Sit back, relax and scream to the rooftops you want two waifus to go out with as I present to you the anime review for Girlfriend, Girlfriend. Let’s begin.
Story: 6/10
Our story follows Naoya Mukai who finally gets to date his long childhood friend, Saki Saki. However, things take a strange turn when another girl, Nagisa Minase, confesses her feelings to Naoya. Naoya, not wanting to hurt Nagisa’s feelings, decides to offer a proposition to Saki by suggesting that he two times Saki and Nagisa to not hurt either girl’s feelings. Saki naturally rejects it at first, but reluctantly agrees to it and just like that, Naoya is in a three way relationship with Saki and Nagisa.
And thus, the shenanigans begin. The story is entirely focused on this three way relationship and the constant wrenches thrown into their plans to keep it under wraps. The narrative isn’t really a focal point to this show as it’s mainly used to keep the core premise of show constant throughout its runtime. Instead, it focuses on the scenarios that would be normal for a standard relationship, but this ain’t a standard relationship so things get awkward and they have to make compromises now. This does lead to the show’s comedy of just how our characters tackle these situations and to be fair, they are pretty hilarious. Just seeing these characters trying to wrap their heads around these things and try to make compromises does make me laugh. It is the fact though that this show does have no shame about what it is. It gladly embraces it which I think helps the show be more loose and try to have fun with itself.
The show even throws some wildcards in there to keep to change things up every now and then to keep it fresh. Otherwise, I think the story would have been putting our lead characters situations that would have been, “this is what a couple would do, but now with a three way relationship.” It does mainly come into play with the two other girls, Rika Hoshizaki and Shino Kiryuu, to keep Naoya, Saki and Nagisa on their toes or risk having their relationship be exposed to the public. Although that doesn’t stop Naoya but I will get to that. But I will say, Rika’s introduction does cause a real padded out middle section in this series and causes the pacing to slow down. Before, it was going at a nice pace but when a couple of episodes after Rika gets introduced, its starts to stretch itself out and gets a bit tedious, despite it still having some funny moments in there as well.
Characters: 7.5/10
The characters do help carry the comedy as well as they are pretty much all idiots but in their own way of stupidity. Let’s start with Naoya. In terms of high school harem protagonists, Naoya is probably one of the most refreshing protagonists in this archetype. Sure he looks the part, but he doesn’t act like it. He has a big heart with a loud voice. He’s very much always thinking of how to make both Saki and Nagisa happy to make this relationship work; even apologising if he believes he is not doing a good job of it and will reassure that he will try harder. It’s refreshing to see a protagonist of these genres be so different from the norm. It can make for some funny comedy if he reads the room wrong because he’s trying to do the right thing. He’s fully aware though that this three way relationship is wrong but doesn’t want to hurt either Saki or Nagisa’s feelings. Don’t get me wrong, he’s still as dense as a brick and struggles to read the room but at least he responds differently. But his personality can get annoying at times because of that loud mouth of his. It often leads to some groaning moments because he’s shouting things that he shouldn’t be saying out loud again and again. It’s part of his personality sure, but does get annoying by the end.
Saki would probably be considered our resident Tsundere yet she isn’t entirely Tsundere but she is a bit of a hothead, with her always misunderstanding thing and jumping to conclusions right away. This is her brand of idiocy that causes her to have the best reactions out of any other character. I think she only sticks to this relationship because she doesn’t want to be seen as a bad girlfriend. Determined to prove to be the better girlfriend, she strives to be more appealing to Naoya despite Naoya’s determination to treat Saki and Nagisa equally. This does make her my favourite due to her shenanigans and misconceptions. The fact that she also has a pretty dirty mind and that she may be bisexual also makes it pretty hilarious, especially early on in this series.
Then there is Nagisa. A cute, innocent girl who just simply wants to make Naoya happy and dedicate her life to pretty much do that. This is where her idiocy comes in because while she will make sure that Naoya is happy, it does put her in some awkward spots and the fact that she pretty much sucks with her academics due to all that time preparing to be the perfect girlfriend to Naoya. She’s a good counterpart to Saki because she has an opposite personality where she is more collected and willing whereas Saki is prone to lashing out and doesn’t always agree with Naoya’s decisions, even though she resorts to blackmail quite a lot. Her chemistry with Saki is great and it’s funny seeing them two try to think of ways to help or cheer up Naoya. Or lie to keep Naoya to themselves.
Rika (or Milika) and Shino act more as roleplayers but do have good chemistry with our characters. Shino does do that a little too late though but Milika just clicks. A Gacha Youtuber who uses her large cleavage as clickbait (Smart). She has a tendency to not give up and commit to the task at hand. We see this not long after her introduction of this in full display. She is the wild card element in this, not knowing when she will strike to force herself on Naoya. It’s also where the story stagnates somewhat because the episodes will then boil down to, “when will she strike” because you know its coming but it’s also the frequency of when she does it. They do try to mix it up so it doesn’t get too stagnant at least.
Animation: 6.5/10
Animation has never been a focal point in these kind of shows and it is the same here. But I will say, these character designs do a great job of making these girls cute; which is one of the golden rules when making a harem anime. Their eyes especially make them really cute. They do also express well which does help with the comedy. Saki stands out in this regard considering she acts as the overreacting character of this series. As for the rest of the animation, it’s fine. Art direction is solid but the animation itself is nothing special.
Sound: 7.5/10
This soundtrack definitely knows when to turn it on and when to turn it down. When it wants to be serious and loud, it can be and produces humorous results. When it wants to be calm and...well...serious, but in a different way, it can be quite touching. I don’t think it’s the best and the more over the top part of the ost really does overshadow the rest of the ost, but it does add to the scenes just to make it a bit funnier.
I actually like the opening in this show. "Fuzaketenaize" by Necry Talkiehas a very nice beat to it with the drums and guitar. It also doesn’t feel like it’s trying to hit that high note and just wants to give a cool beat to it. Recommend that you listen it with headphones as well. As for the visuals, hope you like triangles because the symbolism of the three way relationship is all over the place; with also some literal and symbolic interference from Milika and Shino. Actually, now I think on this, this OP is a lot better than I give credit. Now I do think there are better openings but this is one of the best this season.
The ED is also pretty good but not as good as the OP. "Pinky Hook" by Momo Asakura is mainly good for it’s visuals with the song just complimenting it. Now I’m not talking about the girls in their swimsuits (Although, that does get a thumbs up from me), but rather when we see the girls use their phones. We see them using them from a third person view but in the background, we see a first person view of them using their phones. I just think that it’s kind of neat. Again not as good as the OP but pretty solid.
Conclusion:
I actually would give this show some credit, this turned out to be a better show than I initially thought. I would have thought this would be a simple guilty pleasure show (which honestly was filled by Mother of the Goddess’ Dormitory this season) turned into, in my opinion, a legit, funny show. I think the humour is good, it’s characters are enjoyable if annoying at times and it does have some solid production values. I do think that this concept of a three way relationship from the word go was executed pretty well with the various scenarios and the characters that help make it work. But the most important thing, it has some good waifus in a season where there are a lot of quality waifus that you can make a solid case for being best girl.
Now, this is all subjective. It still has those trashy elements that can turn people away and I would kind of agree. But this is guilty pleasure with extra steps that help make it a solid show. I don’t think you can really go wrong checking this out and seeing if you like it or not. I mean, from the synopsis alone, you should have a clear idea if you are going to enjoy it or not. But that maybe hypocritical of me to say because I said at the beginning of this review that I initially didn’t watch it, only to pick it up a little bit later. So it is worth to at least check out because who knows, you might actually enjoy it.
My Personal Enjoyment: 8.5/10
Overall Score: 7.2/10 Recommendation: Consider it
