English Dub Review: Higehiro: After Being Rejected, I Shaved and Took in a High School Runaway “The Teenage Girl Beneath the Lamplight”

Overview: 26-year-old salaryman, Yoshida, (Alex Hom) takes in a high school runaway, Sayu (Jill Harris), with him soon learning that there may be more to her than he thought. 

Our Take: In the lineage of anime names with the longest titles in the world explicitly stating what the show is, this one is…exactly that. A salaryman takes in a high school runaway, who is a teenage girl beneath the lamplight like the episode name claims, and he does indeed shave. It’s the little ways this episode shocked me that made my day with this one. 

Yoshida, the consenting adult in the situation, is more mature and sensible in not creeping on a teenage girl, despite the fact he is attracted to Sayu. As a result, it is an upstanding positive change-up from others that would throw such age gaps under the rug or use merely for comedic relief, as charming as that can be. Sayu is nothing groundbreaking as a character yet but she’s sweet and charming enough, despite the glaring cliches in always giving respectful monikers, and one who is all too eager to throw her body at him for housing and assure her parents don’t care about her running away. However, those aspects of her nicely hint at there being more to her in being alone overall or other boys not being respectful of her based on her reactions to how Yoshida treats her. 

Yoshida and Sayu have a good chemistry, especially as he slowly becomes more attracted towards and realizes she is more capable and smarter than he thought. Yoshida being resistant to having any sexual relationship with her nicely touches on the difficult moral situation he is in, making how he will push through that problem intriguing, in that they will almost undoubtedly end up together by the end of this series.