(Adapted from my AniList review)
Don't you just hate it when a love that was already unobtainable gets even further away even when certain circumstances bring you closer? In what way, you ask? Why, that love becoming your stepsister, of course! Huh? Not enough for you? Okay, how about, while having feelings for that girl, having a one-night stand with another girl that turns out to be her younger sister, and now, SHE'S your stepsister, too? Congratulations! Your life is now a soap opera with the same premise as the anime we're going over today. I read some of the manga of said anime before it came out to prepare myself a bit for what was to come, but I never got around to actually watching the anime until two years after it premiered. One thing led to another, however, and here I am now, having gone through this so-called "dumpster fire" in just three days and about to dump my thoughts onto any unsuspecting reader who comes across this.
Lads, ladies, and non-binaries, here is my review of "Domestic Girlfriend", known in Japanese as "Domestic na Kanojo".
Domestic Girlfriend follows the trials and tribulations of Natsuo Fujii, a high school student and aspiring novelist with a huge crush on his teacher, Hina Tachibana. Unfortunately, he knows that his love will never be, as not only is she a teacher who claims to see him as a child, but there are rumors floating around that she already has a boyfriend. One day, when invited to a mixer, he sneaks out with one of the girls at the mixer, Rui Tachibana, and because of Rui's desire to know what sex is like, the two of them lose their virginities to each other. You would think that their association with each other would end with this simple one-night stand, right? WRONG! You see, Natsuo's widowed father soon gets remarried to a woman with two daughters of her own, and those daughters just so happen to be Hina and Rui!
From there, to put it one way, emotional chaos ensues.
Now, the story of Domestic Girlfriend is, by no means, bad. At the very least, it isn't boring; it's the kind of story that will keep a viewer watching to the end, even if for no other reason than wanting to see the main characters make a smart decision for once! However, I do have a major issue with the anime's pacing; skipped events I remember reading in the manga getting skipped aside, the story presented in the anime feels like it's going too fast, with little time for the audience to process what happened. For that, I blame whoever thought it would be a good idea to cram 76 chapters of the manga into a 12-episode series. If the anime had gotten a longer runtime - probably 24 episodes, at the very least - the pacing issues could be fixed.
No matter the pace of the story, though, there's no doubt that the characters are at its heart; unfortunately, the main cast is a frustrating one to follow. Perhaps the biggest source of frustration is the protagonist, Natsuo; while he actually seems like a nice guy, which makes it hard to me to say I hate him, most of his actions make me want to yell about how freaking stupid he is being. Neither Rui or Hina are that much better; Rui makes some questionable choices regarding her relationship with Natsuo, and while I can appreciate how Hina tries to go about her own relationship with him, it's hard to know what her true feelings are at times. As for the supporting characters....well, not a lot of time was given to develop them, so I didn't really care about most of them. However, there are quite a few supporting characters, such as Masaki - uh, excuse me, Marie - Kobayashi, who give decent advice to the main characters, and I genuinely appreciated their presence.
The art and animation, done by Diomedea, is solid overall. There were a few moments of still animation that felt unnecessary, and even aside from that, the animation isn't perfect; however, the colors, the backgrounds, and most of the animation was beautiful. The voice acting is solid, as well, although some of the casting choices, while not bad, surprised me; I don't know what I was expecting with Momo Kashiwabara's voice, in particular, but the softness of Haruka Yoshimura's voice for her managed to catch me off-guard, for some reason. The ending song, "Wagamama" by Alisa Takigawa, is more than solid; the song is a beautiful piece that I wouldn't mind listening to multiple times.
My favorite part of Domestic Girlfriend, however, is undoubtedly the opening theme, "Kawaki wo Ameku" by Minami. I had listened to this song several times and even watched the music video over the course of the past two years, and my feelings for it then are the same as they are now; it is a fantastic song with emotional lyrics that could be relatable for most people, sung with the powerful voice Minami has. It was already perfect for an anime like Domestic Girlfriend, and the visual part of the opening only helped it shine. It's clear to see that the animators went all out with this one, from the colors and movements to the visual storytelling that complimented the story of the actual series. I don't know exactly where it would be placed on my top 20 anime openings, but it's somewhere on that list, for sure.
Overall, is Domestic Girlfriend a trainwreck into a dumpster fire? Absolutely. Is it a bad anime? Absolutely not; those with a taste for melodrama and incest will definitely get a kick out of it. Just....be careful when it comes to the kinds of relationships it depicts, okay?
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