Episodes 1-3 – Bad Girl

When I found out I would be reviewing Bad Girl for ANN, I was like, “hell yeah! A whole anime about Suda51’s best bit character in No More Heroes! I’m gonna crank up her theme to get in the right headspace and have a great time with this one!” And then I watched the anime and discovered that I was in store for 12 episodes of a soft-yuri romantic comedy. Though not what I was hoping for, I can vibe with this show and found enough that I liked to make up for the bits that didn’t work for me.

What is perhaps the most interesting about Bad Girl‘s first three episodes is how quickly it abandons its central premise. The conceit of the show is that smol bean Yuu Yuutani is crushing hard on the head of the public morals committee, Atori Mizutori, and is concerned that she’s too unremarkable to catch her crush’s attention. When Atori approaches Yuu’s delinquent-looking friend, Suzu Suzukaze, at the entrance gate of their school one morning, Yuu becomes fixated on the idea of adopting a “Bad Girl” persona so that the public morals committee head will have to talk to her.

This plan fails immediately as Yuu is far too adorbs to be a convincing delinquent. However, Yuu has now made enough of an impact on her crush that they can talk regularly, and hijinks between them and a few of their other classmates ensue! The best of these wacky endeavors include some wild misunderstandings around things like gift giving, Yuu accidentally watching puppy play (or maybe bestiality themed) porn after misinterpreting a recommendation from Suzu, and Yuu requesting degradation ASMR from Atori to cure a case of hiccups that she thinks will kill her.

The humor in each episode is more often derived from miscommunications between the central cast, rather than Yuu trying and failing to convince Atori that she’s a “Bad Girl” as the opening minutes seem to set up, and I’m largely okay with this fake-out. Usually, I find humor and situations derived from miscommunication in these kinds of romcoms to be trite and frustrating. I can’t connect with characters or find value in their relationships if most of their interactions are just misunderstandings that the writer feels will be the funniest or create the most drama. However, in these first three episodes of Bad Girl, the miscommunications feel more genuine and believable from the show’s teenage cast.

It’s refreshing to watch a romcom where characters are pretty expressive about their feelings for one another, in ways big and small. However, because all of these feelings and situations are so new and important to them, they stumble in the execution to humorous effect. Like when Yuu accidentally propositions Atori to engage in puppy play, the latter being extremely into the idea, and then Yuu being immediately overwhelmed by the situation she unintentionally created. A lot of the jokes in Bad Girl are like this: cute, fun, and grounded in teenagers being little idiots and in different places with their sexual proclivities and ability to express intimacy.

I’m also curious to see how these character dynamics develop as the show goes on. Yuu and Suzu have the “childhood friends whose bedroom windows look into each other’s rooms” trope going on, and Suzu has a crush on the oblivious Yuu. The third episode also tees up an internal conflict in Atori, who seems to think that she’s less worthy of love and admiration than Yuu thinks she is. None of these lingering plot points feel incredibly weighty, or like Bad Girl is set to offer some inspired insight into the human condition, but I appreciate that these characters are more than just vehicles for gags and have some degree of interiority.

That being said, not all of the jokes worked for me, and one character in particular feels especially one-dimensional. Rura Ruriha, a narcissist streamer, is introduced in the second episode. While the gag in that episode’s stinger, where she turns to her livestream audience for intellectual validation and her army of simps instead responds that they’re only watching her because she’s hot, was funny, her whole “tell me I’m pretty” schtick to Yuu in the third episode was excruciating to sit through. There is a wealth of characters in anime who are memorable and hilarious because they’re annoying, but this kind of character only works well in small doses, and Rura had overstayed her welcome by the halfway point of her proper introduction.

I also need to mention that, even with the jokes landing more often than not, a lot of the other parts of Bad Girl are serviceable to forgettable. The Japanese voice action is just solid enough not to get in the way of the jokes, the music is memorable when it plays into a gag but otherwise largely unremarkable, the animation is limited but doesn’t distract from the comedy, and the OP and ED are fine. Bad Girl also has a lot of competition in the comedy and yuri genres this season, with titles like CITY The Animation, Grand Blue Dreaming, New Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt, Dress-Up Darling, and There’s No Freaking Way I’ll Be Your Lover! Unless…… doing a lot of what Bad Girl does; and usually better. While comparison is the death of joy, there are only 24 hours in a day, and I’m not sure I’d recommend watching these episodes over any of the titles listed above.

In a vacuum, these episodes of Bad Girl have solid jokes and characters with just enough depth to keep me interested in what they do next. Every character is a little weirdo and/or idiot, and I think seeing them continue to bounce off each other will be both entertaining and lead to a more complete characterization of each. While these first three episodes have tempered my expectations, I’m confident about having a fun time watching these characters feed into each other’s quirky indecencies.

Rating:

Lucas DeRuyter is the defacto 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.