Do I Even Have to Say It’s NSFW? – Hajimete No Gal Season Review

Man, it seems like I haven’t written an article on anime in a considerable amount of time but what an anime to start off with for season reviews. Hajimete No Gal or My First Girlfriend Is A Gal has been one interesting hell of a show. It’s mostly interesting in a “wtf?” than a “wow this is good” manner but it’s had some highlights and its moments. Leaving off from the last article on the midseason, we find ourselves with Junichi and company planning to play the King’s Game in order to through elaborate stick counting, get the chance to kiss some beautiful girls gals. While I’m left terrified that the pedo is playing two recorders for some reason, Junichi redeems himself by shattering this plan with some surprise Yaoi (albeit comically censored), made all the better by his friend’s choice of wearing a Kirito cosplay.

The plot then begins to rotate around the plan to go to a beach resort, and that includes working part time jobs to fund such an expedition. The jobs include some manga store work for Junichi’s friend, for some sick reason sending the pedo to work at a fething DAY CARE, and Junichi and the gals working at a maid cafe. In a coincidental turn of events the sleezy manager turns out to be a Hasegawa look-alike and tries to get the gals to read some very…explicit things to customers, to which Junichi and company take offense. A mild and uninteresting conclusion later, we find everyone at the beach!

At the beach resort, we find some actually interesting content beyond the cliche beach moments and unrealistic thigh gaps and watermelon smashing, with Junichi kind of finding himself doubting Yukana’s sincerity in their relationship. But we do find ourselves in an interesting take on a resort, that gladly puts death traps to halt peepers, to great and considerable success. The end of this episode gets kind of foreshadowy with dying fireworks to represent  the chances of Kashii and Nene realizing that Junichi and Yukana really do seem to love each other, even if the two of them can’t see it all to well.

Carrying on carrying on, the episode ends with them returning to the city and Yukana and Junichi bumping into her rather cool looking ex-boyfriend. This episode just short of rage-broke me to be perfectly honest. I stuck through it angry as all hell but when Junichi takes his friend’s advice and starts to sing some…interesting Karaoke lyrics, he finds himself facing off against Yukana and shithead McGee ex-boyfriend, he storms off and this lack of communication between Yukana actively ignoring Junichi and Junichi being a bitch causes a huge rift where in the end Junichi finally sacks up and goes to confess, when he finds out that the ex- is a shitty human being who calls Yukana a slut. And now we’re at the final episode, with Junichi starting this by getting surrounded by about 10 guys and trying to punch this prick in the face while said prick HAS HIS EYES CLOSED. And of course he fails horribly, but to be fair he pulls of a successful single leg takedown, which would be of merit, if he didn’t proceed to bite him like a little shit. A considerably excessive amount of kicking later, Ranko and friends come to his aid and we have a comical moment where the ex- shoves a little girl and you see the pedo go apeshit.

Ball crushing aside, we have Junichi once again begging Yukana to go out with him, and has an honestly touching speech about why he loves her. However this does not make up for the density he has displayed throughout the series nor does it make this cute little amusement park trip/first kiss any more interesting. While the show was sweet and had this gleam underneath the grime and shit after some polishing and sticking with it, I found not a gem but simply more shiny turd. The animation quality dropped CONSIDERABLY, and the subtitles (which to be fair isn’t their fault but I’m also kind of angry this didn’t pay off in any sort of worthwhile ROI) were horrid at times to being nigh unreadable. Even plot wise when you have an episode where Junichi is being a good character and kinda sorta slightly possibly maybe bearable, he has a super dirty thought and it just kills the mood for me. I’m glad this show will almost certainly not get a second season, as it wasn’t good enough of a romance story nor a comedy to be what it tried to be. I went in with low hopes and look at that, my expectations were met. It had it’s sweet moments but then again, so does drinking anti-freeze. Let me know what you thought with a comment or feel free to like and/or subscribe and I really hope that if you are reading our articles for the first time, this is not the content you are reading.