REVIEW: ‘Eternal Boys,’ Episodes 9-10 – “The Dawn of Naoki Ishida” and “Idol Festival”

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When Imagawa accidentally threw away Ishida’s wallet when he finally cleaned up at the end of the last episode, he threw away something precious to his bandmate. Eternal Boys Episodes 9-10 explore the memories tied to that precious object, how it impacted Ishida’s life, and how it all comes to collide with the group’s future when they get invited to a major idol festival.

So far, this series’ decision to air paired episodes that are several minutes shorter than the standard episode run time has worked out well for it. These shorter episodes have kept stories contained well and never allowed a concept to drag on for too long. However, while this week’s pair of episodes function well enough in this format, they would’ve been better served blended into a standard-length episode.

To open Eternal Boys Episodes 9-10, we get the entirety of the first episode exploring Ishida’s past and his lifelong love of the idol group, Gentlemen. It explores how the nervous young middle school Ishida hid his love for the group and chose to keep his eyes on realistic goals like becoming a school teacher instead of following his dreams and chasing his inspirations. While this story is fairly interesting it does run a little long. When it wraps at the end of the episode, the group finds out that they will be attending the big idol festival that’s coming up, and it’s headlined by Gentlemen.

This is where the series formatting fails this two-part story. Rather than giving the entirety of Ishida’s story first, then following the group to the festival where Ishida has to deal with his stress at potentially meeting his own personal idols, the pair would’ve been far better served mixed together. Flashing back and forth between preparation for the festival and the past would have kept both sides of the narrative much fresher. Even if they had split the story in two like that, leaving it at the halfway point of the first 15-minute episode and wrapping it up in the second would’ve been better.

Mixing the two tales also would’ve helped the visual presentation of Eternal Boys Episodes 9-10. During the show’s run, Ishida dyed his hair pink, but in his flashbacks, he still has blue hair. While I was fairly sure who the story was focusing on, since episode nine jumps straight into his flashback and never shows modern-day Ishida, I was less than certain of who the episode was following at first. It does eventually become clear, but mixing the present in a bit and actually showing Ishida starting his story would’ve clarified things immensely.

Structuring aside, Eternal Boys Episodes 9-10 come together to form a solid narrative about keeping to one’s dreams and the thrill of meeting your inspirations. It brings a fair amount of entertainment with the lessons Ishida learns, both in the past and the present, as the show continues to grow its cast in a meaningful way.

Eternal Boys Episodes 9-10 are streaming now on HIDIVE.