Bokuben is designed to satisfy, to put it lightly, the concupiscent youth. If you are one among them, all the power to you, enjoy your time reading it. But if you like terrific character writing or unique plots, I’m afraid you will have to look elsewhere. Though Bokuben has its flashes of brilliance, its cliche plot, run-of-the-mill setting, and stereotypical characters will be tiring to read for many readers. That will be a recurring theme in this review, that Bokuben isn’t something universally enjoyable, rather enjoyment derived from it greatly varies based on one’s preferences.

It was made clear from the start that Bokuben is just a giant excuse for delivering fan-service with its nicely designed female characters, and the author delivered precisely what he promised. But its blind pursuit for such a goal has compromised other important aspects of a story, namely unique plot progression and characterisation. Though personally I don’t think that is a tradeoff worth taking, I’m sure some of you would love Bokuben regardless.

To start with, there is absolutely nothing new that Bokuben brings to the table. It's the same school harem plot we have seen a million times over; with hot spring mishaps, cultural festivals and school trips alike. You the reader probably could’ve come up with those on a whim. However, though its lack of creativity is a complete bore to read for me, I am sure that the familiarity it provides would come as a delight for some of you.

The characters are slightly better, but still some do stand out like a sore thumb as extraordinarily bad. And I think to best illustrate this is to take a look at their respective endings.

Uruka had the most “meh” ending out of the five, mainly because she is such an average character. Anime viewers may recognise this ending they deemed so terrible, but since the manga had much more time to flesh it out, it ended up okay. There is some sketchy stuff that I can’t delve deeper into for spoiler reasons, let’s just say it really showed how submissive Uruka and Nariyuki are, their dynamic as platonic friends in later chapters is much better IMO. But all in all, this is quite a mediocre arc. 4/10.

Especially since its shortcomings pales in comparison to how bad the Ogata arc is. Because of Ogata’s awkward and dense character, everything in her arc ended up being a Sekijou hard carry. Ogata and Nariyuki’s lack of chemistry is on full display, and the author had to stretch real hard to make this pair work. It is not as apparent when she is standing among the many harem girls, but when she is put under a spotlight, her character clearly crumbled . Without going into the details, this ending is easily the most boring, tedious and forced one out of the five. 2/10.

Furuhashi’s ending, in stark contrast, is much more natural and satisfying. Being the comparatively shrewd and composed girl, she stands head and shoulders above the rest. Her interactions with Nariyuki is refreshingly ordinary and the progression of the arc is very organic—a big ask for Bokuben. She didn’t need any crazy shenanigans, retrofit back stories, or external forces to get Nariyuki to fall for her, a testament to her (relatively) great character. 7/10.

Likewise, Kominami’s arc also had something quite uncharacteristic of Bokuben, foreshadowing. We readers have long known how much of a detractor Kominami’s dad is on his daughter’s decision to pursue a medical degree, in this arc we got an answer. Obviously I won’t say much because spoilers, but plot-wise, this arc was definitely the best. Though the two needed some push to make it happen (it was definitely not as smooth sailing as the Furuhashi arc) but that’s due to the nature of their senpai kouhai teasing relationship. 6/10.

Frankly, after two surprisingly good endings, Kirisu’s ending pales in comparison. Don’t get me wrong, I see the extreme gap-moe is appealing. But I simply didn’t think it would work just based off of the interactions Nariyuki has had with her in the main storyline. And I was half right. Kirisu’s character development was uninspired, point taken, but Nariyuki’s character bending over backwards for this arc was actually a good thing, as he became much more of a personality than before, but it’s a nightmare to anyone who likes consistency. 5/10.

As a whole, the endings have quite a bit better writing and thought put into it compared to the main plot. But that’s because the main plot had no intentions in furthering the story in any meaningful way, rather there is nothing but fillers in and banter dreadful to read. And personally I don’t think it is not worth a day of your time to binge through the first 140ish chapters just to see development on characters you won’t care about. If I were to give a score to the main storyline like what I did with the endings, it would probably be a 3/10.

I guess the art (and furuhashi, but I digress) is the saving grace of this manga. Unlike many other manga, the art is already great from the start. The girls look great and are refined without big changes in looks as the years went on. Nariyuki though looked way softer when compared to Bokuben’s first chapters, but regardless that is just nitpicking and does not influence the experience much. All things considered, the art is nothing incredible, but nonetheless serves its purpose very well.

Read Bokuben only if you desperately need some harem or fanservice in your life, otherwise just don’t bother. But credit to where credit is due, I feel the five-way ending really captured what Bokuben is all about. It had achieved its goal immaculately. It is not to tell an earth-shattering story, but to condense the most titillation into the least material possible. It’s unfortunate that my personal preferences, and I believe many of you guys’ tastes just don’t match with that goal well.