This anime is about Yamada, a gorgeous, popular and smart high school girl who is on a quest to bang 100 random guys before graduation. Holy shit! The room is spinning! Calm down. Take a deep breath. Keep reading. It’s not a hentai and she's actually a virgin who has never even been kissed. But let’s pause here for a second. This is about a hot chick looking for sex. Process that. Why would this ever take more than 5 minutes to accomplish? What’s her difficulty finding a mate? Well, she’s very self-conscious about her lady parts and her lack of experience. Her "brilliant" solution is to have casual sex with a shy, nerdy classmate named Kosuda to prepare herself for the impending conga line of other dudes. Will she fall for Kosuda or will he just be one of her many sexual conquests? BGHK is a parody of the stereotypical high school romance genre and is filled with sexual mishaps, close calls, and ridiculous humor in the setting of surprisingly genuine character development from both parties.
In addition to a lot of hilarious and dirty dialogue/monologue, I think this anime has heart and a very fascinating dynamic between the mains. The strength of the anime is Kosuda and Yamada’s weird relationship which (initially) revolves around one issue--sex. Paradoxically, sex is their relationship’s worst enemy and greatest ally. The faster Yamada and Kosuda rush into bed (as Yamada originally planned), the less likely their relationship will last. Kosuda will have been handed sex without learning anything about being a man, while Yamada will have slept with Kosuda without bonding with him enough to abandon her slutty ambitions. At the same time, without their mutual sex drives blazing they would have no impetus to interact, talk or to get to know each other. It’s a strange balance. Summed up, it’s a story of Yamada’s internal struggle to decide whether she is capable of having either ‘sex without love’ or ‘love without sex’.
Art: The art was very average. This became a problem with their depiction of Yamada. Yamada is supposed to be the hottest girl in school, basically a goddess amongst mortals. This is more than just a minor point as Yamada’s beauty and Kosuda’s plainness are integral to the premise. In truth I didn’t think the animation was sharp enough to really let me appreciate the supposed huge gap between Yamada and Kosuda, or Yamada vs other girls. Don’t get me wrong, the animation was fine but it requires you to use your imagination.
Sound: I loved the “Kiss me baby” theme. Holy shit, it’s the girliest song I’ve ever heard but it’s so god damn catchy. I’m about to deadlift in the gym and god help me if the bar suddenly rips the earbuds from my MP3 player and it switches to speaker. Let’s hope nobody finds out. The English Dubs are actually pretty good too.
Characters:
Yamada: At least initially, she is a really horrible person. I won’t deduct points for that because I think it makes her more interesting. She is vain, shallow, manipulative, jealous and selfish.
On top of that, she has a complete lack of modesty or inhibition. It’s hilarious. I did find it a little creepy how there was no reason for why she was so emotionally frigid. But at the end of the day, it’s ok to have no explanation, and BGHK still works. Earlier I said it’s a parody of the romance genre. If other animes can feature hot, popular, wholesome girls who never even considered having a boyfriend before the wimpy main character showed up, then BGHK can have the no less believable nympho Yamada.
Kosuda is your average, unimpressive loser. He’s a stock character. Basically a blank slate.
The other characters, in one way or another, serve as a massive support network for Yamada/Kosuda. They serve as pushing/pulling forces that guide Yamada/Kosuda to their journey. They are necessary for the plot but certainly not memorable as individual characters.
Overall: This anime ends about halfway into the Manga series. From what I gather, fans were hopeful that there would be a second season but that never happened. The BGHK anime ends on kind of a weak note. If you want to find out what happens to the characters I recommend the manga. The manga artwork is pretty bad but the story is hilarious and delightful. The manga is a lot dirtier (and funnier) than the anime series. Apparently in the manga Yamada is a compulsive masturbator. Who knew?
