: Daily Lives of High School Boys is lazily brought to you by the following sponsors.
  Episode 2: ...may or may not be brought to you by the following sponsors.
  Episode 3: ...is brought to you by the following sponsors.

  It's normal.

  Yeah, normal.
  Episode 4: ...is brought to you by the following sponsors. (By two lookalikes of Hidenori and Yoshitake)

  Tadakuni: Who the heck are you?!
  Episode 5: ...is brought to you with a bang by these sponsors.^note The skit immediately preceding it was about the boys ad-libbing random girls in a park.

  Hidenori: Hm, 3/10!
  Episode 8: ...should have been brought to you by these sponsors.^note The skit immediately preceding it was about Mitsuo's Heroic BSoD when his Porn Stash was discovered.

  Tadakuni: It is! It actually is!
  • Another example is that Mei's lingerie kept being stolen.
  • Whenever Hidenori sits on the Artificial Riverbank, the Literature Girl will show up. Sometimes, other characters show up. When Hidenori doesn't show up, it's Motoharu. Later on, other characters (the "Overly Self-confident Girl", Takahiro's friend, Yanagin) replacing the Literature Girl, but she still shows up in the end of the respective sketches, usually extremely envy.
• Satellite Character: Those Two Guys those are only called brown-haired and glasses only appears with Yoshitake and Motoharu in the 2-A classroom.
• Say My Name: LITTLE SISTER!/IMOUTO!
• Scale Model Destruction: High School Boys and Kick the Can revolves around several characters playing a game of kick the can with the first Gundam model Mitsuo ever built. They succeed, and then reveal that they destroyed it because they had bought him an identical kit for his birthday. The present turns out to be a counterfeit.
• School Uniforms are the New Black: Zigzagged. The main trio wear their uniforms even during summer break or Christmas — but there were a few scenes in High School Boys and Summer Memories when they wore casual clothes. This trope was also invoked in High School Boys and Summer Plans when Hidenori asked Karasawa to wear school uniforms to join a meeting on vacation planning in which the other participants are already wearing school uniforms in Tadakuni's house.
• Second Year Protagonist: Not made explicit, but all the main characters have an existing friend group and occupy themselves with generic high school activities rather than worrying about making new friends, college, graduation, or other freshman/senior woes. This Double Subverted in the final skit, where they all graduate, only to reveal that it's All Just a Dream. One of the characters assures everyone that they will all stay second years forever, this being a work of fiction after all.
• Seinfeldian Conversation: All the time.
• Serious Business: Such as love simulations in High School Boys and After School or killing centipedes in High School Boys and 100. Although these are also used to build up Shaggy Dog Stories.
• "Shaggy Dog" Story: Daily Lives of High School Boys might as well be Daily Lives of Shaggy Dogs.
  • High School Boys and After School: The boys spent most of the skit practicing a campus Meet Cute scenario for Tadakuni... only ending with the latter on a Pose of Supplication, saying it is completely useless in the boys' school they're attending.
  • High School Boys and Scary Stories (1 and 2): Tadakuni told extremely horrifying stories invoking extreme actions to Hidenori, Yoshitake and (the eavesdropping) Mei. They were also made up.
  • High School Boys and the Accompanying Girl: After seeing Tadakuni walking with a random girl, his Class 2-A classmates decided to put a halt to his date... only to find out that she was just asking for directions.
  • High School Boys and The Power of Friendship: Mei asked the trio to find out who had been stealing her lingerie (it turned out to be Tadakuni and Hidenori). Yoshitake took the heat, but when she started beating him, he ratted out the other two.
  • High School Boys and Traditional Events: (See Blatant Lies)
  • High School Boys and the Literature Girl (2): Motoharu went on making wind-related quotes to the Literature Girl. It turned out he spoke to the wrong person — he intended to speak to his sister Mino.
  • High School Boys and the Train to School: Hidenori spent the whole skit engaging in an Internal Monologue about whether or not he should tell a schoolgirl he sees daily on the trains that she has a hair on a mole on her neck, trying to figure out the consequences, and, eventually, why that was never noticed. After he decided to do so (and still feared a backlash), her response was a bright smile and a Thank you!
  • The first and last skits of Episode 4 were about Tadakuni trying to get close to Yoshitake and Hidenori, spending most of the skit eavesdropping (High School Boys and Eavesdropping) or asking Nago for advice (High School Boys and Complaining to Each Other), only to find that the two guys he thought were Yoshitake and Hidenori just happened to be lookalikes.
  • High School Boys and the Cultural Festival (2): Sanada North's Student Council President dared Ringo and her companions to pass through their haunted house without yelling. Ringo coasted through without making so much as a noise... only to finally let out a scream of horror at the sight of a naked Student Council President at the exit.
  • High School Boys and the Cultural Festival (4): After Ringo defeated Sanada North's Student Council President, Karasawa (as an announcer) treated the fighting as part of a scheduled program.
  • High School Boys and the Biography of a Hero: Hidenori has long idolized Rubber (Band) Shooter, a masked Bully Hunter who saved him eight years ago. So when he returns to the shrine where he first met him upon hearing the same Pachelbel's Canon he played back then, Hidenori ran up the steps only to see... Yoshitake shooting rubber bands. Hidenori dashed off the stairs.
  Who do you admire the most?
  Hidenori, before: Rubber (Band) Shooter
  Hidenori, after: Hideyo Noguchi.
  • High School Boys and Holy Night: Hidenori tried his best to avoid being beaten up by Yoshitake's older sister, after he inadvertently pointed out she's always alone during Christmas. Hidenori, being the series' Chick Magnet, went as far as trying to date her. She still beat him up.
  • High School Boys and the New Semester: The boys spent the whole skit discussing the winter break while waiting for the first class of the spring term. Their class teacher came in... and announced that due to a typographical error, school should have started the day after.
  • High School Boy and Ringo's Troubles: Ringo came into North's Student Council to ask whether she is actually too short. After deciding the other members were too nice to be honest, she decided to ask the Student Council President in the next room instead. The Student Council, fearing that the President was going to say something stupid again, tried to prevent her from leaving the Council room. While their tactics didn't work, the President's answer wasn't stupid either... and Ringo still beat him up.
  • High School Boys and the Older Brother: Mei and Yoshitake's older sister asked Yuusuke to teach the boys to be less childish... only to find he was no different from the main trio.
  • High School Boys and Convenience Stores: Hidenori was given the wrong change by a trainee employee. After another round of Inner Monologue, he decided to try to get the older employee to straighten up the error... That older employee turned out to be a trainee as well.
  • High School Boys and 100: Motoharu spent the whole skit killing centipedes. Then Mino opened the windows facing the forest and let the centipedes in.
  • High School Girls are Funky — Ramen: Yanagin wanted to break her Always Second Best status towards NAGO and dared the latter to compete with her in karate and then ramen eating. Not only did Yanagin lose decisively in both, but in the end NAGO didn't even know who is competing with her.
  • High School Boys and Older Brothers and Sisters: Yoshitake's older sister was clearly having a Sanity Slippage for her lack of a boyfriend. Yoshitake and Hidenori at last got Yuusuke to call one of the latter's college buddies (despite all of them being perverts) to date her. While that guy was interested in dating a Joshikousei... what does she look like? Not even Yoshitake knows!
  • High School Boys and the End of Summer: Emi, a girl who lives in Hidenori's maternal hometown, has a crush on Hidenori, who came to visit, and planned to confess to him on the night before he left. The entire episode was about her trying to confess... and right before she's going to say that, Hidenori made a most surprising reveal: they are cousins.
    Emi: And so, my summer ended without me able to do anything.
  • High School Boys and Limits: (See Potty Emergency)
  • High School Boys and Kick the Can: Hidenori, Yoshitake, Motoharu and Mitsuo engage in a... rather physical game of kick-the-can — with the latter's Zaku model as the can, ending with Hidenori kicking the model to oblivion. Turns out the three were planning to give Mitsuo a birthday present in the form of a replacement model... only for Mitsuo to realize that they bought him a ripoff. Come the next Eye Catch he dumps it off a waste bin.
  • Subverted in High School Boys and Frankfurter; while Yoshitake, Motoharu and the gang failed to prevent Mitsuo's half-eaten sausage from falling to the ground... but Mitsuo eats it anyway.
  • In the unanimated skit High School Boys and Studying, the boys suddenly found the learning curve for the schoolwork getting too steep, and got into a serious study session... before the teacher announced he wrongly used the senior textbook for the past two weeks.
  • In the unanimated skit High School Girls are Funky — Frog, Yanagin found a frog perching on the vending machine's coin drop. After unsuccessfully trying to kick the drinks out of the machine, she eventually had to remove the frog on her own... only to find she only has a 1,000-yen bill, which ''can't be used in the vending machine at all.
  • In High School Boys and the Worst, Yoshitake spent the whole skit listing examples to prove his sister is the worst, only to deduce at the end that he would be the worst by trying to prove himself somebody is worse than himself.
• Sketch Comedy: A rare anime example of this format, due to the format of the original manga (at 6-10 pages a week, almost half the length of a normal manga chapter). The anime makes one skit per chapter; while a longer story arc is split into several self-contained chapters, the anime would still be making as many skits as there are chapters. High School Boys and Cultural Festival used four separate skits in one episode.
• Skirts and Ladders: Poor Ringo is not smart enough to recognize this.
• Slice of Life
• Summer Romance: Played with, like so many other tropes. In "High School Boys and the End of Summer", Hidenori spends the summer in his mom's rural hometown growing closer to a girl named Emi, who has a secret crush on him and keeps trying to confess. But just as she's about to spill the beans, Hidenori has his own confession: they're cousins, ending the romance.
• The Stinger: Omake skits, like the High School Girls are Funky series and Episode 2's Daily Life of a Lady, were made into stingers.
  • After the Book Ends finale of Episode 12, there is a preview for a High School Girls Are Funky movie that takes a leaf out of the K-On! movie, complete with a trip to London, which suddenly Genre Shifts into a Kaiju-movie styled showdown between Habara (relapsing into the Archdemon) and her rival, the Silver Devil. Of course, Habara is not pleased.
• Surprise Incest: Poor Emi. Just when she thought she found love in the form of Hidenori, the latter tells her that they are cousins.
• Take That!:
  • In the web previews' closing song and Episode 3's High Schools Girls Are Funky, characters note that high school girls can do whatever they want and still be popular: rock band, jazz band, karate, kendo and/or mahjong. Meanwhile, boys don't get much attention because they suck at everything that isn't sports or fighting.
  • The entire show is also considered to be a Take That! about female archetypes in anime in the previous decade.
• Tempting Fate: In High School Boys and Panties, the Student Council Vice-President told Motoharu that he got a full view of a girl's panties... and felt depressed out of Heel Realization. Motoharu didn't believe it, and the Vice-President dared Motoharu to try that by calling Ringo-chan in and tricking her into flaunting her panties in front of them... Motoharu's reaction (See Heel Realization) was even more extreme than the Vice-President's.
• Those Two Guys:
  • The two lookalikes of Hidenori and Yoshitake in Episode 4.
  • Tadakuni, Hidenori and Yoshitake and their Distaff Counterparts Habara, Yanagin and Ikushima have a similar dynamic, but since they're the main characters, it's subverted.
  • Takahiro and his classmate in Sanada West.
  • The two nameless guys who always chat with Yoshitake and Motoharu.
• Time Skip: The final skit of the anime season, High School Boys and..., moves fast-forward to graduation day. Motoharu, Karasawa and the Vice-President (now Student Council President) get a visit from the latter's predecessor and Ringo, who now attend the same college. Mitsuo finally receives a genuine Zaku Gunpla as a belated birthday present. Yoshitake digs up his Rubber Shooter mask after ten years. Hidenori and the Literature Girl get closer to each other. Tadakuni is congratulated by Mei, then gets a confession from a girl... who turns out to be a Hotter and Sexier Nago. Of course, it's All Just a Dream by Tadakuni. The season actually ends with a reprise of the trio in a Late for School scenario from the beginning of Episode 1, followed by a ''preview'' for a High School Girls Are Funky movie that takes a page out of that of K-On!.
• Toast of Tardiness:
  • The prologue of Episode 1 parodied that; with the trio progressively eating foods improbable in such a scenario: Tadakuni has the traditional toast, Yoshitake had curry, and Hidenori had ramen — and he had the gall to call out Yoshitake for not having toast.
  • The last episode showed a more ridiculous variation, where Yoshitake was having fondue and Hidenori was having Brazilian barbecue.
  • At the end of High School Boys and Consequences Mitsuo missed a chance to Crash-Into Hello a girl under this trope.
• To Be a Master: Discussed in High School Boys and Manga, when Hidenori noticed most boys' manga are like that while their own universe isn't.
• Trauma Swing: Mitsuo did this in High School Boys and Mitsuo-kun's Worries, when his Porn Stash was discovered.
• 12-Episode Anime
• Uncomfortable Elevator Moment: An un-animated skit, High School Boys and Lifts, is basically one of this between Hidenori and the Literature Girl. It turns out the Literature Girl was just having a case of Potty Emergency.
• Virgin Power: Something every boy in this series thinks they have.
• Vomit Discretion Shot: When NAGO defeats Yanagin in karate, and when Karasawa has a Heroic BSoD after hearing Yanagin's stylized account of the war with the Archdemon.
• Vomit Indiscretion Shot: In the first scary stories skit. Thankfully, it's just transparent blue and looks like water...until you see the centipede wriggling around in it.
• World of Ham: The cast is full of hammy and loud characters.
• Wouldn't Hit a Girl:
  • High School Boys and the Cultural Festival (4): Sanada North's Student Council President says this near the end of his fight with Ringo... after she puts him into a headlock.
  • High School Girls are Funky — Resentment: Karasawa did nothing but block Yanagin and Ikushima's attacks. The closest offensive maneuver he did is to turn around so Yanagin instead ends up kicking Ikushima's ass. The entire thing was, instead, ended by him showing his scar. Cue Yanagin and Ikushima teary-eyed in remorse.
    • Karasawa does it again in High School Girls are Funky — the Girls with Scars — while he did a Kinniku Buster on Yanagin as a payback for what she did in Resentment, he made a dorsal touchdown himself and acted as Yanagin's landing pad... end ended up far more injured than Yanagin was.
  • High School Boys and Seniority: Motoharu didn't hit Mino's classmates, who were bullying him... not because they're girls, but because they're senior to him.

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