Alzrius
The EN World kitten
So lately I've been watching a lot of anime on Netflix. I've taken to posting my thoughts on them on another forums after I've finished various series, and decided to cross-post them here as well:
Having just completed Yamada's First Time ("B Gata H Kei"), I found it to be a comedy that was much more enjoyable than the one I talked about a few posts back.
A twelve-episode series, Yamada's First Time is about a high school girl who loves sex, to the point of wanting to have a hundred different men as casual sex-friends. Of course, being that she's a virgin who's never even kissed a boy, she's looking for someone with no experience (all the better not to judge her) but who isn't a total loser to have her first time with. She settles on her classmate Kosuda, a shy boy-next-door type; the anime is the story of their relationship.
A sex-comedy, the humor in this series is largely based around the fact that Yamada can't tell the difference between what she thinks she wants and what she actually wants. Because of that, she spends the majority of the series coming on very strong to Kosuda, only to find herself becoming highly embarrassed, uncertain, and anxious when she does so, at which point she immediately retreats from the situation (and usually leaving Kosuda shaken and confused). These situations - Yamada launching some crazy plan to make things get raunchy, and then sputtering out when it actually begins to work - are the core of the show's hijinks.
What makes the series work isn't just the plausible nature of Yamada's cognitive dissonance, however, but also the fact that the relationship between her and Kosuda evolves in a believable manner. By the middle of the series, Yamada has started developing real feelings for Kosuda, though she doesn't realize it. This causes her actions towards him to change, becoming less aggressive as she grows more excited, and thus more embarrassed, at the thought of them doing it; though this also makes her more morose when he doesn't make a move, and highly jealous when other girls look at him.
Yamada's First Time is a very good comedy series, but it's not without its flaws. The major strike against the show is that it's too short. Usually when people complain that "this show was too short" that's a thinly-veiled compliment that it left them wanting to see more, but that's not the case here; the series' brevity actually works against it.
The main reason for that is that the show is three-fourths over when it suddenly starts to bring the supporting cast members out of the proverbial dugout. Prior to that, they were largely background that did little besides acting as foils for the two main characters. It's only in the last fourth of the show that they start getting actively involved in the goings-on. This works to the show's advantage, since it has several of them act in the same "leap before you look" manner as Yamada. Given that Yamada's zaniness was enough to drive the show by itself up to that point, having, in effect, several Yamadas bouncing off of each other ups the ante considerably...and then the show suddenly concludes. It's highly frustrating, since the series reveals that it's fully capable of reaching new heights just before it signs off.
My other complaint is less egregious: while only twelve episodes long, the show takes place over a period of twenty-one months. That's rather awkward, particularly since the time-skips tends to occur in the middle of the series (e.g. a Christmas episode, followed by Valentine's Day episode, followed by a spring school trip episode, etc.). Given that this is the point in the series where Yamada and Kosuda are trying to figure out how to advance their relationship - or what sort of relationship they have to begin with - this leads to the awkward conclusion that there are periods of weeks, or even months, where they were essentially in limbo regarding each other.
There's also a slight tonal shift that occurs just as the series ends. Despite its nature as a sex-comedy, the former is always presented in service of the latter - this is a show that's meant to amuse, rather than arouse. Don't expect to see any fan-service here, besides the occasional flash of cleavage or thighs. By the end of the series, however, the two of them have gotten far enough along that things start to become genuinely naughty, to the point that [sblock]in the last episode, we get multiple scenes of Yamada bare-breasted, with no censoring.[/sblock]
Overall, this was a very good slice-of-life comedy. Never taking itself too seriously, but knowing better than to go completely over the top, Yamada's First Time is awkward for her, but a great deal of fun for the rest of us.
Having just completed Yamada's First Time ("B Gata H Kei"), I found it to be a comedy that was much more enjoyable than the one I talked about a few posts back.
A twelve-episode series, Yamada's First Time is about a high school girl who loves sex, to the point of wanting to have a hundred different men as casual sex-friends. Of course, being that she's a virgin who's never even kissed a boy, she's looking for someone with no experience (all the better not to judge her) but who isn't a total loser to have her first time with. She settles on her classmate Kosuda, a shy boy-next-door type; the anime is the story of their relationship.
A sex-comedy, the humor in this series is largely based around the fact that Yamada can't tell the difference between what she thinks she wants and what she actually wants. Because of that, she spends the majority of the series coming on very strong to Kosuda, only to find herself becoming highly embarrassed, uncertain, and anxious when she does so, at which point she immediately retreats from the situation (and usually leaving Kosuda shaken and confused). These situations - Yamada launching some crazy plan to make things get raunchy, and then sputtering out when it actually begins to work - are the core of the show's hijinks.
What makes the series work isn't just the plausible nature of Yamada's cognitive dissonance, however, but also the fact that the relationship between her and Kosuda evolves in a believable manner. By the middle of the series, Yamada has started developing real feelings for Kosuda, though she doesn't realize it. This causes her actions towards him to change, becoming less aggressive as she grows more excited, and thus more embarrassed, at the thought of them doing it; though this also makes her more morose when he doesn't make a move, and highly jealous when other girls look at him.
Yamada's First Time is a very good comedy series, but it's not without its flaws. The major strike against the show is that it's too short. Usually when people complain that "this show was too short" that's a thinly-veiled compliment that it left them wanting to see more, but that's not the case here; the series' brevity actually works against it.
The main reason for that is that the show is three-fourths over when it suddenly starts to bring the supporting cast members out of the proverbial dugout. Prior to that, they were largely background that did little besides acting as foils for the two main characters. It's only in the last fourth of the show that they start getting actively involved in the goings-on. This works to the show's advantage, since it has several of them act in the same "leap before you look" manner as Yamada. Given that Yamada's zaniness was enough to drive the show by itself up to that point, having, in effect, several Yamadas bouncing off of each other ups the ante considerably...and then the show suddenly concludes. It's highly frustrating, since the series reveals that it's fully capable of reaching new heights just before it signs off.
My other complaint is less egregious: while only twelve episodes long, the show takes place over a period of twenty-one months. That's rather awkward, particularly since the time-skips tends to occur in the middle of the series (e.g. a Christmas episode, followed by Valentine's Day episode, followed by a spring school trip episode, etc.). Given that this is the point in the series where Yamada and Kosuda are trying to figure out how to advance their relationship - or what sort of relationship they have to begin with - this leads to the awkward conclusion that there are periods of weeks, or even months, where they were essentially in limbo regarding each other.
There's also a slight tonal shift that occurs just as the series ends. Despite its nature as a sex-comedy, the former is always presented in service of the latter - this is a show that's meant to amuse, rather than arouse. Don't expect to see any fan-service here, besides the occasional flash of cleavage or thighs. By the end of the series, however, the two of them have gotten far enough along that things start to become genuinely naughty, to the point that [sblock]in the last episode, we get multiple scenes of Yamada bare-breasted, with no censoring.[/sblock]
Overall, this was a very good slice-of-life comedy. Never taking itself too seriously, but knowing better than to go completely over the top, Yamada's First Time is awkward for her, but a great deal of fun for the rest of us.
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