Seiho Boys' High School: Boys Say the Darnedest Things

As High School Girls is to Maria Watches Over Us, so Seiho Boys' High School is to Hana-Kimi (or Invisible Boy or Princess Princess or God-help-us Gakuen Heaven): both inject a raunchy dose of reality into something clearly idealized.  However, Seiho probably has a closer relationship with Ouran High School Host Club or Boys Be than with HSG.  However you want to classify it, I love it.

In summary

If you haven't heard of it, Seiho is a technically shojo school comedy about the boys at an all boys' school that's a dead ringer for Bell Liberty Academy: on a remote island far from females.  The difference from Gakuen Heaven is that these boys are 95% heterosexual.  (The exception is exceptional, and when his girlfriend comes to visit, it's hilarious.)  These boys are far more realistic than the usual shojo/BL cast at an all boys' school because these boys

• are so painfully and hilariously awkward
• can be trusted to say the wrong thing at the worst possible time
• often sabotage themselves brutally simply by not keeping their mouths shut
• scare the girls away more than attract them
• can be relentlessly insensitive
• are sometimes so kind that it takes your breath away

Same old?

The stock situations are there:

• The class play where they con a real girl into pretending to be a boy at their school, so she can be in the play with unexpected results.
• The girlfriend who comes to visit with unexpected results.
• The sister who comes to visit with unexpected results.
• The girl who needs a fake boyfriend for unexpected reasons.
• The mousy school nurse's transformation.

You will notice the pattern.  Most of these stories revolve around encounters with girls, a thing that is rare when you live on an island of boys.  The difference between these and most other vaguely similar series is that these encounters pretty much always end realistically, poorly, and often hysterically.

Is it shojo?

The author even questions the shojo-ness of the work, at times.  I'm not sure why.  While it is more realistic in some ways in terms of behavior (played for comic relief more often than not), the dramatic subject matter is all shojo, though even that is handled less melodramatically than your average shojo fare.  There are some sad family and relationship situations, but the guys don't dwell on and contemplate them emotionally and endlessly.  And there's so much comic gold everywhere, no one has much of a chance to mope before the next egregious failure of good taste and sophistication.

I recommend reading this in the comfort of your own home because I think the other patrons at the bookstore thought I was insane because I kept having to break down and bury my head in my arms to muffle the laughs.  Boys say the darnedest things . . .