B Gata H Kei
(Yamada’s First Time)

Cast: Yukari Tamura and  Atsushi Abe
Director: Yusuke Yamamoto
Episode Numbers: 12
Genres: Comedy, Romance, Anime
Based On: B Gata H Kei by Yōko Sanri

Rating:  ★★★☆☆
Review Spoilers:   Light
Netflix | Funimation 

I’m going to be honest – this anime is about exactly what you think it’s about. And if you’re sitting there going, “What’s she doing for the first time?” Well, you’re in for a lesson.

B Gata H Kei, or Yamada’s First Time as it’s called in English, is the story of Yamada, a high school freshman who has one wish – to have 100 sex friends. The catch though? She’s a virgin with no experience (insert “You’re a virgin who can’t drive” joke here) and hasn’t even had a boyfriend before. Given that she has no experience, she decides to pursue a “Cherry Boy” (which is once again, exactly what you think it is) to get over her first time so she can move on to the many others she has in mind.

After an awkward encounter with a boy in a bookstore, she realizes that he’s her seat mate in class, and in this moment decides that he is the one who she’ll use.

This is where the real story begins – Yamada literally has no idea what she’s doing and neither does Kosuda. Throughout the series she has all these plans to seduce and entice Kosuda, but since she has no experience and can’t flirt hilarity ensues. The story chronicles almost two years of their relationship and how they both grow and develop.

And that’s where the real message comes in, “Love isn’t something you should hurry.” We meet two different characters who are absolutely dumbfounded when it comes to expressing their feelings and get to watch them grow and learn a lot about love, sex, and themselves from each other.

The great thing is that these characters are surprisingly incredibly relatable. With Kosuda, the viewer can really see themselves in how he is left in situations where he has no idea with what to do with his crush.

When Kosuda laments the fact that a date is going wrong with a person he really likes, we can all feel the second hand embarrassment. He’s supposed to be average, but there’s enough background to him that he becomes a fully fleshed out character – we learn about his hobbies, meet his family, and get some amazingly awkward (yet relatable) scenes where he asks his sister for advice on his relationship.

But the real growth comes from Yamada, the prettiest girl in high school from the second she steps on campus. From Yamada we get to see how scary it really is to start to exert your sexuality. You can be one hundred percent comfortable with it, but in a world where you’re more likely to learn from the media and your friends about sexual experiences (something she constantly talks about in the show) you still can be susceptible to the fears that everyone faces.

On top of that, she really respects herself and doesn’t let anyone treat her in any way less than she deserves. When her rival’s brother comes in and tries to sweep her off her feet, she rejects his advances in front of a crowd of people declaring, “Don’t get fresh with me.”

Yamada knows what she wants and knows how she deserves to be treated, and this is incredibly refreshing to see in a female lead. She’s not a sexpot, she’s simply a teenage girl discovering her sexuality just like anyone in high school.

Of course it’s an anime about a girl who wants to have sex so there’s some fanservice, but it’s not anything out of the ordinary, and for an anime about a girl who wants to have sex there really isn’t that much. Yeah there are the girls with the bigger boobs, a few shots of cleavage and underwear, but if this was live action it’d just be another teen comedy.

Eventually there is a sex scene, but it’s implied more than shown just as any other show would have it. And yes, Yamada’s rival is madly in love with her older brother (who pines for Yamada) but that’s just a trope that’s prevalent in anime and nothing really out of the ordinary.

I honestly didn’t think that I was going to finish this anime when I watched the first episode, let alone enjoy it. But the story is incredibly sweet, the protagonists are so relatable, and in the end it’s just one of the cutest anime I’ve watched in a long time.

I highly recommend watching this anime subbed, since the dub makes Yamada a lot more aggressive and stuck up than she is meant to be. She’s a clueless, head strong teen who just wants to have sex, but when push comes to shove she ends up learning a lot more about who she is and what she wants in life, which is an incredibly important message for girls everywhere, especially in this day and age.

Love isn’t something you should hurry, and taking the time to become comfortable with yourself is even more important.