Bad Girl

Small Review (Very light spoilers): I find Bad Girl to be a decent comedy & slice of life anime that doesn’t really do much to entice me even with the yuri elements. The main premise of Yuu being a delinquent isn’t executed the best and even feels like the writers forgot about it at times. Nothing about the comedy is laugh out loud funny to me but there are a few smirks and chuckles to be had. I don’t really want to bring it all down because it’s not bad or anything but this feels like something I’ll forget about in a week outside of maybe all the petplay moments because there is oddly a lot of it. I’d say try watching it a bit to see if it does more for you than it did for me. Otherwise there are probably much better shows you could be watching that released in 2025.

Full Review (Spoilers): I wasn’t really expecting to review another comedy after reviewing one last month let alone one made in 2025 but that’s just how fate has it. When I began Bad Girl, I was hoping to find some yuri that would be pretty interesting as despite my love for it, it can have some misses. It’s also pretty rare for me to watch an ONA. Well enough of the boring stuff, let me actually talk about the anime.

I found the plot in Bad Girl to be okay with a premise I do enjoy. The show stars Yuu Yuutani who likes a girl named Atori Mizu and tries to be a bad girl to get her attention but even with her attempt, she still enjoys Yuu and we get to see many moments with them and a few other characters like Yuu’s friend Suzu Suzukaze and the streamer with no friends Rura Ruriha.

The anime leans on comedy the most along with slice of life plots as episodes a lot of time feature more than one plot. This isn’t the case for a couple of the later ones but it does mean that an episode doesn’t focus on just a set of characters the writers decide. It’s kind of weird to me because the show wants you to think there’s 4 main characters and 2 more that show up later but the latter two feel kind of like supporting characters, especially Atori’s friend Sumiki. I do at least appreciate the smaller cast considering there’s not much depth to this show story wise.

I didn’t actually expect the show to have much continuity for some reason. Maybe it was the structure of the episodes but it gave me the vibe you could watch them in any order. I was wrong especially by the end when there’s a multipart camping episode. So if the story doesn’t have much going for it, what about the comedy? Well the comedy is fine I guess. I wouldn’t say I really laughed a lot watching it but it got a few smirks out of me. Comedy is subjective after all but yeah this one didn’t do much for me but at least nothing was too groan worthy. Though I do question why there’s so many petplay scenes. I thought they were gonna do it every episode but it’s mostly only in the first third of the show. I kind of had a feeling it would have some fanservice considering the OP had shots of the four girls naked (not fully shown) but it wasn’t really all that bad but I would never recommend it if you wanted to watch something fanservicey, it ain’t that impressive.

The characters are fine as well, they feel about what I’ve seen from various other anime. Yuu is the idiotic protagonist where sometimes it can be a bit funny but her reactions with Atori can be fun. Suzu and Atori are also pretty cool as well and I like the way this group bounces off with each other. Even moments with just Suzu and Atori can be interesting. If I had to complain, it would have to be with Rura. She’s a character introduced in episode 2 I believe but isn’t really all that notable till the next episode. I feel indifferent towards her because I think her interactions with Yuu can be fun but otherwise she doesn’t stick out well with any other character and she doesn’t get too many moments compared to the other 3. I almost wanted to call her a supporting character but sites like here don’t say she is. I also felt a bit disappointed there was never an episode involving her livestreams, those were all done in these short scenes after the credits of some episodes.

I should also mention the two supporting characters. First is Atori’s sister Mizuka Mizutori. She’s basically just Yuu’s rival though that doesn’t even last the whole show because despite their hatred, they see the benefit of both getting stuff like specific Atori photos they couldn’t ever get themselves. If I have to give one compliment, I like how they show this character off in the first episode. You can see her looking at Yuu in that episode and they don’t even bring it up that she has been there the whole time. It’s a neat detail that also shows her eventual reveal to Yuu that she was in the same class not feel forced. Overall, she’s fine. Atori’s friend Sumiki on the other hand just feels like she doesn’t get much substance. I kind of like some moments she had with characters like Suzu or Yuu but she doesn’t get much time to shine even compared to Mizuka. Honestly I just don’t have much to say about her besides I wish she had more interactions with Yuu.

If there’s anything else I would want to complain about, it would easily be the whole gimmick of Yuu’s character. You think for a show called Bad Girl, there would be plenty of moments in every episode to show off this gimmick of her faking her delinquent persona. Sadly it’s very inconsistent. I feel like they did this intentionally as there’s a few moments where characters will bring up how she isn’t even doing her bad persona anymore or how she went back to being a good person for others. Then there’s times where the show just feels like any other slice of life on the market. I don’t know if the writers were worried it would get stale if it was overdone or if they were trying to play into Yuu’s idiotic personality but I’d argue it needed to be used more. But again, maybe I’m just missing the point.

Is there anything else I could mention that’s good? Hmm well…ummm. I remember that one part in I believe the first camping episode where they just mention Yuru Camp. Like they didn’t even use a different name or anything, it was the actual Yuru Camp. (Apparently they share a publisher is why). There’s a couple of yuri moments that got a reaction out of me so there was that. I like those ending bits that involve either Suzu or Rura. The illustrations at the end of every episode look nice. It really sounds like I’m grasping at straws, I don’t even hate this show I swear!

Visually it’s nothing special but I kind of figured it wouldn’t be anything amazing considering it’s a ONA, I always assume those are done on smaller budgets. The character designs are nothing you haven’t seen before. I honestly can’t think of a single thing to say about any of this that isn’t just, it exists, it’s fine, I don’t have much to say. I was surprised the music kind of caught my attention at times, it sounds silly in a few episodes. The OP and ED aren’t too bad in terms of animation and just the songs themselves. I did like how the ED was different for the segment after Rura worked at a maid cafe, that was a nice moment. I also really like how the eyecatch where one or multiple of the girls jumping into the air changes for every episode and even stays in theme of the episode it’s in.

I feel bad that I sound so harsh for an anime I don’t think is even bad. It’s just so…there. Like it’s fine. I keep saying that actually, it’s fine. I had my issues with it but I can’t say I didn’t regret my time with it. Trust me if it was bad, I don’t think this would have ever gotten finished. There’s just better stuff out there and it surprises me that it came out this year. This feels like it was made in the 2010s. I still think you should at least give it a try if the premise seems good enough. A couple of episodes wouldn’t hurt you. There are people who enjoy this series and I’m happy for them but I just can’t really say much about it that I’ll remember a month after this review. I swear I’m going to remember this anime for those petplay scenes a year from now. Maybe one day I’ll check out the manga and see what that’s like but otherwise this will remain as something that exists in my mind and not much else.