Domestic Girlfriend

Episode 7

It's only appropriate that Domestic Girlfriend would finally crank the Incest Shenanigans dial up to 11 now that the season has crested its halfway point. When Hina offered to take Natsuo out on a weekend outing last episode, I knew it wasn't so the show could make these relationships less complicated. Lo and behold, by the time “This Is What It Means to Go Out” finishes, Natsuo's life has somehow become even more riddled with sexual neuroses over his two new step-sisters. It's bad news for our protagonists, but good news for anyone who enjoys lurid anime melodrama.

Hina and Natsuo's date starts off innocuously enough, with the two bonding over a beach trip and some good food – they're getting along so well, in fact, that they get mistaken for a couple. When the two stop for a seaside chat on the shoreline though, the atmosphere gets much more serious, and the romantic complication brewing between the two is addressed even more directly than I would have expected. Natsuo shares his novel manuscript, reveals that Hina was the inspiration for its heroine, and before long he's straight up confessing to have been romantically in love with Hina for a long while now. After admitting that she was being intentionally cruel when they last confronted each other in her bedroom, Hina takes all this in, quietly.

I've been critical of Hina's characterization and relationship with Natsuo up to this point, but this scene between the two of them is great, and as a result Hina feels more complex and fully realized than ever. An extended flashback reveals that her relationship with Shuu started much like Natsuo's feelings for Hina. She was a confused and impressionable teenager struggling to feel at home in her own skin, and Shuu was the charming school physician who made her feel wanted and loved. (It's also revealed that Shuu is a ventriloquist and sock-puppet aficionado, which is exceptionally weird and hilarious.) Knowing this, Hina's empathy for Natsuo makes a lot of sense; she understands how much it hurts to be the child rushing into the deep end of an affair that feels good enough to make it easy to ignore everything wrong with the situation.

Now, Hina should simply be able to shut Natsuo down, explain that she doesn't reciprocate his feelings, and that he needs to find a healthier emotional outlet that doesn't involve criminal incest. Instead, she makes a dramatic show of how they might as well walk into the ocean and kill themselves, since being together would mean eventually having to throw away their lives. Being a teacher, Hina ought to know that this is not the ideal method for dissuading a tragically horny teenage boy. Yes, Natsuo acknowledges the dire truth of the matter, but there's a big difference between Hina saying, “I'm don't feel the same way about you, and here are the dozens of reasons we can't ever be together” and “It is society that is keeping us apart, so even if we did become a couple, it would never work out”.

It doesn't help that Rui comes by Natsuo's room later to essentially provide an example of how incest can totally work so long as both parties involved are good at keeping secrets. This is another delightfully soapy exchange, with Rui going from taking a seat on Natsuo's bed, to gripping his hand, to asking him to kiss her in the span of just a minute or two. Natsuo tries to stand by Hina's lesson and offers something about kissing being “special”, but Rui reveals that she knows he tried to kiss Hina when they first moved in together and wonders if Natsuo simply doesn't think Rui is worth the same kind of affection. So naturally, Natsuo and Rui start making out on his bed, and they make a deal that Rui can sneak some more kisses from her brother in secret, since they make both of them feel so good.

There are so many ways this episode could have become a total trainwreck, but Domestic Girlfriend's character writing remains so sharp and affecting that I can't help but cheer for these kids to find some kind of happy ending together. Though in this case, it would probably be best if the “happy endings” remained purely literary in nature. Lord knows that introducing any more literal orgasms into the equation would just make things impossibly awkward for everyone involved. Thankfully, the rest of the episode goes by without incident – it's not like Natsuo spies his drunken older step-sister writhing around on her bed as she lets off some steam with a little good old fashioned self-love or anything like that

Wait, never mind, that's exactly what happens, because this is Domestic Girlfriend we're talking about. If anything, I was surprised that Natsuo didn't hear his sister moan his own name as she masturbated; instead, we learn that she still isn't entirely over Shuu, and why would she be? She just broke off a years-long affair that began when she was too young and dumb to know any better, and now it's looking more and more like the cycle is just going to repeat itself again. There's no evidence to suggest that Hina intentionally left the door open while she bought herself a solo ticket to Pleasure Town, but if this is how she's going to handle living across the hall from a student/younger brother who's hopelessly infatuated with her—well, we've still got five weeks to go in this endless parade of awful decisions, so we might as well restock on our snacks and drinks and enjoy all the drama to come.

Rating: B+

Domestic Girlfriend is currently streaming on Crunchyroll and HIDIVE.

James is an English teacher who has loved anime his entire life, and he spends way too much time on Twitter and his blog.