Streaming: Crunchyroll
Episodes: 12
Source: Manga
Episode Summary: After years of knowing each other, Naoya asks his childhood friend Saki to go out with him. Their relationship is very… competitive and passionate, mostly due to Naoya’s extreme sincerity. Naoya may seem like an uncomplicated man, but his situation becomes uncharacteristically messy once a second girl, the quiet Nagisa, also confesses her love to him. Naoya is taken, but Nagisa is so incredibly cute. What’s a guy to do?
Naoya’s answer is to beg Saki to let him date both her and Nagisa, and after some protracted begging she relents. The three then begin living together under one roof (Naoya’s parents are out of the picture). At first things don’t seem half bad – Saki hates chores and Nagisa’s a great cook. But when the discussion turns toward the girls’ sexual expectations, suddenly they find themselves in the middle of another blow-up argument. Is this an arrangement that can actually work?
Impressions: As a long-time member of the local geek community, the idea of polyamorous relationships are nothing new to me. I’ve had several friends who’ve been in these kinds of relationships, and learned that it’s the sort of thing that works as long as there’s respect and communication between all parties.
To claim that Girlfriend, Girlfriend in any way represents actual poly relationships would be misguided, in my opinion. While Naoya is clearly the exact opposite of a liar (in fact, he’s truthful to a fault), his quickly-complicating situation with Saki and Nagisa doesn’t seem to be one built from the ground up on expectations, boundaries, and respect. All the characters are just winging it as each new issue arises, and the girls seem to be settling for conditions that they aren’t comfortable with just so that they can be together with… *looks at notes* some goofy dude.
I feel a great deal of sympathy toward Saki, because I imagine it’s her sense of security has been shaken the most. While polyamory shouldn’t be condemned, there’s also no shame in preferring monogamy for oneself. It feels to me like Saki is continually being backed into a corner to accept something that she doesn’t really want and wouldn’t have expected or sought out on her own.
Nagisa, for her part, seems easy-going and accepting of Naoya’s proposition, but I can’t help but wonder if it comes from a place of lacking in self-respect. She mentions spending incredible amounts of time every day exercising, improving her skin, learning to cook… all admirable pursuits if that’s what you like to do, but in order to snag a particular man? Honestly, I personally don’t think someone like Naoya is worth going through such drastic measures in order to entice. But that’s just me.
Pros: I was surprised by the fact that the scenario here didn’t come across as immediately gross. There’s an element of fantasy and wish-fulfillment to the idea of having multiple girlfriends; I think it would be silly to try to deny that. I’m sure it will be surprising to everyone out there that I’m not usually very impressed by wish-fulfillment scenarios aimed at straight men. Yet so much of the success of this type of scenario rides on the personality of the male character himself. I believe that this series could also have been entertaining if Naoya was a complete and utter cad; the show is ridiculous enough as it is that making him more extreme in that direction would likely be really funny. As it is, though, I think the scenario benefits from his sincerity/stupidity; it’s hard to really hate someone who’s just clueless.
Cons: To be honest, I think the biggest downer here is just that this… “situation” doesn’t do justice to real-world polyamorous relationships. That’s not surprising; anime to a large extent isn’t in the business of relationship realism, especially when the tone is meant to be comedic. Comedy can bring out the worst traits of a potential story, because it often relies on unrealistic and downright mean-spirited behavior on the part of its characters (likely why I don’t enjoy a lot of anime comedy). Anyway, everything here just felt a little slimy when all was said and done.
Content Warnings: Pushy physical contact. Mild fanservice. Slapstick humor. Sexual humor.
Would I Watch More? – Nah. To be honest this episode wasn’t quite objectionable in the way I thought it might be, but so far I’ve found all of the characters to be insufferable and I don’t see that righting itself with the addition of even more girlfriends.