Hajimete no Gal

To start out, I need to establish that this is a review of the anime's dub. I'll explain why later in the review. Along with that, this will also include spoilers, although I doubt they would really change your viewing experience.

To enjoy this show, one must understand it is not meant to be taken seriously. The girls have unconventionally large breasts, and the plot is not the deepest thing in the world, but it's hilarious. I found myself sending quotes from it to my friends just because I was dying from amusement at what they'd say, especially for an American. I am ... not knowledgeable about pop culture from other countries, but this dub was filled with pop cultural references and jokes.

- A Yoda impression
- Mentioning fidget spinners
- "The bomb dot com"
- "Snaps to chat"
- "You wanna know my bra size? 36 Double Deez Nuts"
- Saying "Do you wanna build a sand castle" to the tune of a song from the Disney movie, Frozen
- "The problem is that you've got a bone where your hot dog should be."
- "Bae stealing b to the itch"
- "Shady af"
- "#NoFilter #Seriously"
- "Great googley moogley, I get to touch her"
- "We'll watch your junk anytime."
- And many more

These are unique to the dub. To compare the sub to the dub, in the first episode there are two couples, from whom we can hear the conversations of.

In the sub they say:
Female 1: Let’s go to the amusement park this weekend.
Male 1: Sure. And we’ll spend the night together, right?
Female 2: There’s an event for couples tomorrow.
Male 2: Guess I’ll have to take you then.

In the dub, it goes:
Female 1: Let’s go to the amusement park Saturday morning!
Male 1: Sure, and I’ll show you my log ride Saturday night.
Female 2: Did you hear it’s couples only night at the movie theater?
Male 2: You are going to get so felt up.

One of these is clearly more entertaining, and that is the English dub.

I'm an English speaker, I wish I knew Japanese, but I do not. That being said, I can understand more when there is emphasis of English words better than Japanese words. This lead to a better understanding of the story through each of the seiyuu's voices. I can't distinguish between different Japanese dialects, but the Gals in the anime all sounded like the stereotypical 'Valley Girl' as you would call it in America. They said 'like' a lot, their whole tone of voice was spot on and it made the girls sound believable.

Speaking of the girls, the characters were actually a lot of fun to watch. They were not the most original cast, but they worked so well together in my opinion. The girls didn't all just act the same, even though they were all gals. The main girl, she was not a slut, she wanted a proper relationship with him, which was contrary to popular belief. Her best friend was a lesbian, or at least bisexual. MC's childhood friend became a gal so he would notice her. And the girl who was like the class rep. with good grades and stuff, had a princess complex and was a secret gal. That's not all. The friends of the mc, they were the nerdiest virgins ever, which made them believable. They worked at manga cafes, they made the mc confess, one only likes loli, etc.. If that doesn't convince you then think of how they interact together. It is so easy to image these characters in real life, just hanging out with each other. Their interactions didn't seem forced, (Unless it was the first time they were interacting for the most part.)

While the art is heavily focused on ecchi, it doesn't change the comedic aspects of the show, if anything it makes them better. The mc frequently leers at their breasts, and everybody jokes about it and calls him a virgin. Without the disproportionately large breasts, one of the more basic comedic properties would be gone, and the jokes inside the show would have to cease.

The jokes, references, characters and art are all big components of the anime, but there is still the storyline that has gone unmentioned. The show starts off with the mc having to confess to somebody most people see as a slut so that he could finally have sex. But the story is better than that. They go out and have fun, the anime isn't just a bunch of sex, there is actually no sex in it, no matter how much he wants it. The other girls try to initiate sexual interaction throughout the show, but the mc is better than that, he starts liking his girlfriend more, to the point that he doesn't just want to have sex with any girl, he wants her. He loves her. The highest point in the series is when they kiss for the first time. Even though this was a comedic series, and the mc was super perverted, I couldn't help but root for him and hope that he would get a happy ending with her.

The bottom line, is that this is a fantastic show, if you love comedy, slightly perverted jokes, ecchi, or a slice of life series that isn't super innocent.

Although I can not stress enough how important is is to watch the dub.

Pros:
- good fanservice
- decent pacing
- Some romance aspect

Cons:
- Bad characters
- Horrible interactions between characters
- Nothing interesting ever happens

... For: someone who wants to watch a ecchi show thats has some romance in it.

Hajimete no gal is a very classic ecchi harem school comedy on paper, and is in reality nothing really more than that. I tend to enjoy this kind of show, but hajimete no gal did not deliver very good characters which is a very important aspect in any type of anime really, but especially for this type. The characters are very flat and there interactions with each other is boring. They don't feel like real people as they only have one or two sides of their personality and rely a LOT on their trope e.t.c Tsundere, loli, lolicon, and so on. You only ever experience that side of the characters.
What Hajimete no gal had that not all of these ecchi harem school comedy animes have is a decent romance aspect. It was enjoyable to watch but only two characters had any feelings to show, and even that was pretty static but an enjoyable asset to an anime which only ever else offers fanservice.
In the end it lacked something to stand out compared to ecchi animes and this had nothing but the slight amount of romance that was not enough to save it. They tried to go with a gal kinda trope to stand out but turned out to be nothing more than extra fanservice.

Hajimete no Gal is the perfect representation of the dreck the anime industry tirelessly manufactures: vapid harem twaddle devoid of spirit and interested solely in selling BluRays to wide-eyed otaku who think seeing uncensored anime panties is a wonderful way to spend 5000 yen. The reality is that Hajimete no Gal is worth less than a meal at Matsuya.

The difference between a harem anime that is well-received versus one that is not is that the popular ones tend to have a certain level of craftsmanship: they look nice-- particularly when focusing on the curvature of the female cast-- and have catchy openings and voice ... acting to drive the senses awild. If one was looking simply for some cheaply-produced masturbation fodder, why not, after all, just watch some 'hentai' (as the boys in the west call it) instead?

Hajimete no Gal begs that question repeatedly.

It is deeply uncertain about whether it wants to be a serious romance or flat-out pornography, and so it attempts to be both. And thus it fails to an almost astounding level.

Repeatedly (often more times in a single episode than can be counted with one hand) the anime will showcase the excessively-censored fantasies of Junichi-- the worthless protagonist-- where Yame and other members of the obligatory harem troupe force themselves on him sexually, begging for sex in the middle of a classroom, a karaoke booth, or some other absurd location that few would ever consider a good idea. Of course this exists because the anime does not have the courage to legitimately have sexual relationships portrayed within the show, and of course it leverages these scenes as an excuse to sell more BluRay copies to sexless otaku who have never walked into an R-18 store before.

The 'romance' of Hajimete no Gal may well be nonexistent, as Yame and the rest of the female cast never give a single reason for why they are interested in Junichi, much less why they so crave his penis. Yame agrees to go out with him, presumably, because she finds him fun to tease - but then blushes like a 10-year-old at the idea of a kiss. What? I'm sorry, but if you're going to sell an anime on the basis of it having a cast of gal characters - the gal trend being defined by promiscuity - then they should actually be such. If you wish to portray a story with toddlers who think 'indirect kisses' are a thing (and, good lord, this show has that aplenty), then please look to KyoAni's Chuunibyou for inspiration instead of hardcore pornography.

Junichi makes Ichika from Infinite Stratos and Rito from To Love-Ru seem tolerable by comparison. He is a spineless loser whose only goal in life is to lose his virginity (as if anyone in Japan these days actually cares if a high school student hasn't had sex), yet when presented with the opportunity to have sex, cowers like a baby or imposes self-righteousness upon them as if he is now somehow above having sex despite his constant, pathetic attempts at such for the entire series. His friends poke fun at how he might be a cuckold, but in reality, he is the embodiment of one, doing nothing when she sees another man hit on his supposed girlfriend, later throwing a tantrum about how worthless he is and how she deserves that man instead, only to get jealous when he later sees them talk to each other. Whining about how pathetic you are is not an attractive feature, and Yame and crew would do well to leave him aside until he grows up and grows a pair - something unlikely to happen in the event of future seasons. (Let us hope such events never come to pass.)

The rest of the cast is also comprised of cretinous wastes-of-space who do nothing to enhance the quality of the show or make it any less infuriating. You have Nene, the obligatory childhood friend character, massive (and frankly impossibly so) breasts included, who refers to Junichi as "onii-chan" and who he of course disregards despite her sex appeal and constant advances because, hey, treating your old friends like trash is a cool thing for anime protagonists to do. Other additions include Yui-- I had to look up her name as I couldn't remember it-- who is conveniently a lewd Nico Nico Douga streamer despite her rich, 'flawless' behavior at school, and Ranko (her name being a pun on the Japanese word for gangbangs...) whose only purpose in the anime is to beat people up, yell at Junichi and attempt to force sex upon him (sometimes both occurring simultaneously). Finally, there is Yame's aforementioned male friend-- a cackling douchebag and dreadful antagonist who behaves in no way resembling an actual human being-- and Junichi's three, pathetic friends who do little else but act jealous towards him and follow him around in the event that one of his harem members might so much as glance in their direction. If the only thing defining these kids and keeping their friendship together is their virginity, then, hey, maybe they were never actually friends in the first place?

Thankfully, there are only ten episodes, presumably because they used so many tropes that there are no longer any more cards left to pull from the hat. Onsens scenes, beach scenes where the protagonist lathers lotion onto the girls-- you name it. All the asinine trash the anime industry loves is here for your eyes and ears to feast upon. Hooray. Yahoo.

Hajimete no Gal looks cheap and sounds cheap. None of the fantasy scenes are arousing in any way, nor are the obscured pantyshots the show is so desperately marketing. It has about the same production quality as the average pornographic anime, which makes it a wonder why it couldn't have just been such instead. Even with the decreased characterisation and story a pornographic format would have involved, it would still have been a better anime. At least then it might actually be transparent and honest with itself.

I'm going to be quite blunt. Hajimete no Gal sucks. It is not quite abysmal, nor does it win the award for worst harem anime (Infinite Stratos is still a bit more egregious), but it still sucks. Don't watch things that suck.