Name: Cheap Laughs: Scraping the Bottom of the Ecchi Barrel
Item: My First Girlfriend is a Gal
Rating: 39
Author: ValiQuez

Waifra

Cheap Laughs: Scraping the Bottom of the Ecchi Barrel · Waifora

>“Nobody dies a virgin… life fucks us all.” – attributed to Kurt Cobain

My First Girlfriend Is a Gal isn’t just dumb ecchi fluff; it’s the kind of show that feels weirdly mean-spirited toward its own audience and cast at the same time. I’m not against fanservice or trashy comedies on principle, but this one manages to be lazy, gross, and boring all at once, which is honestly impressive in the worst way.

The setup is as generic as it gets: Junichi is a horny, insecure high school loser whose main goal in life is to finally lose his virginity. Egged on by his equally pathetic friends, he confesses to the “gal” Yukana as a dare, expecting to be humiliated, and instead she actually says yes. On paper, you could do something with that—play with stereotypes, have him grow up, let Yukana be more than a walking fetish—but the anime takes the cheapest possible route every time.

The biggest problem is the way the guys are written. Junichi’s friend group is basically a collection of walking red flags: perverts whose entire personality is “I want to see girls naked” and, in one case, a straight-up pedophile whose “joke” is being into elementary school kids. That’s it. That’s the bit. He even ends up working at a daycare, and the show treats it like a gag instead of the horror scenario it actually is. It’s not edgy, it’s not clever, it’s just gross—and Junichi still hangs out with them like it’s no big deal, which makes him hard to root for even when the script wants you to feel bad for him.

What makes it more frustrating is that you can tell the show expects a chunk of the audience to self-insert into Junichi. That’s how these kinds of harems usually work: you’re supposed to see yourself as the unlucky, awkward guy suddenly surrounded by hot girls. But when the “relatable” male perspective is this warped—reducing women to boobs, panties, and “points” in some imaginary score counter—it stops feeling like parody and starts feeling like the show is laughing at you for being here. It ends up insulting the characters and the people watching.

The girls don’t get treated much better. Yukana, somehow, comes out of this the least awful: she’s actually kind, patient, and has the emotional range of a real person when the script remembers she exists beyond fanservice shots. But the rest of the female cast is buried under exaggerated designs and one-note gimmicks—like the loli with absurdly huge breasts that’s uncomfortable to look at more than anything else. Scenes constantly pause to show bodies, angles, and outfits that feel less like natural character moments and more like “we need to kill thirty seconds, quick, throw in another fantasy of Yukana in lingerie.”

There’s an attempt at a “serious” romance thread between Junichi and Yukana, and honestly, that might be the most painful part because you can see what could’ve been. If the show had committed to that and toned down the worst of the friend group, it might’ve landed as a messy but decent gyaru romcom. Instead, every time it tries to be sincere, it undercuts itself with forced drama, cartoon villains with zero nuance, or yet another gag about Junichi’s horniness. It’s like it doesn’t trust its own characters enough to let them act like real people for more than thirty seconds at a time.

Even as pure fanservice, it’s weak. The art is loud and glossy but not actually attractive, and the censoring makes a lot of scenes feel even more awkward than they already are. If your show lives and dies on lewd gags, the least you can do is make those gags look good—but Hajimete no Gal settles for “busy” instead of “appealing.” Strip out the cheap shots and you’re left with a generic harem that can’t even deliver basic chemistry or convincing comedy.

In the end, this isn’t the kind of “so bad it’s fun” trash you throw on for a laugh. It’s the kind of trash that feels like it’s wasting your time and quietly sneering at everyone involved while doing it. There are plenty of ecchi and harem shows that know exactly what they are and still manage to be charming or genuinely funny; this just isn’t one of them. Whatever you’re looking for—fanservice, romance, comedy—you can find a better version somewhere else.