krofire

Studio NAZ’s 2017 High School romance show disappoints. It is probably unfair to compare it to 2022’s “My Dress up Darling” but it is instructive to note just how unsophisticated and plain silly it is by comparison. It didn’t have to be this way yet it is an example of a good idea completely wasted. CloverWorks’ later show has the character Marin, a gyaru girl with a passion for cosplay, falling in with the shyest boy in school leading to romance. It is a textbook case of how such an idea can be made to work so well. “My First Girlfriend is a Gal” also features such a gyaru character Yukana Yame (note the term “gal” in this cultural context is simply a transliteration of the term “gyaru”). She too is beautiful. Her class mate Junichi Hashiba seems to have little or no hope of getting a girlfriend so his friends set him up into a situation where he is forced to ask poor Yame out. Nobody is expecting this to end in anything other than humiliation for the boy yet, to everyone’s surprise, she agrees to date him. Even more alarmingly, she throws herself heart and soul into being Junichi’s girlfriend - much to the horror and surprise of her friends and his. This mindless comedy pretty much writes itself and the two friendship groups end up at the beach during summer vacation. Romance is truly blossoming between the unlikely couple. Perfect. The relationship is relaying purely from the boy’s perspective and Yame’s character is never fleshed out. She remains a mystery as an enormous amount of airtime is wasted instead on the pervy, unfunny and stupid exploits of Junichi’s male friends. (A note about the English Dub: avoid. Stick to the sub. The direction given to the voice artist Jamie Marchi seems to have been to portray Yame is a dumb blond in the style of the character Lumpy Space Princess from “Adventure Time”. This is utterly appalling. The original Japanese depicts her voice characterisation in far more sympathetic tones making the show much better. This is not saying much though.)

Half way through the show suddenly pivots with the intervention of a new antagonist. A middle school class mate (and ‘pretty boy’) friend of Yame suddenly turns up. Suddenly Junichi’s world is turned upside down as he feels terribly insecure by this new threat. Of course, he is outwardly jealous of his girlfriend’s attention towards her old friend. She, in turn, disregards Junichi feelings and acts coldly towards him. As his friends attempt to console him, he spots Yame out in public alone with the pretty boy. In a fit of despair, he concludes that Yame was only ever messing with him and there never was any true relationship between them. The resulting fight leaves both saddened and their friends rally around to help. At this point a more sophisticated show would have started to answer the question that lingered since episode one: why did Yame agree to date Junichi? It seems absolutely key to the plot and such a moment of profound honesty and revelation would transform the relationship. To our surprise this doesn’t happen. Various friends tell Junichi that the fight is all his fault. None share why. He just accepts the blame uncritically. You would be forgiven for thinking you have missed something. But no, the plot completely fluffs this critical point in the show. After being convinced he is to blame he runs into the “pretty boy” love rival. Rather than being a genuine threat to his relationship the rival is revealed to be a crude, misogynist, stereotype. The audience is now asked believe that he really just uses girls for sex and enjoys breaking up other people’s relationship. What gives? If he really was such a shallow thug why did Yame spend time with him? Nothing about these plot twists rings remotely true. It is all so unconvincing. Love rivals are so scary simply because they are convincing replacements for YOU. This is why it was fundamentally important for the plot to uncover Yame’s motivations. This never happens. In the end the two go on a date, kiss, and that’s your happy ending. The audience is still none the wiser. Worst ending ever. In just ten episodes it is all over. Seasons normally runs for twelve giving you the impression that two episodes simply went missing. A train wreck of a show. It should never have been committed to the small screen without a major rewrite.