Boys on the Run Review
Typically, when I pick a show to watch its because I like one of the actors or acresses enough to spend around 10 episodes experiencing their story and the tales they have to share. Boys on the Run had the same start but I almost dropped it. Curious? Let's begin, shall we?
Synopsis: Tanishi Toshiyuki is a 27-year-old single guy who has never had a girlfriend in his whole life. He works for a small toy company, Saida Company. People view Tanishi as stupid and the last person who will achieve success. Meanwhile, Tanishi has feelings for his co-worker, Uemura Chiharu, but is unable to approach her. Instead, Tanishi goes to telephone clubs or watches adult videos.
One day, Tanishi gets along with the salesman Aoyama from rival company Mammoth. With Aoyama's suggestion, Tanishi is finally able to have dinner with Chiharu. After dinner, the two miss the last train and go to a hotel...
Since I've been watching a few movies and focusing more on dectective based series these days, I thought going with a drama that wouldn't have an expected plot structure would be a breath of fresh air. I didn't expect what would happen...
Important Characters:
Tanishi Toshiyuki - Mr. Can't-do-anything-right-even-if-I-tried
Uemura Chiharu - Cinnamon roll that's actually a sinammon roll
Ooiwa Hana - Whaaaaat? I can't hear you
Aoyama Takahiro - Mr. Absolute-perfect. Everyone, worship me!
Shishido Shu - Mr. I'm-not-letting-you-take-Hana-away (also I'm like 10)
Ando Ryu - punch all of the things!!!!!
Breaking it Down: It's actually hard for me to sit down and put my feelings into words after watching this drama. From beginning to end, I have a lot of conflicting opinions on where my loyalties should lie with this drama. Might as well be blunt.
The first, let's say, three episodes are incredibly rough to watch. The first episode, alone, took me two hours to watch because I had to keep pausing and running my hands down my face in pure agony. Our main character, Tanishi, is not only a pitiful but painful to watch. Whether its because of his "run away from all fights" nature or that he always gets caught in distrubing situations, I wanted to throw this drama away after those three episodes. To be completely honest, I had never been so repulsed before in my life.
For some reason, perhaps because I didn't have another show I was dying to watch, I proceeded. I proceeded with the series because I wanted to see how Tanishi was going to win Chiharu back. I wanted to see my precious cinammon roll with the man she loved and to see Tanishi grow into the man he was supposed to be. It was to be expected, it was going to be cliche as hell, and I just wanted it to happen.
The beautiful thing about television is that, over the course of the show, if the show if well written enough, we begin to see a change in the characters involved. We see the sides we hate about them slowly get cut away, new bits added, until a better, stronger person is standing before us at the very end. Starting with the fourth episode, we start seeing a bigger change in Tanishi. His perverted side has been thrown out and he's becoming more confident, more able to stand face to face with someone in a confrontation.
What's incredible is that each character that Tanishi has touched changes in some way, for the better or worse. Chiharu becomes set on ruining his happiness, Shu learns to have something, or someone, to live for, and even Ando shows a thread of kindness at the end of it all. While some of these changes are large, even Ando's you have to squint a little to see, the viewer can see what's happened since the beginning of the series.
But, unless you have the drive to push past the painful first third of the series, you won't make it to the sweet, sweet ending Boys on the Run has. You won't see how Tanishi has touched so many lives, even if he doesn't believe he has people who need him. Which makes it difficult to review this show because no one is going to watch a show for the last episode, especially with the cringe-worthy beginning.
Score: 2.5/5
Final Thoughts: If you don't mind sitting through a rough underdog story to cry at the end, give this drama a try. Even then, the rewatch value is quite low unless the first few episodes are skipped.