Bad Girl

Episode 10

I cannot believe I'm saying this, but after watching episode 10 of Bad Girl, the self-absorbed streamer Rura Ruriha is now my favorite character, and it's making a strong argument for being one of my favorite releases of the season. After all, I can't think of any other anime that has an e-girl streamer rizzing herself up while explaining that socialism is the only ethical economic and political model for society. Even as the animation in this episode is fairly limited even by Bad Girl's standards, I'm loving the more grounded situations, the relationships between these characters are more fleshed out than ever, and this episode features some of the best gags in the series yet.

Rura drops her absolutely correct analysis of the benefits of socialism in the opening sketch for this episode, which features her, Yuu, Suzu, Kiyoraka, and Mizuka studying for exams together in the library. This is the first time Bad Girl has placed so much of its cast in a space together, and they bounce well off of each other. The room's balking at Rura's trick for studying history by pretending they are an isekai protagonist living through given historical events until they realize how effective that trick is at making the material more interesting was also a highlight of this segment. This feels like an elevated version of a conversation that a bunch of real, dorky, and way too online teenagers would have while they procrastinate on studying, and I am here for it.

The second segment of this episode immediately follows the first and has the girls trapped in the school during a power outage brought about by a thunderstorm. Yuu, Kiyoraka, and Suzu leave to find help while Rura and Mizuka stay in the library. The awkward conversation between Rura and Mizuka, who haven't interacted until this point in the show, is hilarious and deeply informed by their personalities. Both of them are socially awkward, with Rura needing an incredible amount of external validation and Mizuka having little to no practice in social interaction with anyone besides her sister. The result is a clunky conversation that's mostly just Mizuka ranting about a topic that Rura does not care about, and it's fun when shows with an ensemble cast lean into some of the cast just not clicking whatsoever.

Yuu, Suzu, and Kiyoraka's outing drives this segment, and it's cute to see smol bean Yuu put into a leadership position that's to Kiyoraka nearly paralyzing fear of thunder and Suzu being far more meek than her appearance and pragmatic personality would suggest. This segment even sees Suzu starting to hint at her romantic feelings for Yuu, with Kiyoraka, ever the bear poker, immediately picking up on and subtly encouraging. There aren't many jokes in this section outside of Yuu being completely out of her depth in both a leadership position and being the target of attraction, but this side of Yuu is a lot more endearing than her fan girling over Atori, and I'm glad we get to see more of it here.

Though Yuu's fangirling does bite her in the ass in the third segment, where Atori unintentionally visits Yuu's house. Having hit it off with Yuu's mother (who anime mom enjoyers are sure to appreciate), Atori is set to hang out in Yuu's room, which is filled with custom-made Atori bodypillows. This segment works super well as Yuu's over-enthused affection for Atori was beginning to grate on me, and she was due to be hoisted by her own petard. The ghost from the previous segment actually being real was a nice touch, as was the sneakily included Yuu bodypillow in Suzu's room.

The post-credits sequence focuses on Suzu begging her classmates for help when an English-speaking tourist assumes she speaks English due to her appearance, and I deeply relate to this awkward situation as a painfully monolingual person. While I wish this episode inspired a few bigger laughs and gave me a bit more to chew on thematically, it's giving me more of what I've wanted from this show: a group of girl-fail, baby queers bouncing off of each other in ways that are cute and compelling. Especially if Suzu's feelings for Yuu become even more overt in the following episodes, I think Bad Girl is building towards a strong finish.

Rating:

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Lucas DeRuyter is the de facto Bad Boy of anime reviews (no one else was using the moniker). He rolls with ANN's This Week and Anime crew, and you can check out his coolest work in his portfolio. You can also find him sticking it to the man on his Bluesky account.

Bad Girl is currently streaming on HIDIVE.