Hajimete no Gal – 04

While wholesomely innocently researching “gals” on the interwebs to learn how to interact with Yame and Ranko better, Junichi comes across an extremely cute gal with a loyal following. This gal’s necklace has the same snake motif as Kashii Yui’s hairpin, so yeah, it’s pretty evident from the start that “Boa-sama” is Yui in disguise.

Yui is always presenting a calm, mature identity at school, but beneath that exterior she’s a vain, arrogant, imperious girl, labeling all of her classmates with various servant’s names and titles. Junichi has always been a loyal “doggy” to her, and isn’t interested in sharing him with some uncultured gal.

While Yame is hanging out with her galfriends, Yui springs out of the bushes and strikes like the snake she loves wearing, taking an extremely dumb Junichi on a date.

Meanwhile it’s on the tip of Shinpei’s tongue who Boa-sama reminds him of; an increasingly irritated and thus less careful Boa throws him a bone by describing him and his crew of losers to a man.

While secretly recording her flirting with Junichi in the classroom (which is illegal in Japan), Boa-sama gets final visual proof and shares it with the lads, who are shocked by the revelation. Despite Shinpei’s efforts to reveal his discovery in secret, Ranko gets wind of it.

Sensing that being blunt will be best against the painfully dense Junichi, Yui passionately confesses to him on the roof. When he turns her down (as he’s dating Yame), she immediately cracks and her extremely fiery, petulant personality gushes out.

She also plays her trump card: she secretly recorded her date with him (which is illegal in Japan), and orders him to break up with Yame and go out with her, or she’ll send the video to Yame.

That’s checkmate for Junichi…or it would be if he didn’t have a gang of friends watching both his back and Yame’s. Ranko arrives with the three losers, superhero-style (complete with ill-advised high jump off a ledge; Ranko lands as a hero would; the guys eat shit).

Ranko counters Yui’s Yame-harming blackmail with blackmail of her own: the knowledge that Yui is Boa-sama. Yui surrenders, but she won’t give up so easily, and the war has only begun…just as Junichi’s well-endowed childhood friend prepares to take the stage.

While the lack of any real suspense regarding who Boa-sama was, and Junichi’s general incompetence in everything but being an easy mark for…just about anyone, the episode was buoyed by Taketatsu Ayana’s strong performance voicing the many sides of Yui, and while the lolicon guy still needs to stop talking, the losers, Shinpei in particular, were in top form this week.

Hajimete no Gal – 03

As expected, Yukana’s very tan best friend Honjou Ranko inserts herself into her relationship with Junichi by writing him a love letter then mounting him behind the school. After a brief feint, Yukana laughs off Ranko’ actions as just messing around with Junichi…but Ranko seems determined to break them up.

A very predictable development, combined with a lot less comedy (a lot of it recycled jokes that don’t hit as hard, or at all, the third or fourth time around) made for a less-than-stellar Hajimete no Gal.

While out on a shopping trip, Junichi learns more of the challenges of dating a gal, like the need to properly choose which clothes look better on her, or defending her from man-sluts. In both cases, Ranko tries to upstage Junichi, finally meeting him at his house to talk.

She mounts him again, assuring him she’d rather take his virginity then let him get with Yukana, whom she’s secretly in love with. Ranko’s kinda all over the place, and Kitamura Eri does fine voice work, she doesn’t have much to work with here.

I guess I should be glad Ranko’s not in love with Junichi, but he still gets off the hook way too easily. Indeed, Junichi moves at the speed of a sloth throughout this episode, which I suppose is par for the course considering his self-image as a loser, but it’s still pretty annoying.

This week he did next to nothing—other than halfheartedly trying to tell off the guys hitting on Yukana, which failed—to deserve all the attention he’s getting. Next week it appears will involve more Kashii Yui, who was obviously going to be more than just the Miss Perfect Junichi believes her to be. She looks particularly pissed watching Ranko tease him.

Hajimete no Gal – 02

After Yame accepted his request to go out with her, Junichi is in a bit of a daze, not sure whether it’s all a prank or not, considering what he believes to be the logical fallacy of a cute gal dating the likes of him. His loser friends commit to standing by him come what may, only to immediately turn their backs on him when he receives a sexy selfie from Yame.

Despite this, Shinpei still offers advice to Junichi: take Yame to karaoke, which is how popular kids “get a room” for sex. He elaborates on the process with his “Karaoke XXX Rule”, before “dying” from exasperation that karaoke parlors have become indistinguishable from dens of ill repute.

Later that morning, Yame proves she’s not messing around by announcing to the entire class that she’s dating Junichi, then fielding questions. Both Kashii Yui and his “little sister” are dumbfounded. Junichi tries to ask her out to karaoke, but never finds the right opportunity until she asks him out after school to that very thing.

Corrupted by Shinpei’s overblown theory about karaoke parlors (which seems to be confirmed by a sign), Junichi is initially weary of their date, but once he sees how much fun Yame is having, he stops overthinking things and has fun himself. To his surprise, she even knows anime songs; the only kind he can sing.

But after Shinpei’s three tenets of the Karaoke XXX Rule are fulfilled (Yame singing a suggestive song; the two singing a duet; Yame removing her sweater), Junichi re-enters his head for a conference with all his various alter-egos, including ‘Good’, ‘Pessimistic’, ‘Horny’, and ‘Cool’, with ‘Cool” him eventually convincing the others that if he’s a true man, he’ll give her a kiss before moving on to sex.

Junichi tries to kiss Yame, only for her to point out an errant hair sticking out of his nose and excuse herself. Out in the hall, she regains her composure, certain Junichi just tried to kiss her. Far from the easy girl for whom sex is no big deal Shinpei, his friends, and Junichi himself believe her to be, Yame isn’t the kind of girl to even kiss someone so easily. She’s more like Junichi than he presently realizes.

Hopefully he’ll find this out in time, and stop interacting with Yame with misconceptions about who and what she is, just as she seems to be embracing him for who he is, not assigning a silly label. As for Yame’s friend Ranko, it appears we’ll soon learn how she feels about this new boyfriend.

Hajimete no Gal – 01 (First Impressions)

Hashiba Junichi is a pathetic loser and knows it. He’s in his second year of high school, saddled with the same trio of even sadder friends in Shinpei, Keigo, and Minoru, who if anything are partially responsible for holding Junichi back from his goal of nabbing a girlfriend and losing his virginity by now.

Note I said “partially”, because the major contributor to Junichi’s lack of success in securing a partner (sexual or otherwise) is himself. His friends truly have no one but themselves, but in the first few minutes Junichi is visited by not one but two “total hotties”: his well-endowed loli childhood friend Shizune, and the ethereally gorgeous academic ace Yui, who comes on pretty dang strong.

And yet Junichi turns Shizune away, still considering her a “little sister” with a “child body” (completely ignoring her huge boobs), and pretty much freezes when Yui talks to him, eager to talk more.

Blame for Jun-kun’s predicament shifts back to his very embarrassing friends—one of whom may be a straight-up pedo—when they brazenly peruse their smut mags in class, shoving a tasty one into his hands. And that’s when the titular Gal, Yame Yukana (God, what a Gal name) appears in Junichi’s life—to look down on him and call him disgusting.

But disgusting and pervy or no, Junichi’s friends have hatched a plan, and he’s their guinea pig (democracy in action): They choose him—tacitly acknowledging is the least repulsive of their sorry little band—to ask the Gal out, since, in their virgin minds, she’ll presumably put out without much fuss. (Junichi’s hastily-conjured sex fantasy with Yukana is suitably ecchi, with all the naughty bits covered by carefully-manicured hands).

One planted false love letter later, Junichi finds himself behind the school after class, and to his shock, Yukana has deigned to give her admirer an audience. After some rather lengthy, 7-grade setup and introductions, this is where the episode comes into its own, as we continue to be privy to every thought that crosses Jun-kun’s mind.

To his continued shock, Yukana is being incredibly patient and open-minded with him, and when he does what his friends said to do and beg on his knees, there’s the sense even she knows this is beneath him—and she barely knows him! From there, Junichi remains in survival mode, doing all he can to avoid an even worse scenario than rejection: the reputation for being a prevert and/or virgin for the rest of his high school life.

But as was demonstrated at the start of the ep with Shizune and Yui, Junichi is in a far better position than he realizes. That’s because, despite all logic, Yukana likes him, and agrees to go out with him. Or maybe not despite all logic; perhaps she’s as lonely—and trapped in her present persona (her a gal, him a loser)—as he is.

The art is crude and the boobs are over-sized, and Junichi’s friends can be really annoying, but once this episode got into gear, I was really enjoying the passionate yet puerile discussion and display of sheer teenaged sex-and-bitterness-fueled awfulness that is high school.

And hey, sometimes it’s just satisfying to see a loser win for once, even if he’s only a loser because he believes himself to be one. It looks like both sides are poised to get something out of this, so let’s see where it goes, shall we?