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My First Girlfriend is a Gal
Episode 4

by Theron Martin,

How would you rate episode 4 of
My First Girlfriend is a Gal ?
Community score: 3.9

To some extent, this fourth episode is an exercise in irony. That doesn't mean that it's veering into any higher-class territory, but at least it's making an effort to be a little more than the most base kind of romantic comedy.

The clearest example of irony comes at the beginning, with the revelation that Yui Kashii, the ultra-nice “perfect girl” that Junichi thought was out of his league, is not at all what she appears to be. All the adoration that has been heaped upon her over time has clearly gone to her head, giving her the attitude that everyone around her is just a nameless minion in her service; she even imagines a girl who waters the flowers for her as her maid. In her twisted view Junichi is one of the few people who actually has a face, but it's only that of a loyal dog wrapped around her little finger. So it's understandable that she gets thrown off when he starts going out with Yukana, implying that she's no longer the perfect center of the universe. This means that she needs to win Junichi back over to being her fanboy by any means necessary, so she goes all-out to play up to his interests. Unfortunately, she makes three miscalculations: she doesn't figure on Ranko getting in the way, Junichi is actually loyal enough to Yukana to resist her appeal (despite being severely tempted), and Junichi's glasses-wearing friend happens to recognize her from the alternate-identity online videos, allowing Ranko to match Yui's blackmail of Junichi with blackmail of her own.

That last twist is the most surprising, although it's still obvious from the first moment that the videos appear. Yui apparently dresses up (wig, color contacts, make-up and all) as a gal named Boa and streams videos of herself being a bitchy queen bee. Her nice-girl personality turning out to be a façade is a staple anime twist at this point, but hooking it up with the alternate-online-identity gimmick is a little fresher. This means that she isn't at all genuinely interested in Junichi, but sees him more as a stray who needs to be brought back in line – unlike Yukana, whose affection seems to be genuine, seemingly the most genuine girl in the story period. Seeing Ranko step up to bail Junichi out of trouble in order to protect Yukana's happiness was a welcome touch after her more ribald behavior last episode, but Junichi's friends contributing to thwart Yui is surprising too, despite all the grief they've given him over him dating Yukana. That leads to the other big moment of irony in the episode: their claim that they won't reveal what they know about Yui's alternate identity because they're “gentlemen.” Given how they've been portrayed so far, that got as much of a chuckle out of me as their epic failure to look cool in jumping down onto the roof. In another nice touch, I liked that Yui was sharp enough to understand what she had to do to get out of the situation without the group spelling it out for her.

With two of the prospective harem members getting not only shot down but also proven to not be so hung up on Junichi romantically within the series' first third, how much of a harem series this will actually be is now called into question. I'm not ruling out that Yui will either be won over by Junichi or continue to make attempts to seduce him without falling in love, and Nene is definitely still in the mix – the final scene makes it look like she's getting a “gal” make-over too. (She's apparently the pink-haired girl in the closer.) However, this is actually starting to shade more in the direction of a more monogamous romcom instead, and I think it could survive that way.

Rating: B-

My First Girlfriend is a Gal is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.


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