Review of My First Girlfriend is a Gal

2/10

Not Recommended

September 13, 2017

7 min read

10 reactions

So before I start this review, I wanna talk about the manga. I was convinced by a friend I trusted to pick this up because the source had good romance and ecchi, and I've been looking for something to fill those criteria. After watching a decent amount of this adaptation, I was really not impressed by what it had to offer. That same friend continued to tell me the source was good, so I picked it up to see how different it was from the anime. I'll just tell you here that most of the issues I'll talk about are fixed in the manga, sodon't let this anime deter you from trying it yourself. I have the manga at 8 currently and I recommend it to everyone to at least give it a chance, whether you have or have not watched the adaptation.

Spoiler Free Review

If I had to describe Hajimete no Gal in a sentence, I would call it a pseudo harem pretending to be a romantic comedy. But I have more than a sentence so to add onto that, this show is an utter mess. What seemed like a show that might have had actual romance and chemistry, disappoints everyone by failing to provide any progression for the couple, focusing instead on characters that no one wants to see. Harems can be good if the characters are all likeable and funny, and if the drama and romance are entertaining, but Hajimete fails to provide a noteworthy cast or any development that could muster more than a sigh of exasperation.

The only decent character in this series is Yukana Yame, our main girl. A gyaru on the outside but a sweetheart on the inside, you can't help but like her as she plays the role of the girlfriend pretty well. Our main Junichi Hashiba is not that bad either, he's pathetic but he tries his best, however he has a bunch of voices in his head, acting as characters, that freak out over every little situation that involves a girl. It's incredibly annoying when you're trying to watch something only to be interrupted by a bunch of imaginary idiots having a meltdown over kissing someone. The rest of our cast could honestly burn horrifically and I wouldn't care. Let's start with the worst offenders, the friends of Junichi. Their only real role is to provide comic relief as we laugh at how pathetic they are cause they're virgins. Funny right? Not really. Minoru Kobayakawa is a lolicon, and this fact is shoved into our face every chance possible as we see him drooling over little girls to the point that it's actually creepy. They take it way too far, pushing it past the point of being funny and just making us hate every scene he's part of. Shinpei Sakamoto is an otaku and a pervert, but he acts like an expert on women, throwing around bullshit facts and advice about dating. The worst part is that our main usually believes him, causing him to mess up as a boyfriend. Shinpei drags down the romance for the sake of a try-hard attempt at humour, ruining what a lot of people are watching this show for. Keigo Ishida is not really a major offender, but he doesn't provide much either. He's just there to back up Shinpei, look down on Minoru and act as the third pathetic stooge. The rest of the girls are only thrown in for drama and fanservice, they have no other purpose to them. They also take away valuable screen time that could have been used to develop the relationship between Junichi and Yame, but are instead used for generic harem antics. In fact, the show uses two of its character, Ayumi Uesaka and Kokoro Shiina, as voices for the next episode previews. You barely see or hear from them except to act as off screen friends of Yame, their only reason to exist is to complain about how little we see of them at the end of each episode.

Most of the drama is only there to make our main Junichi look like a decent person, even though the show also continues to portray him as pathetic and sad. A situation happens between Junichi and another character that forces our main to either defend Yame or comply with the whims of the other character. Of course, Junichi will always choose his girlfriend, showing the audience how great of a boyfriend he is. At least, that's whats supposed to happen. This type of drama would be nice, except the execution and repetitiveness of it causes the show to fail at making any real impact on the romance or the audience. It causes most episodes to feel cheap and cringy, and it also pushes the focus of the anime onto the supporting cast, causing us to hate them even more. What are suppose to be our mains are dragged through the dirt as we're expected to laugh at the ridiculousness and stupidity that the side characters create when all we want is an actual reason to why a couple was established in the first place when they barely get touched on.

Now for an anime to do ecchi well, the art style and animation must look great. However, as a way to make us hate the show even more, they can't even do this right. Mistakes which can only be described as lazy are littered throughout the anime, pulling away our attention from the story and turning it into a game of "What did they animate wrong this episode?" The fanservice is mostly from the wild imagination of Junichi or from generic beach and hot spring scenes. I for one do not mind when an episode decides to focus on tits and ass, especially if it's an ecchi, but none of the ecchi scenes look particularly nice or fit in well with the rest of the scene, and it usually focuses on characters that we don't care for. There are times where the ecchi actually looks great and don't feel out of place, but these are usually all in the head of our main and are buried under the terrible elements of the show.

Hajimete no Gal is a train wreck. It takes a perfectly decent manga and throws away everything good about it, turning it into a love letter to bad harems. If you've already watched this anime, pick up the manga so you can see exactly how different the two are. If you have yet to start it, stay away from this at all costs. Forget this exists and just read the source.

Thanks for reading, send any feedback if you have any!