I also seldom give extreme ratings when I’m asked to grade a show, a video game or any other piece of media, because it takes a particular effort to make something absolutely unbelieveable, be it a masterpiece or a complete trainwreck. In many cases, a show is bad, but it’s not the end of the world, and in the end, it’s likely I’ll forget about it’s existence soon after I finish watching it. Same with good shows - there are a ton of genuinely good, fun anime out there, many of which can’t compete with the absolute top contenders cause they just don’t quite have that special something - maybe it’s the visuals that are just a bit short of greatness, might be that the story is not as interesting or the execution in general falls short.
There also hasn’t yet been a show that I genuinely hated as a whole entity. I despised parts of it (like the main protagonist in High School DxD - a comparison that will be repeated in this review) but I've never despised a show so deeply that I utterly refused to find something that didn’t suck about it.
Until now.
I dislike SAO. I dislike The Asterisk War. I dislike all the generic action/harem shows flooding the Light Novel and anime markets lately. I dislike the cheaply made ecchi shows, selling themselves on absolutely nothing but said ecchi content.
But Hajimete no Gal is a unique specimen. This is one of a kind, and it’ll most likely remain that way until the end of time.
This is a cataclysm of such epic proportions that putting it in mere words is a truly Herculean task, one that makes me almost humbled by how tiny I am in comparison.
Have you ever seen a piece of media with absolutely zero value? No entertainment, no lessons to be learned, no new skill to aquire, just plain nothing. An empty hole, with no creativity, interesting ideas, new concepts and no utter lack of effort in putting it all together, in making it even slightly cohesive.
I’m not speaking about something that you’d call “bad” or even “horrible”. I’m taking about something PARTICULARILY vile. A show that made you remember all the 1/10 stuff you’ve experienced and literally caused you to look at it with far more favourable eye, purely because they weren’t “that”.
Hajimete no Gal is such show for me. This little gem combines every single thing I despise with blind, overwhelming fury and skillfully blends it into a shit-shake the likes of which I never expected possible to create. It looks like shit. It sounds like shit. It’s content is nothing but a shitflood after a shitflood, and the worst thing is, this will not be the last one of it’s kind.
Enter Junichi Hashiba. Junichi is a high school boy who really, really wants to have a girlfriend. He also has a group of friends, who also wish they had girlfriends. So one day, they decide to play a prank on the innocent little Junichi and pair him up with a gal (or “gyaru”, since we need a proper cultural term for it to matter in this case) by putting a letter in her locket, asking her to meet Junichi behind school.. Their plan to seemingly screw their friend over fails however, as the lass actually agrees to date Junichi. If this description sounds bland and uninteresting, it’s because that’s what it is. And once you actually see it in motion, it gets even worse. And then it continues to accelerate downhill at an alarming pace.
Let’s start with Junichi himself. I’m deeply convinced that current LN market has some sort of a vendetta against young schoolboys, since they seem to be trying to make them as utterly repulsive and unlikeable as they possibly can. And I can fucking assure you, they’re succeeding so much it’s getting worrying. I know this theory sounds idiotic, but how else would you explain the absolute avalanche of protagonists that are utterly useless as both people AND a mean to advance the storyline further?
So Junichi is yet another one of those eternal virgin protagonists who have never dated anybody, think mostly about sex and are pitiful when it comes to their contacts with the opposite sex. And I just realized that this entire sentence could’ve ended at “another one” and it wouldn’t lose anything from it’s meaning. That’s really what this dude should be named. “Another-one-kun”. There’s nothing remotely notable or interesting about him or anything he does. Everything he does and says is a gigantic cliche, used with the subtlety of getting a concrete block dropped on your crotch. We’ve got all the ingredients to make LN protagonist here : constant blushing and stuttering, ridiculously exaggerated reactions, repeated to the point of giving the viewer a desperate death wish, sexual thoughts and delusions - because let’s call things by their proper name for once - nothing’s off limits here. The only missing ingredient here are superpowers pulled from the ass dimension, given to him for no possible reason other than because he happens to be the main character. But thankfully it’s a slice-of-life show, so those are (mostly) out of the question.
But I kind of wish they weren’t. If they did appear, it would only mean more reasons for me to tear this show to shreds, and even less reasons to feel bad while loudly disclaiming just how horrible it is.
If there’s one character Junichi reminds me of, it’s the other high school cataclysm from one of the favourite wank-fuels of the modern youth, Issei Hyoudou from High School DxD. He was almost as big of a piece of shit as well, and he was the main reason why I dropped DxD halfway through the second season. But for all of his annoying “hilarious pervert” act, I must admit that Issei at least TRIED, you know? I think they all TRIED to make him at least a decent character. He genuinely worked hard to improve himself, and for all of his perviness, he did respect the harem he got, never making a move without being allowed to. And as much as I hated them, some of his sex-driven reactions were actually kind of funny.
But “making a move” isn’t something you should expect from our holy maiden here. He’s far too busy being useless and getting constantly flustered over gestures and, well, just about anything concerning women. For a man so hell-bent on starting a relationship with a woman, he sure doesn’t seem particularily interested in actually progressing said relationship forward. One could wonder if his awkwardness is, perhaps, caused by dating a woman he hasn’t exactly chosen himself. Love is a complicated feeling, after all, and at a young age we don’t quite understand how it works yet.
But both you and me know that’s not the case. The purpose of Junichi acting like a sexless weirdo is because this is what is expected of a LN protagonist being a part of an ecchi story. We’ve accepted this, we’ve all embraced this at one point or another, and so now this is what we’ll have to deal with.
On the opposide end we’ve got the main girl of this mess, Yukana Yame. She’s a gal. She has a sexy body, and she’s supposedly different from gals in general. We use the term “gal” here to describe a specific subculture and fashion style, and the show’s entire premise hinges on the concept of breaking stereotypes, I suppose. So gal can be roughly compared to what us Westerners would call a “dumb blonde” stereotype : not very intelligent but hot, has a rather casual approach to sex, dresses provocatively etc. Of course it’s a little bit more complex than this, and has it’s own little quirks, but I won’t dive that deep here. She show surely doesn’t do that too much, so it would only be a waste of time.
As far as characters are concerned, Yukana is definitely the best one in this show. She isn’t immediatelly hateable and I believe that with some more skilled writing, she could be made into a pretty interesting girl that would deserve being placed in a better show. She’s also the most visually impressive. And I’m not talking about her body specifically, but about the way she was drawn - her model has by far the highest quality out of anybody else (at least when she’s wearing her school uniform - everything else looks like shit), and the reason is obvious - she’s the main draw of the show.
Her personality... Well, she’s a gal. She’s into fashion, she has blonde hair, dresses sexily, has a friend she hangs out with on a regular basis but, in an unexpected turn of events, turns out she’s actually rather guarded about sex itself. This is the entire plot of this anime : there’s a girl who “should be” into sex, but is reserved and shy about it. Knowing this, you might think that the main plot point of the anime is not judging people by stereotypes, and to give everybody a chance. You’d think that, but I think it’s clear by now that this show isn’t good enough to handle an idea like this with any degree of proficiency. And if it isn’t clear, it will become clear soon enough.
Bonus point earned in the dubbed version : she’s voiced by Jamie Marchi, who you might known from voicing Rias Gremory. And she does fit the role very well. The dialogue is also translated/rewritten to be fittingly cringy, pretentious and difficult to stomach. But the actress herself did a good job. I really do suggest watching this show dubbed, cause with subs it’s not only offensive but just plain boring (see, an upgrade from HS DxD - that one was just boring when subbed).
I was really trying to describe the characters properly and give a wider idea about them, but I find it irrationally difficult. It might be because of how bland and uninteresting they are in general. And you’d think it would be a bad thing, for the main characters to be so horribly written.
Fret not, for the writers have prepared a much better feast for us - supporting characters in this show are the absolute powerhouse of it. And as should be expected by now, not in a good way.
First, let us take a look at the previously mentioned group of friends Junichi hangs out with.
There’s three of them, and every single one is equally abhorrent for a completely unrelated reason.
Opening our trifecta of twattery is the Glasses Dude. He acts as the quasi-leader of the group and is a curious patchwork of a salty virgin, generic pervert and the self-proclaimed romance expert - despite having no experience whatsoever. He talks the most and is the most annoying of the bunch, but otherwise has no obviously offending qualities, aside from the lack of any good ones. But this is the case for everybody here, so I’ll let it slide.
The middle man would be the Loli Lover, and this nickname is much darker and uncomfortable than you’d expect it to be. Ladies and gentlemen, I believe we have the first case of conscious pedophilia in anime (aside from hentai and maybe less known adult-rated shows). The creators of this bog had the perfect idea of taking an artstyle/fetish that’s controversial and divisive by default and then crank it up a notch or twelve. So our man makes it abundantly clear from the absolute start - as if, the first FIVE MINUTES of the first episode - that he’s a follower of the old Catch-Em-Young school of dating, precisely stating that it would be perfect if his girlfriend was around 5th grade. That would be around 10-11 years old, just to clear things out. I shouldn’t even have to tell you what is wrong with this, but this is anime, so I’ll do it anyway - it’s creepy as shit. It’s one thing when a character is drawn in a loli manner cause she’s, say, of a petite build like the girls from K-on or Gabriel Dropout. But when we’re talking actual elementary school kids, it gets uncomfortable. Aside from that however, there’s nothing else here.
And closing the ranking is the last member of the Circle of Bad Fucking Ideas. He is a different specimen entirely, as it’s been a long time since I’ve come across a character this uninteresting and lacking any shade of personality - and remembering how many shitty harems, romance/ecchi shows and hentais exist, this is a big statement for sure, and one I’m confident in. When the first man was the leader, the third one can be seen as the acting hand of the group, notable in that he was the one who placed the love letter in Yukana’s locker. He might have done something more than this over the course of the series, but I doubt it was anything significant and I can’t be asked to find out. Of the three, he’s has the least offensive qualities, purely because there’s barely any qualities in him to begin with.
Another notable character here is the resident loli, Nene Fujinoki. Before we get into anything regarding what she’s like, I need to point out one important thing - her visual design.
If you haven’t watched the show, or don’t remember the characters (not bloody surprising, this fact...) just type her name into Google Images and get a good look at her.
Just look.
The words “holy” and “shit” spring to mind. There’s exaggeration, there’s fetishization, and then there’s THIS.
And just to drive the point home - this is commercial. As if, somebody was hired to create a character like this.
Somebody drew this. SOMEBODY GOT PAID FOR DRAWING THIS. SOMEBODY’S FUTURE EMPLOYERS WILL SEE THIS AS A PART OF THEIR PORTFOLIO.
If you’ve ever felt bad about your work and life choices - remember, at least you’re not that artist...
So our Z-cup girl here takes the role of the supposed little sister character, barring the fact she and Junichi are literally unrelated in any way - they’re just childhood friends and she acts like his little sister because a check-list required an imouto character to be present, so one has been provided. She’s really into him and spends the show trying to change her style to appeal to him more, but since the main couple is established from the very beginning, it’s obvious that it won’t ever lead anywhere. And this is one thing I kind of need to note - the lack of most of the harem bullshit infesting shows of this nature. Although it doesn’t make it any better, it at least isn’t making it worse. Hardly a praise, but you can’t be picky when we’re dealing with a show where the first frame you see is a close-up of the main girl’s camel toe.
There are some more characters here, like the main girl’s friend, who gets pissed/jealous cause her gal friend spends less time with her now, so she tries to make the main couple break up by implying Junichi is cheating on Yukana (read - she’s trying to basically rape him) but it never works, another girl from Junichi’s class who’s apparently into cosplay, but we won’t find anything interesting enough to justify such analysis, so let’s move to the next source of constant torment - the visuals.
Like I mentioned earlier, Yukana is the only remotely good thing in this show, and sadly, when we look at the visual design itself, this proves true again. While the models themselves aren’t horrible, animation is. Often there’s barely any movement in the scenes, which is particularily notable during face close-ups, and the level of clumsiness gives the works of A-1 Pictures and Studio Deen serious competition. Particularily, there’s that one scene where Yukana goes shopping with Junichi and that other gal girl to look for clothes, and when she picks up a dress, she suddenly looks like she has a completely different body type. Her chest in particular grows to ridiculous size - and yeah, it’s not like she’s flat, but in her uniform her breasts look at least slightly reasonable.The scenes show severe lack of budget and possibly time as well, but for a show like this, it’s not surprising. I doubt anybody was expecting it to be any successful in the first place, so the creators propably decided to take what they could, putting as little money as possible into it, to ensure it’ll run profit even without being largely successful (and somehow it still gained following of sorts...).
Sounds design isn’t much better. It just kind of “is there”, so the show doesn’t feel even emptier than it already is. The opening theme is a generic, cutesy j-pop song with nothing appealing whatsoever, and at several times, what I’d refer to as “stock sounds” are used when characters are falling, for example. I know it’s not exactly like every studio records different sounds for every single possible thing happening in the show, but in this particular case, it yet again painfully reminds you how little effort was put when making it. It isn’t even that B-class badness some of you might know. The cheesy, overused stuff that still has some charm to it. This is just bad.
I’m mad that shows like this still keep popping up, but above everything, it saddens me. It saddens me that shows like this is what people who wish to get into anime might get recommended as one of their first shows. It saddens me that crap like this frequently steals the spotlight from better, much more deserving shows. It saddens me how much damage it does to art, character development, humour and ecchi elements, all of which can be used well in a good show to, if not improve it, then at least help it keep consistent quality.
And this crap sells. It pulls views, it pulls numbers, and it’s horrifying. Because with this being the case, it will not be the last one of it’s kind. And somehow, I get the feeling it will not remain the worst thing I’ve ever seen for too long. And knowing how rarely I give extreme ratings, I’m absolutely mortified.
And it’s not even like I hate shows of fanservicey nature with simple plots and character development. One of my favourite shows is Shinmai Mao no Testament, which is exactly that. It features young, attractive cast, strong male hero, lots of action and sexy scenes, while also having only 12 episodes (with second season, though). But Testament isn’t a bad show. It’s has plenty of problems, but the main character is humble, likeable and capable. It’s not difficult to understand his reasoning and genuinely like and cheer for him. While the female cast here suffers from being very mediocore - with one exception - no character there is just “bad”. Some of them just aren’t “good”.
Hajimete no Gal surely has a lot of ecchi scenes, but the general bullshit seeping from every scene makes this show completely wank-proof.
If you’re looking for a fun high school romance, watch Toradora. If you’re looking for a show where a shy MC is sorrounded by ladies with voluptous bodies, watch Sekirei. If you’re looking for a fun ecchi show, watch Shinmai Mao no Testament, Trinity Seven, Absolute Duo or High School of the Dead.
Leave this thing in peace. It doesn’t deserve your time, it doesn’t deserve your money, and it sure as hell doesn’t deserve any legacy.
