B Gata H Kei: Yamada's First Time

If you're looking for love advice, this probably isn't the best place to get it. If anything it's a perfect example of what NOT to do, but that's why it's compelling. It's not the successes of teenage romance, but the failures that tell the story of what it is to be in love at a young age.


Synopsis
Yamada is hot to trot, and she knows it. Incredibly vain and without a modest bone in her body, she enters high school with a singular goal: have sex with a hundred dudes by graduation. The catch is she doesn't want anyone to know that she's a virgin and inexperienced. She embarks on a quest to find the most unobjectionable "cherry boy" to practice on.

Coincidentally, she finds a guy who is about as average-looking as they come, and wouldn't you know it he's a virgin too (At fifteen years old, one would hope so). Kazuki Kosuda is a shutter bug, and pretty much a run of the mill teenage boy. He becomes the object of her hair-brained schemes to seduce guys, which usually doesn't go how she planned to comedic effect.

After gaining a rival or two, and learning about the intricacies of dating, Yamada finds out what a confusing and tumultuous mess being a teenager is.

Analysis & Impressions
If you're reading this and interested in watching the show, chances are you're expecting some naughty stuff, and you'll have it. Most of the humor is related to talking about boobies, sex, or seduction. Some of my favorite jokes in the series are right there in the first episode, too. Yamada's awkward attempts to get laid paired up with Kosuda's obliviousness makes for great comedy and absurd situations. For that reason, I can't really take all the sex stuff seriously. The whole thing is so obtuse that you forget we're still talking about minors trying to get it on.

Though, what I like most about the show has nothing to do with sex humor (I mean, it helps). If that's all you pay attention to, you could easily write off B Gata H Kei as some pervy, ecchi comedy. Beneath the surface lies a number of talking points about relationships. It's about the expectations people have about romance and the various pitfalls of dating. Nearly every character is guilty of them, and I can relate to their plight with real world experience. Everyone I've ever known (myself included) have these ideas of what dating and falling in love is supposed to be like. Obviously, Yamada's expectation is that you get to do the nasty all the time. The show explores what effect these expectations have on the characters and their relationships, and often it creates more problems than if people were simply honest and open with each other.

Britney Karbowski is one of my favorite dub VA's, and this role is among the reasons why. Yamada's initial tenacity followed immediately by the sheer terror of her actions sell the character. Greg Ayres also gets a really fun role, but I won't spoil it here. Suffice it to say he salutes in the morning.

For all the things the anime does right, there are a couple of annoyances in the series I'm not real keen on. This sounds really petty, but there's a bouncing sound in scene transitions that kind of grained on me after a while. It might have been kinda funny the first or second time, but after the fifth or sixth time in a single episode, it's just distracting and annoying. The second point of contention is the supporting cast, called "Ero Deities". They act as the voice in the characters' heads that vocalize their moods at the moment. I'm not terribly fond of them, but your impressions may vary.

Who is it for?
If you're not offended by dirty jokes, I say go for it. For all my talk of relationship discussions, the show is too ridiculous to take seriously, anyway. Along the way, you might find yourself reflecting on your own experiences as a teenager looking for love, but mostly you'll be laughing at Kosuda getting a boner at the pool.

Availability
B Gata H Kei is 12 episodes long and available to stream at JustDubs

 

It's a good one for sure - surprised me, anyway. I'm part of a local anime club that shows anime at a bar. For February we had a few anime on the table we were considering, when the only girl spoke up and suggested Yamada. We ended up showing it even though we weren't sure about showing it in public, and it went over great.