I was meandering about my bookmarks and on Animate I saw a promotional image for Ketsuekigata Danshi, or Blood Type Boys-- as far as I can tell, it's basically a series of character goods, drama CDs, a 4koma comic strip, and a blog. Or at least, that's what it probably will be, if it's anything like its predecessor in the Danshi series, Rikei Danshi (Science Boys).But the first thing that struck me about Blood Type Boys is that the characters seem awfully familiar. Check it out, from left to right, you can almost imagine them as Ouran High School Host Club's Honey-sempai, Hikaru or Kaoru Hitachiin, Tamaki Suou, and Kyouya Ootori, don't you think?Of course, it's also a total ripoff of the aforementioned Science Boys-- which also featured a young “shota” type, a dark-haired “responsible” type, a blonde prince type, and a “fun” type, from the look of it.On the other hand, the boys of Blood Type Boys are based, of course, on blood-type stereotypes, which are common enough in the creation of manga and anime characters-- that's why character profiles in so often include that seemingly random piece of information. Not to mention certain types of characters are just popular. So maybe it's only natural that the characters seem so similar.The art itself isn't half-bad, but it's feels like such a blatant money-sucker. On the other hand, a project like this could easily get made into a real anime or manga at some point, if it became popular enough. What do you think?
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