My First Girlfriend Is a Gal

My First Girlfriend Is a Gal
Cover of the first volume featuring Yukana and Junichi.
はじめてのギャル (Hajimete no Gyaru)
Genre	Romantic comedy, Harem
Manga
Written by	Meguru Ueno
Published by	Kadokawa Shoten
Demographic	Shōnen
Magazine	Monthly Shōnen Ace
Original run	November 2015 – present
Volumes	4
Anime television series
Directed by	Hiroyuki Furukawa
Produced by	Joutarou Ishigami Ichigo Yamada
Written by	Yūichirō Momose
Music by	Yashikin
Studio	NAZ
Licensed by	NA Funimation
Network	AT-X, Tokyo MX, SUN, Mie TV, BS11, KBS, CBC
Original run	July 12, 2017 – present
Episodes	10 + OVA

My First Girlfriend Is a Gal (Japanese: はじめてのギャル, Hepburn: Hajimete no Gyaru), also known as Hajimete no Gal, is a Japanese manga series by Meguru Ueno. It has been serialized in Kadokawa Shoten's shōnen manga magazine Monthly Shōnen Ace since November 2015, and has been collected in four tankōbon volumes. A 10-episode anime television series adaptation by NAZ began airing on July 2017.

Characters

Junichi Hashiba (羽柴 ジュンイチ, Hashiba Jun'ichi)

Voiced by: Shintarō Asanuma (Japanese), Alejandro Saab (English)

Junichi is a second-year high school boy who wishes to have a girlfriend. At the start of the series, he is set up by his friends to confess his love to Yukana Yame. While he is internally thrilled to see Yukana's sexy body, he easily gets embarrassed when Yukana calls him out on such perverted actions. He regularly has sexual fantasies of losing his virginity and is depicted as having internal debates in his head over what to do in situations. His friends also pressure him to hook them up with girls. As he learns that Yukana does indeed like him, he tries to remain loyal to her, turning down the other girls that make advances on him.

Yukana Yame (八女 ゆかな, Yame Yukana)

Voiced by: Yuki Nagaku (Japanese), Jamie Marchi (English)

The title character is a fashionable high school "gal" with strawberry blonde hair, green eyes, a busty chest, loose socks, and a carefree attitude. She is very guarded about perverted stuff, calling it gross, but agrees to be Junichi's girlfriend. She finds Jun to be transparent with his emotions and reactions, and often calls Jun out for being a perverted virgin who is interested in her body, but teases and flirts with him too. Underneath she is very caring, and seeks her friends' advice often on how to relate to Jun better, being a little naive sometimes on applying the advice. On occasion, she lowers her guard and lets him touch her if it helps affirm how serious she is about the relationship. She gets jealous of the other girls, but thinks of Nene's little sister act is too cute to be taken as a serious threat to her relationship.

Shinpei Sakamoto (坂本 慎平, Sakamoto Shinpei)

Voiced by: Toshiyuki Toyonaga (Japanese), Brad Smeaton (English)

A glasses-wearing classmate with short bluish hair who is part of Junichi's group of perverted friends. He, Jun, and Yui Kashi were classmates before in middle school. He is the one who usually initiates the plans and recommendations for Jun, including planning the confession, giving movie tickets to Jun, and others. He is also the first to make the connection between Yui Kashi and online idol BoA. In the manga serialization's magazine, he provides information on the characters for the anime adaptation. They are slated to have a larger role in the anime than in the manga.

Keigo Ishida (石田 景吾, Ishida Keigo)

Voiced by: Kenji Akabane (Japanese), Jacob Browning (English)

A blonde-haired classmate who is part of Junichi's group of perverted friends.

Minoru Kobayakawa (小早川 稔, Kobayakawa Minoru)

Voiced by: Minoru Shiraishi (Japanese), Cris George (English)

An obese classmate who is part of Junichi's group of perverted friends. Of the three friends, he mentions that he likes little girls.

Ranko Honjō (本城 蘭子, Honjō Ranko)

Voiced by: Eri Kitamura (Japanese), Morgan Garrett (English)

Yukana's childhood friend is a tall tan-skinned gal with short light blonde hair, light purple eyes, and a big chest. She is very aggressive, making moves on Junichi which makes Yukana jealous. She reveals to Jun that she loves Yukana and is possessive of her; she does not like Yukana being so close to Jun, even if it means having to have sex with Jun herself.

Nene Fujinoki (藤ノ木寧音, Fujinoki Nene)

Voiced by: Yui Ogura (Japanese), Brittany Lauda (English)

A petite but big-breasted first-year high school girl who styles her hair in buns. She and Jun are childhood friends, but she is obsessed with Jun, and initially tried to dress and act like a little sister because he had expressed interest in that genre of video games. She briefly tries the gal lifestyle to try to win Jun over, and later tries to attack him by lying on top of him naked in bed, but Jun rejects her. She then decides to openly compete with Yukana, going back to her bun hairstyle. In the anime, Jun's friends regard her as a "loli with big boobs".

Yui Kashī (香椎 結衣, Kashī Yui)

Voiced by: Ayana Taketatsu (Japanese), Alison Viktorin (English)

Jun's classmate with the long dark hair and reddish eyes. Jun's friends regard her as the school's madonna, smart and beautiful, like a character from a manga or a video game. She has known Jun since middle school and initially acts very friendly and nice around him. She secretly dresses up as a blonde-haired twin-tailed idol named BoA who does live streams on the Internet. She is upset that Jun, whom she deems her number-one servant because he had helped carry boxes for her or picked up her eraser, does not fawn over her like an obedient pet because he is with Yukana. She tries to remedy that, by pulling him aside and asking him to dump Yukana and go out with her, but when Jun refuses, she gets very angry and threatens him until Ranko saves him by threatening to reveal her net identity. In the anime, Jun's friends say her only drawback is that she doesn't have a big chest like some of the other girls.

Ayumi Uesaka (上坂 歩美, Uesaka Ayumi)

Voiced by: Kazusa Aranami (Japanese), Kristin Sutton (English)

Yukana's gal friend with medium brown hair and blue eyes. She is more of a background character in the manga, but has a larger role in the anime.

Kokoro Shīna (椎名 心, Shīna Kokoro)

Voiced by: Natsuko Hara (Japanese), Annabel Thorne (English)

Yukana's gal friend with blonde hair stylized in tails tied with red ribbons. She is more of a background character in the manga, but has a larger role in the anime.

Media

Manga

As of July 2017, the series has been released in four tankōbon volumes.

No.	Release date	ISBN
1	May 26, 2016	ISBN 9784041042656
2	October 26, 2016	ISBN 9784041050323
3	March 25, 2017	ISBN 9784041054550
4	June 26, 2017	ISBN 9784041057773

Anime

A 10-episode anime television series adaptation by NAZ began airing on July 12, 2017. The show is being directed and character designed by Hiroyuki Furukawa who also did the erotic comedy My Wife is the Student Council President. The script is being supervised by Yuichiro Momose, and the music done by Yashikin of MAGES. The opening theme is "Hajimete no Season" by Junjō no Afilia, and the ending theme is "Galtic Love" by Erabareshi. An OVA episode has been announced. Crunchyroll is streaming the anime. Funimation has licensed the series in North America.

No.	Title	Director	Screenplay	Original air date
1	"My First Time Begging for It" "Hajimete no Dogeza" (はじめての土下座)	Kazuya Aiura	Yuichiro Momose	July 12, 2017
High school guy Junichi watches as many of his schoolmates have coupled up, leaving him and his guy friends without any girls. When his friends start reading erotic magazines in class, Junichi is caught holding a copy in front of the fashionable and pretty Yukana Yame, who is disgusted. His friends choose Jun to ask her out because she is a "gal", a type of high school girl reputed to be very sexually promiscuous. They place a confession letter in her shoe locker. Junichi is shocked to see Yukana, and confesses to her in a dogeza-position as suggested by his friend Shinpei. Yukana is uncertain at first, even guessing correctly that he is a virgin and that he is mostly interested in staying where he is so he can stare at her panties. But despite seeing him completely embarrassed about that, she decides that she likes him and agrees to be his girlfriend.
2	"My First Karaoke" "Hajimete no Karaoke" (はじめてのカラオケ)	Tadahi Iwanaga	Yuichiro Momose	July 19, 2017
The next day after Yukana decided to date him, Junichi is still shocked and how he will treat her. As he and his buddies go to school, Shinpei suggests Junichi have a karaoke session with Yukana and take advantage of having sex with her. In their classroom, Yukana clings with Junichi for the first time and bluntly tells the whole class that they are now dating, shocking everyone including Junichi's buddies. After class, Yukana invites Junichi to have a karaoke session because her friends used to come with her. As they sing inside, Junichi's ego started debating on how he will gain the advantage on Yukana and recalls Shinpei's advice that he should passionately kiss Yukana first if he wants to have sex with her. However, as Junichi grabs Yukana and attempts to kiss her, his nose hair suddenly protrudes and Yukana points it out. Yukana leaves the room while contemplating Junichi's attempt of kissing her. Junichi and Yukana leave the karaoke bar while Ranko sees them from a distance.
3	"My First Spray-On Gal" "Hajimete no Kuro Gyaru" (はじめての黒ギャル)	Yusaku Sotome	Makoto Takaga	July 26, 2017
Junichi gets an invitation from his shoe locker, at first he wants to ignore it due to the fact he and Yukana are now dating but Shinpei insists that invitations shouldn't be turned down. Junichi accepts the invitation and meets Ranko, who entices him sexually. Yukana finds them in an awkward situation, thinking that Junichi cheated but Yukana plays it down as she and Ranko were childhood buddies. As they walk away, Yukana reminds Junichi about Ranko being "dangerous", which the latter vows to destroy their relationship. The next day, Junichi and Yukana, along with Ranko, stroll around the city. Two guys approach them and invite Yukana to have a good time, Junichi stands up to protect Yukana but quickly shoves him away. Ranko decides to join the guys and ended up beaten by Ranko herself. At Junichi's residence, Ranko decides to join him inside. Ranko takes advantage and seduces Junichi again, deducing that he is a virgin and dating Yukana because he wants to get laid. However, Junichi denies the allegations and decides that he wants to have sex with the girl that he really loves. His statement makes Ranko furious and continuously seduces Junichi until Yukana sees them again in an awkward position. Yukana again plays it down and leaves the residence with Ranko. As they leave, Yui sees them from a distance.
4	"My First Serious Gal" "Hajimete no Seiso Gyaru" (はじめての清楚ギャル)	Takashi Yamada	Masaume Kuji	August 2, 2017
5	"My First Half-Assed Gal" "Hajimete no Pagyaru" (はじめてのパギャル)	TBA	TBA	August 9, 2017

Reception

The anime's first episode was reviewed by various writers at Anime News Network. James Beckett found that the fanservice to be as expected and that it embodied "all of the most irritating sex comedy stereotypes that stopped being funny back when the American Pie sequels fizzled out over a decade ago." Nick Creamer found the censorship bars to be the only unique thing about the show, and that the central characters were not likable. Theron Martin held out some hope that Yukana would at least have some character depth. Paul Jensen found the premise of two characters from different social circles to have potential, but the first episode to be obnoxious and dumb, outside of some moments where Yukana reacts to Junichi's confession. Rebecca Silverman regarded the episode as mostly fetishism and unless that was toned down and "starts to develop Yukana as a real person, it could be a somewhat smarty raunchy comedy," but did not plan to watch any more to find out.

Works cited

• ^ "Ch." is shortened form for chapter and refers to a chapter number of the Hajimete no Gal manga
• ^ "Ep." is shortened form for episode and refers to an episode number of the My First Girlfriend Is a Gal anime

External links

• Official website (Japanese)
• My First Girlfriend Is a Gal (manga) at Anime News Network's encyclopedia