Kimi to Boku.

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Characters | Collection | Personal Commentary | Outgoing Links

Scans (Gallery)

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What is Kimi to Boku.?

Kimi to Boku (written as 君と僕.), translated both as “You and Me.” and “You and I.” is a comedic coming of age slice-of-life animanga series created and illustrated by Kiichi Hotta serialised in Square Enix’s magazine Monthly Shounen Gangan, Gangan Power, and Monthly G-Fantasy over the course of its run.

The story focuses around a group of five boys during their last few years of high school, and is a very emotional, character-driven series as opposed to a heavily dramatic plot-based one. From deciding which school clubs to tie your loyalty to, to school festival preparations, to accidentally indebting yourself to an upperclassman because his bike keys slipped when you were trying to return them; the ordinary plotlines are bolstered by the youthful feeling of everything being the most exciting (or most embarrassing) thing you’ve ever experienced.

The manga was adapted into a twenty-six episode, two-season anime from 2011-2012, with a few drama CDs released beforehand. Season one originally aired in Japan in the fall of 2011, and season two aired in the spring of 2012. Both aired on TV Tokyo, and were simulcast on Crunchyroll at the same time.

The manga has not received an official English translation or release, nor has the anime been dubbed into English. The anime was released in Japan in both regular DVD format and a limited special Blu-ray release. In the latter quarter-ish of the series, the manga was on hiatus due to Hotta-sensei dealing with illness. I’ve been unable to find out any other details, if they were even ever shared publicly, but I hope she is feeling much better and will continue to do so. <3

Characters

Any “show about nothing” truly is nothing without the cast to fill it out. Here are short profiles of the main 5(+1) characters of Kimi to Boku:

Shun Matsuoka — the sweet one. He is incredibly respectful, kind, and is the heart of the group and everybody’s favorite because of it. Due to his propriety, the others often are afraid of accidentally embarrassing or scandalising him. He is rational and empathetic, preferring to avoid conflict if possible and has a poor understanding of when others are making fun of him. He is a middle sibling with a younger brother and a few older sisters. He is voiced by Toyonaga Toshiyuki in the anime.

Kaname Tsukahara — the smart one. Contrasting the twins, Kaname is easily annoyed and embarrassed, with a quick temper. He is often the voice of reason, though the results of him voicing his thoughts are met with mixed results. He comes from a rich family with an father who is implied to be an absent workaholic. His mother on the other hand, is exactly the opposite: staying at home and trying to butt her way in to Kaname's life. He is voiced by Ono Yuuki in the anime.

Chizuru Tachibana — the wild card. Originally from Germany, Chizuru joined the group quite a bit later, though he quickly fit right in with the rest of the boys. He has a big, bold personality and unrelenting sense of whimsy. He is the most affectionate of the characters, in official art he is often hugging or leaning against the others. He also has a crush on Misaki, and doesn't really know how to show it outside of teasing her. He is voiced by Irino Miyu in the anime.

Yūta is the elder twin, and the most mature member of the group. He is good at basically everything. His cool aloofness is heavily contrasted by his observant nature, and how deeply he cares for others. He has a particularly soft spot for Shun, and while he does get annoyed at Yuki's lack of self-sufficiency he can't help but look after his younger brother. He is distinguished by Yuki by his hair and his responsible nature. He is voiced by Uchiyama Kouki in the anime.

Yuki is the younger twin, and it very much shows. Similarly aloof, Yuki has very little interest in anything outside of his nerdy hobbies, and relies on Yūta to keep him in line and on task. He and Chizuru get along well even though they seem to have opposite personalities, and often enable each other's mischief. He is differentiated from Yūta by his hair, his tan blazer instead of the usual school blue, and his codependancy. He is voiced by Kimura Ryouhei in the anime.

Misaki Satō — the shy underclassman. She puts up a tough front, but wants both to feel and be seen as pretty. Misaki is a tsundere character type, acting out with aggression due to self-consciousness over her crush on Shun, and conflicted feelings towards Chizuru. She is voiced by Satou Miyuki in the anime.

Some of the other recurring characters include the childhood best friend duo of Akira and Azuma-sensei who unknowingly watched the boys grow up, Shun's younger brother Fuyuki who Shun desperately wants to grow into a proper gentleman, Kaname's overbearing and emotionally incestuous mother, and Yuta's love interest Takahashi to name a few.

The main characters play incredibly well off of each other, as do the recurring secondary characters who pop in and out over the course of the series. Where the writing excels is in creating a very bittersweet combination of humorous moments, as well as some real, strong emotional ones. The later chapters of the manga focus more on romance, with some of the characters getting girlfriends! My boys, we're both all grown up now… TT-TT

From left to right: Shizuna and Hisako Aida (Kaname's neighbors), Shun, the black-and-white cat, Chizuru, Yuki, Yūta, Kaname, Fuyuki (Shun's little brother), and Mamiya (Fuyuki's girlfriend).

The Cats in the Anime

The cats that are frequently seen lounging around and hanging out as title or intermission cards exist somewhat outside of the actual story. They serve to visually indicate to the audience both a simplistic recap of the events of a scene (such as an argument), and also communicate events directly after to the audience which would slow down the pacing were they animated (such as making up after said argument). Starting in season two, the boys do actually interact with the cats implying some kind of feral cat infestation at their high school.

According to the anime art book's model sheet for the main black-and-white, her name is literally translated to "Master" and she lives on school grounds. Chizuru says her markings look like Yuki and Yūta's disinterested expression.

Kitty Gallery!

All these screenshots I believe are from season two, because there are just so many good ones of the whole group's representative kitties.

Here's another little bonus addition, a scan from the anime artbook of Chizuru holding her! He's saying something along the lines of "Hehe, what do you think this pattern looks like?"

This scan was actually done by myself! It looks so good, right? :D

Personal Collection

Manga and Books

This may seem a little silly to most since I can't read Japanese even if I wanted to, but I do have a complete collection of the manga as well as some of the other anthology volumes that Kiichi Hotta has been a part of. I got these second-hand through a shopping proxy service. I think the auction cost and individual item processing fee for a sales lot of the first 15 volumes was around 2000+500 yen (as of writing this, the exchange on the dollar is about $25 CAD, and iirc it was fairly similar then.)

I also have the anime "fanbook" (art book with model sheets and character notes) and both the first version of the "After School Fanbook" and "Volume 18" which includes some newer illustrations. The Volume 18 artbook is split into two sections, with the reprinted illustrations first and then a "After After School" section for the newer illustrations. If you don't speak Japanese, I would recommend picking up the newer artbook because while it doesn't have the same omake chapter, it has more of Hotta's lovely watercolors.

Along with my manga collection, I also bought about 2000 yen worth of the extras that came with buying the manga or various magazines as they were published! These little trinkets vary from little keychain figures, stationary, and even little plastic memos! Here is a bunch of my favorites, but I also have a page where you can see them fully, and even download my own scans!

Favorite Goodies

I also have the plastic memo sheets, and the writing board but I haven't used them yet. I just can't bring myself to actually write on the memos, so I guess they'll just be used digitally for now. Click here to check out the scans of them! I think I'm missing a few, but idk where they are...

In Search Of!

Honestly, these are all pretty much grails for me with just how little comes up when I look for them, especially at prices I'd actually be willing to pay. If for whatever reason I suddenly lose interest in collecting any more pieces, I think I'm at a point where anything here would be like. Extra happy to have rather than a must for my overall collection.

Personal Comments

I first watched the anime about a year after the second season came out (so I think it was spring of 2013), again in 2015, and then just this last year in 2022 I wanted to see my boys again and rewatched it for a third time. I have to say it has held up incredibly well, likely because it’s just a very sweet group of characters hanging out (guys being dudes and all lol). It’s a very sweet, and very wholesome series which adds an extra layer of comfort to the fondness and nostalgia I have for it. The whole series just feels comfy.

If you can’t tell, my favorite character is Shun, though my partner says that if I were one of the boys, I would be Chizuru... Which honestly makes perfect sense to me hehe ^_^. As for ships, there's nobody I'd ride or die for (probably because I'm an adult now and the dating lives of highschoolers is no longer of any interest to me) but I do think Shun and Chizuru are cute together. They're my two favorite, they're always sweet together in group illustrations, and their color palettes make like a strawberry lemonade!

What drew me to wanting to collect more of the merch and manga is really the style. There is something that draws me to it, I think it's really just the feeling it evokes in me to look at Kiichi Hotta's watercolor illustrations. Even in her standalone art with no dialogue or story attached, there is a sense of the fleeting nature of passing time that comes with the territory of growing up; everything feels so much, all at once, more intense than it has ever been.

To the left is my absolute favorite piece of Hotta-sensei's art. It encapsulates everything I love about her work: the moody colors, the gloomy rains of spring, the group interacting with each other, and the overwhelming bittersweetness at seeing a group of friends during a candid, chaotic moment where everyone is so unabashedly themselves.

Similar Vibes to...

If you want a bit of an idea of what I think this anime feels like, it's similar in tone and subject matter to Azumanga Daioh and The Daily Lives of High School Boys, really any classic "high school" set anime about everyday life. If you like this anime and the visuals, I think you'll probably also like the mobile game Neko Astume: Kitty Collector (if you somehow haven't played it already.)

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Outgoing Links

Here are some helpful links and generally good places to look for tidbits about the series. Sites that are in Japanese are marked like this 🇯🇵.

Manga

🇯🇵 Offical Website with news and links to purchase the manga.

Kiichi Hotta on MyAnimeList (there isn't much information on her)

gororon on Tumblr though they’re mostly inactive, they post scans and updates.

snowyangell on Tumblr has been posting her scanalations basically forever. If you've read Kimi to Boku in English on any manga site, you've read her translations. This link goes directly to all her scans.

Note from the uploader: “I’m sorry for my bad and extremely literal translations. I’m still a beginner at Japanese but that doesn’t mean I don’t work hard on all of this. [...] THERE ARE NO CHAPTERS IN BETWEEN 75 AND 91! PLEASE REFRAIN FROM ASKING.”

Kimi-boku-2019 on Tumblr same case as above, doesn’t post very often but has a good collection of raw (untranslated) scans from the manga post-hiatus, and a little bit of chapter discussion

Anime

You and Me on Crunchyroll and You and Me 2 on Crunchyroll (seasons 1 and 2 are listed seperately, the anime is only available with premium membership)*

🇯🇵 Kimi to Boku 2 anime website and the 🇯🇵 Kimi to Boku 2 TV Tokyo website (lots of dead links, and both sites have nearly identical information)

Inactive Kimi To Boku. fan LiveJournal page with fanfiction, and updates/episode by episode discussion as they were coming out

* — Kimi to Boku and Kimi to Boku 2 are both readily available to watch on sites like KissAnime and it's various iterations. Due to the sketchy nature of these sites, and the fact that they often change domains I've opted to not link to any one source directly

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