Introduction
A Girl & Her Guard Dog is a show that opens with a disclaimer:
“This story is a work of fiction. It has no relationship to real-world law.”
My educated guess is that the disclaimer refers to the age of consent in Japan being above 16 as of June 25th 2023. This anime portrays a romantic relationship between a 26 year old and a 15 year old. To any rational person, this would be enough to stop watching. Lock the memory of the show into a box in your brain and never open it again. I watched this anime with my friends, because having other people as backup is the only way to endure the A Girl & Her Guard Dog experience.
Elements of Questionable and Detestable Nature
You thought pedophilia is the only awful part of this anime? Think again! Not only is Keiya almost twice Isaku’s age, but he is also her parent figure. They’re not blood related, so it’s not as bad as it could’ve been, but it’s still a relationship between a girl and a man who was, for the majority of her life, her dad/older brother. He says that himself in one of the later episodes: “I am your mother, father and brother.”
With the authoritative power he has over her, he is extremely controlling. One of the first things Keiya does in the anime is take Isaku’s phone and block a guy she was texting with. He forbids her from talking to guys in her school and outright states that he will not allow any man to take her from him. Later in the show, Keiya’s former lover tells Isaku that he would “not let her go even if she wanted him to.” In the context of Keiya almost raping Isaku (and I say rape because children can’t consent) but Isaku making him stop in the last minute, he says that he won’t be at her beck and call forever, and one day won’t stop. This is all treated as very cute and romantic for some reason, and not as the actions of a psychopath.
The way the story tries to justify Keiya’s actions is insane. Remember that guy whose contact Keiya wanted to block? As it turns out, he’s an alcoholic and a rapist. Keiya had no way of knowing this, of course, it just so happened that every single man in this story except Keiya is absolutely awful and probably drinks human blood. This way, Keiya is the greatest man on Earth by default, because everyone around him is awful. Later on in the anime, Keiya’s rival kidnaps Isaku and attempts to rape her, a situation that the protagonists get out of in five minutes, tops. It’s never brought up again and the attempted rapist is forgiven because he’s part of the school play which the students worked really hard on, and it would be unfair to the students to deal with the, I can’t stress this enough, attempted rapist.
The Audiovisuals Suck Harder than a Leech
The budget of this anime was the price of any item at a dollar store. One dollar. The animation is laughably bad. The background characters are stiff, there is no emotion in anyone’s face, Isaku’s hair looks like spaghetti, and some of the frames look like my drawings from kindergarten:
Look at his arms. Those things are definitely broken.
Goofy ass face. They pause on faces like this multiple times.
There are other issues as well. Sometimes the lighting in some scenes will inexplicably flicker, there are times when the characters are moving their mouths but not saying anything, and at the end of the anime they probably completely ran out of money so the last two-three episodes each had solid 4 minutes of flashbacks to previous scenes.
Conclusion
The anime is bad. You read the review summary. You probably read the introduction as well, it’s not that long. I considered not writing this review at all at first, given how every single aspect of this anime should deter anyone from ever watching it, but I was shocked to see that both pre-existing reviews of the show are positive. Absolutely heartbreaking. This anime isn’t worth your time unless you’re watching it with friends to clown on it.