Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai - Episode Guide

Kodaka Hasegawa, a recently transferred student who has trouble making friends due to his scary appearance, encounters his classmate, Yozora Mikazuki, talking to an imaginary friend. As they both talk about their troubles in making friends, Yozora gets the idea to create a Neighbors Club dedicated to help people make friends. After Kodoka and Yozora post up recruitment posters, another student, Sena Kashiwazaki, comes to join, saying that, despite her popularity, she also wants to make some true friends, though she does not get along well with Yozora.

Yozora decides that the first Neighbors Club activity is to play a co-op Monster RPG to improve their friendship. However, instead of playing co-operatively, Yozora and Sena constantly get in each other's way. The next day, Sena brings a girl game to the clubroom, which she ends up getting really into.

After Sena is caught playing an eroge and insists it's not perverted, Yozora has her read out the dialogue aloud to prove otherwise. Meanwhile, Kodaka's little sister, Kobato, feels jealous that Kodaka is spending more time with the Neighbors Club than with her. After encountering a swim-happy character in her game, Sena asks Kodaka to teach her how to swim. After the swimming lesson, Sena gets herself into trouble when she insults some guys hitting on her, forcing Kodaka to help her out. The incident reminds Kodaka of a friend he once had as a child, who taught him a lesson about friendship that Yozora strangely reacts to.

Kodaka meets 10-year-old teacher Maria Takayama, who was tricked by Yozora into becoming the Neighbors Club's advisor. Later, an effeminate-looking boy named Yukimura Kusunoki joins the club so he can study Kodoka and become more manly. Later, Kodoka saves a scientific girl named Rika Shiguma after she collapsed in the science room. Wanting to repay him in a somewhat sexual manner, Rika joins the Neighbors Club, where it is revealed she is also fascinated with curious dirty magazines.

Kodaka decides to start making healthy lunches for Maria, which makes Kobato jealous. Later, Rika has everyone try out a beta of a virtual reality RPG, which doesn't quite go as planned. After the game ends in utter defeat, Kodaka is surprised to see Kobato, who immediately clashes with Maria and decides to join the Neighbors Club so she can spend more time with Kodaka.

As Kodaka has a dream about his childhood friend, who he didn't get to say goodbye to before he moved, the Neighbors Club makes plans to go to a karaoke box. After feeling they are being cheated by the pricing system, Yozora and Sena end up in separate rooms while Kodaka and others share one. After the karaoke, Sena tells Kodaka that her father is interested in meeting him, which makes Yozora feel jealous.

As Summer rolls in, Kodaka asks Yukimura to provide Maria with her lunches in his place, though Yukimura misinterprets what qualifies as 'healthy food'. As the group decides to exchange e-mail addresses so they know who's coming into the clubroom over the summer, it is revealed Sena doesn't have a cell phone. She ends up getting the same model as Kodaka's, only to get spammed by a jealous Yozora.

With the air conditioner in Kodaka's house broken, Kobato takes inspiration from an episode of her favourite anime and starts wearing more normal clothes. More suited to the weather, she accompanies Kodaka to the clubroom where she clashes with Maria and finds herself adored by Sena. The club decides to go to the pool but find it crowded with popular people due a half-price offer, which proves to be too much for Yozora and Rika, who head home early.

As Yozora decides to have everyone dress in swimsuits for the day's club activities, Sena suggests that they go on a training camp to her private beach. The next day, Sena invites Kodaka and Kobato to her house to meet her father, Pegasus. After dinner, they are invited to stay the night, although Kodaka is forced to sleep next to Pegasus after he gets drunk.

The Neighbours Club reaches Sena's summer house and immediately hit the beach. They spend the weekend playing on the beach and listening to scary story attempts. After Yozora's story scares everyone, Kodaka gets called several times during the night to escort various girls to the bathroom, including Yozora herself.

The club decides to go to a matsuri festival for the purpose of getting takoyaki, which Kodaka is passionate about. While picking out a yukata, Kodaka explains to Sena about why he doesn't dye his hair. After having their fill of food, Yozora and Sena compete with each other at the stalls, before everyone gets together to set off some fireworks. After the last one is set off, Yozora's hair catches on fire, forcing Kodaka throw to a bucket of water on her to put it out. Soaked and humiliated, Yozora leaves and stays away from the club for the last week before school. When the new school term comes, Yozora arrives with her hair cut short, leading Kodaka to finally recognise her as his childhood friend.

Yozora recalls how she recognised Kodaka as her childhood friend, Taka, the moment he transferred in, but he wasn't able to recognise her, which led her to form the Neighbours Club. Yozora to Kodaka that she originally intended to reveal her true gender to him before she moved but was too embarrassed. She also acts to keep the fact they were childhood friends from the rest of the club and just call her by her regular name. Astounded by her new look, Rika gets Yozora to dress up in a boy's uniform as Kodaka contemplates what'll happen from now on.

Yozora and Rika manage to trick Sena into letting them style her hair into a heap, filling it with all sorts of oddities. The next day, Kodaka goes over to Sena's house to study for his exams, where he discovers her room is decorated with pictures of Yozora that she uses for 'grudge purposes'. Kodaka is asked by Pegasus to spend the night, where he expresses his worries that Sena might be getting bullied, to which Kodaka replies that he will protect her.

Rika, who comes to the clubroom without her glasses, decides she wants to watch an anime based on a homoerotic game, which is immediately met with raised eyebrows by the other clubmembers. Somehow, they are convinced to give it a try and find themselves getting engrossed in the plot though are suddenly surprised by the gay kiss at the end. Despite this, Yozora gives it her approval whilst Sena, annoyed that her gal games are looked down on in comparison, is forced to read another line from it. Later, Kodaka meets Maria's older sister, Kate, who tells him how Maria has changed since joining the Neighbor's Club. Afterwards, Yozora asks Kodaka to 'practise' comparing exam answers.

Maria shows up at Kodaka's house having run away from home, with Kate asking Kodaka to put up with her for the night, much to the chagrin of Kobato. Later, the club decides to have a post-exam party, where Rika suggests they play the 'King's Game' using randomly selected orders. At the end of the game, Sena draws a lot ordering Kodaka to kiss her, but Yozora objects to it, so Kodaka resorts to restricting it to an indirect kiss instead. Later that night, Kodaka receives a call from his father claiming that he is to be married to Sena.

As Kodaka assumes the topic of the other day was just Pegasus' drunken ramble, the gang decide to go to a theme park together after Sena receives a group ticket. After starting off with a terrifying rollercoaster ride, Kodaka, Sena and Kobato go to watch a stage show of Kobato's favourite show, leaving Sena a little bashful when the staff imply she was Kodaka's husband. After Yozora and Sena end up throwing up after going on the rollercoaster several times in a row, the group go to the baths where it is discovered that Yukimura is, in fact, a girl, much to her disappointment.

After dressing Yukimura up as a butler, Yozora agrees to play a dating sim for girls that Rika brought in. Whilst initially finding the game to be stupid, she takes interest in a delinquent character, though ends up downhearted when she winds up with a bad ending. Later, Rika invents a time machine, which sends Kodaka's conscience back to day he last saw Yozora before he moved years ago. He decides to tell Yozora about the move, only for things to get really weird. As Rika later reveals the time machine is in fact a hypnotic sleep device that allows him to see any dream he wants, the fact he knew Yozora ten years ago is brought to the attention of the club.

Yozora reveals that she and Kodaka were childhood friends, although she plays it off like it doesn't mean very much. Later, the Neighbors Club decides to participate in the school festival, with each member seeing if they have what it takes to become a maid. After dismissing a maid café idea, Yozora considers a fortune telling booth, fooling Sena into believing one of her lies. Sena gets upset when she realises Yozora tricked her, but cheers up when Kobato returns to the clubroom, deciding they should hold a birthday party for her.

Yozora, Sena, Rika and Yukimura go with Kodaka to Nagaya in order to pick out a present for Kobato's birthday, despite wanting to go alone with him. As Kodaka helps Sena out with her shopping first, they talk about whether Kodaka would consider getting a girlfriend and what Sena thought of him and Yozora being past friends. After Kobato's party ends rather well, Maria and Kate show up to join Kodaka and Kobato for sukiyaki, with Maria also bringing Kobato a present.

As the discussion returns to what to do for the cultural festival, Kobato brings up that her class is doing a movie that she's not keen on playing the lead role in. This gives the Neighbor Club the idea to do a movie themselves. In order to do research for it, Yozora invites Kodaka to go to a movie with her, only to end up watching a particularly steamy film. As they then decide to visit a cat-themed café, Yozora recalls how they once looked after an abandoned kitten who suddenly disappeared one day, leading Yozora to become wary of making bonds with those who may suddenly disappear from your life. To everyone's surprise, Yozora turns in a script worth using, although her plan to cast her and Kodaka as the leads is thwarted when the club decides to put it to a vote, leading to some curious casting. The gang soon take a disliking to Yozora's subsequent alterations to the script, which put some bias towards her and Kodaka's roles. When Sena tells Yozora that her childhood friendship with Kodaka is irrelevant, Yozora reacts harshly and bursts out the clubroom in tears. Kodaka later assures Yozora that both their relationship now and ten years ago are equally important, and she soon reworks the script into something reasonable.

As the Neighbors Club get their film underway, Kodaka comes across Sena's classmate, Aoi Yusa, who considers Sena her biggest rival and believes Kodaka to be her boyfriend. Later that day, Kodaka comes across Pegasus, who had assumed he and Sena were dating and is shocked to learn that it isn't the case. The next day, Sena explains the confusion came about do to a comment she made about 'making Kobato her little sister', which he assumed pertained to marriage. She then reveals that both their parents had arranged at a young age for her and Kodaka to be engaged, as they had met once when they were really young. Kodaka decides they should just forget about it and keep it a secret from Yozora. However, Maria ends up blabbing about in front of everyone having learnt about it from Kate, which leaves Yozora completely depressed. After being recommended a movie by Kate upon hearing about the movie's plot, Kodaka discovers Yozora had completely plagiarized the script from the movie.

After Yozora's plagiarism is brought to light, the club instead decide to go with a script Sena has written. After shooting some footage, Rika brings Kodaka to her prep room, where he sees just how much effort Rika puts into her projects. The next day, the gang head over to Kobato's school festival to watch her film, finding it to be quite impressive. Speaking with Kobato's classmates after the screening, Kodaka learns that Kobato is quite popular, but has trouble getting along with others. He does find relief that, in the clubroom at least, Kobato gets along with Maria. Come the sports festival, Yozora shows a disliking to the student council president, Hinata Hidaka, due to her popularity. Meanwhile, Rika confronts Kodaka about the feelings he should notice but refuses to acknowledge.

On the day of the screening, Kodaka finds Rika had passed out with a fever before she could finish the movie. Feeling it isn't right if everyone isn't present to see the movie, Yozora and the others unanimously agree to cancel the screening. After briefly running into Aoi whilst taking down the flyers for the screening, Kodaka goes to the infirmary to visit Rika, who gets him to read a BL book to help her get to sleep. After recovering from her fever, Rika finishes the movie and screens it for the Neighbors Club, with everyone feeling proud of what they've made. Later, Aoi swings by the clubroom to question the club's activities, to which Yozora responds with a thorough explanation, shooting down any query that Aoi brings up. However, she soon retorts that Maria doesn't qualify as a club advisor since, as it turns out, she is not a real sister. Luckily, Sena has Pegasus arrange for Maria to become an official teacher, allowing the club to continue legitimate operation. After Aoi is chased out, Sena casually mentions that she loves Kodaka and wants to marry him, but Kodaka once again pretends he didn't hear anything and walks out.

Kodaka helps out Aoi, who is behind on her work due to her studying of the Neighbors Club, and is eventually joined by Hinata. Impressed by his work, Hinata offers Kodaka a position on the student council. Kodaka turns down the offer but keeps helping them out with some grunt work whilst continuing to avoid the clubroom. Later on in the week, Kodaka runs into Yukimura, who explains only she and Sena have been regularly visiting the clubroom and also states why she still continues to serve Kodaka. Afterwards, Kodaka is called up to the rooftop by Rika, who starts attacking him with remote controlled steel balls as punishment for fleeing from the club. As Kodaka takes the brunt of Rika's attacks, he admits his weaknesses whilst also getting her to admit what she truly wants; friends. After the fighting calms down, Kodaka asks Rika to become his official friend, to which Rika responds that she and the others have always been friends. As Kodaka returns to the clubroom to speak with Sena, they all receive a text from Yozora saying she is going on a journey. After the credits, Yozora is seen turning back around with tears, implying everyone went after her.

One day the members of the Rinjinbu, the Neighbour's Club, decide to have a nabe after school. However, what was supposed to be a fun and enjoyable experience with friends turns into a battle of survival after everything was added to the soup base, creating something that should not exist in this world.

Note: Bundled with the seventh special-edition volume of the Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai light novel series.

As members of the Neighbour's Club, Kodaka and company are yet again involved in activities with the express purpose is to make friends. This time, it is a Story Relay. The idea is for them to write a short story together, with each person continuing on from where the previous one left off. Unfortunately, the result is less than consistent...

~ translated and adapted from official site by Cranston