Oh my Lord. Where to start with this anime... I was just browsing through My Anime List, just adding new animes to my "Summer Watch List", and stumbled upon this. Added it to the list, 2 weeks later, a friend of mine told me that he had watched this and told me he liked it a lot. So, this was the first anime I watched over the entire summer with the exception of Attack on Titan and Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicals. My first impression, "What the f*ck did I just watch...?" For those of you who have seen it as well, you were all thinking the same thing, I know you did. It's one of those romcoms for adults, similar to Seitokai Yakuindomo, only this show focuses on one thing, Sex. Without further ado, let's get this review started, shall we?
B Gata H Kei, has a unique story, if you can actually call it that. It focuses on our main protagonist, Yamada. She's the most beautiful girl at her school, all the guys can't help but fall for her. Her goal is to have 100 Friends with Benefits, or Sex Buddies as she calls it. Strange, huh? 15 years old and the only thing she can think of is sex. For a teenage boy, yes, I can imagine that, but you'd never guess that's all a girl would think about that stuff. Anyways, she wants her first time to be with a cherry boy (AKA a virgin). She happens to find a boy by the name of Kosuda, an obvious cherry boy judging from the way he acts around her. Later, she finds out he goes to her school. And he sits right next to her. Throughout the show, Yamada tries to get Kosuda to have sex with her, however he can be dense at times, and not even know what she's trying to do, and you'd think flashing him would give him some kind of clue... as the story starts progressing, there are other characters that come into the show, giving them something else to present to the audience, so as an overall story, in terms of uniqueness, it's grade A. In terms of having an actual story, it's grade Lucky Star.
B Gata H Kei was brought to you by the studio who produced/co-produced animes such as Aria, DearS, Boys Be..., and Kaleido Star. For their previous animes, the art style is actually fairly well done in my opinion. The characters are pretty casual in terms of uniqueness, but they are drawn with such precision and detail that I really liked it. The only problem I had was all the sparkles around the Kanejou Siblings... what the hell are they, Vampires? What, are they related to the cast of Twilight?
I watched both the English Dub and Sub version of B Gata H Kei. Overall, I prefer the sub. I won't lie, I'm Brittney Karbowski's biggest fan ever. No joke, but she didn't suit the role of Yamada. In my opinion, Yamada is a littttle bit... of a bitch. That is not something Brittney is good at. Actually, she did a really good job as Yamada, but I hated hearing such a beautiful actress play the role of a skank. It was sad. The other voice actors and actresses I had no problems with, I loved Alexis Tipton as Yamada's Sex Deity, and Greg Aryes as Kosuda's Sex Deity, and Cherami Leigh as Miharu. Those were my favorite characters. Everyone in the Japanese Dub did an awesome job though, they matched up to their characters with perfection and professionalism.
It's not often that the character I hate most in an anime is the main character, I think the only other protagonist I hated was Shinji from Neon Genesis Evangelion... but come on, we all hated him. But I couldn't stand Yamada. I think it was a mixture of her slut-like personality and her overall meanness that made he hate her so much... sure she was pretty in some scenes, but whenever she opened her mouth, I instantly knew something about sex was gonna come out. Kosuda was actually the one person in B Gata H Kei that I could relate to in some way. He's super shy around girls, he doesn't understand them that much, but he's an overall nice guy. I have most of the same problems as him, so I liked him a lot. I knew what he was feeling and stuff. Next are the Deities. Yamada's Deity was hilarious, her comments and scene change lines were all awesome. Kosuda's Deity didn't have many moments in the show, except whenever Kosuda would get a little excited (if you know what I mean). He was more of a censorship then a character... and then we have Miharu, Yamada's best friend. She is somehow able to handle being friends with Yamada, which I don't know how, but she gives advice and can be a good friend a lot of the time. And lastly... Kyoka, or should I say Miss Vampire Queen. She's gorgeous, but she has the same personality as Yamada, only sex isn't the only thing she ever thinks about... also she sparkles 24/7.
I had no idea what I was getting myself into when I started B Gata H Kei, but I can say that it was a fun watch. It had a lot of good humor in it, similar to Seitokai Yakuindomo like I said before, and I enjoyed the crap out of that one. It had romance throughout the entire show, but it was more of a requited love sadly. The ending came a little too sudden, I feel like this could have been a 24 episode anime if they decided to, but overall it was a good anime. I recommend it to those who love echii, but if you hate sexual jokes and innuendos, by all means, don't watch this. If you don't mind that, this is a must watch.
