English Dub Review: My First Girlfriend Is a Gal “My First Serious Gal”

I think “My First Delusional Gal” would be more appropriate of a title for this episode.

Spoilers Below

This shouldn’t have been a surprise to me but the episode structure appears to be going through each subsection of gal and developing each of the girls to fit that category. Last week’s episode, “My First Spray-On Gal”, focused on Ranko who would be best classified as a Ganguro gal, namely a gal who is known for spray on tans and high focus on fashion. Today’s episode is all on Yui Kashī, Junichi’s classmate and at first glance the atypical popular girl, but as the episode reveals she is a gal too, a serious gal in particular. But in more traditional terms Kashī looks similar to a bibinba gal which is characterized by the use of more gold and jewelry utilized in her design.

Researching a bit on the different gals in Japanese culture almost makes up for the fact that the show is getting on my nerves more and more. Firstly, and I will say this every week to make it clear, Junichi’s friends are the worst. They add nothing to My First Girlfriend is a Gal but American Pie shtick to the proceedings and we already get enough of that from just Junichi himself. I can say without a doubt the girls are the most interesting aspect of the show and that is because they are dynamic even if they are archetypes. They bounce off Junichi and bring about conflict that brings change in the story. Junichi’s friends may have forced him into his romance with Yukana but since then have acted as more an afterthought.

For example, the episode today reveals that Kashī, who up until now has acted as the well behaved good girl is a bad girl gal with the complete delusion that everyone is her servant. I do mean delusion as she speaks her evil speak inside her head where she envisions people as nameless entities, servants or pets in Junichi’s case. Now today Kashī is on the war path to reclaim her pet from Yukana, not out of love for Junichi but because she sees him as property. It’s a more fun take on the good bad girl trope, having her think these degrading things about people but when spoken she comes across like her gal persona, manipulative, possessive and most of all bratty.

In the end, it is Kashī and Junichi that carry this episode with their fun chemistry together as hopeless perverted romantic and possessive psycho. But it really becomes apparent here how useless Junichi’s friends are to everything when we bring up Kashī’s double life as a gal. Kashī performs live streams as her gal persona BoA and it is Junichi’s friends who discover this first but what do they do with this information? Discuss it amongst themselves as Junichi is dragged off by Kashī, who in stream showed hostility towards him for ignoring her for Yukana. It has to be Ronko who comes in and reveals the information to save Junichi. In that series of events, the friends don’t even need to be a factor in the story. Here is how I would write it.

Like in the episode proper, Junichi is researching/ogling at the breasts of gals so that he can learn more about them apart from gals like Yukana and Ronko when he comes across BoA’s stream. She keeps her very juvenile but authority filled demeanor and words from someone like her pushes Junichi to be more assertive with Yukana to be a man for her. Enter in Kashī who is being assertive and manipulative to win her pet back and Junichi, under the advice of ironically BoA, is being more a gentleman to be liked by more girls and to be seen favorably by Yukana. In that setup, Junichi has a more active role in revealing Kashī is BoA, Yukana gets a more manifested role in proceedings, and everything else can remain the same apart from the inclusion of Junichi’s terrible friends.

The series is remaining on the same American Pie level of maturity and overused perversion humor while it is with the guys. If the series was just about a nervous pervert getting thrust into this subsection of female Japan culture then that would have been far more interesting, funny and worth your time. We’ll see how the next gal fairs in the series as one girl return, with a new look but same 12-year-old like body and basketball tits.