©中村力斗・野澤ゆき子／集英社・君のことが大大大大大好きな製作委員会
I have been pretty glowing towards this adaptation and with good reason. The team behind this anime has demonstrated, time and again, that they understand exactly what makes the source material work, and have done an all-around stellar job in bringing that to life. They also succeed in adding their flourishes to enhance the experience for existing fans. It’s a pity I have to start this review with a criticism – specifically of their choice to omit Karane’s innovations in the field of cunnavelingus. I don’t care what the broadcasting standards are, you cowards better put that shot of Karane eating out her boyfriend’s belly button back for the Blu-rays.
Other than that, this is another stellar episode, easily on par with the water park episode capturing all the manic and romantic energy that makes 100 Girlfriends such a treat. Comedy? Drama? Shameless fanservice? We’ve got all that and more as the series fully embraces its insanity in the best way possible.
For comedy, we’ve got the opening sequence with Hahari trying to discern Rentaro’s true feelings with her inexplicable lie-detector chair. They of course test it on Karane first, because sticking a tsundere in a polygraph is the most hilarious form of psychological torture imaginable. Karane has almost always been the (relative) straight-man character to the rest of the cast, so seeing her so fully submerged within the love-struck insanity of the other characters is hilarious, while also highlighting that Hahari isn’t quite as serious as her role in this arc might suggest. It also helps lighten the mood right before things shift into the dramatic, which helps the overall flow of this episode a great deal.
Because the centerpiece of this episode is Rentaro’s not one, but two life-saving confessions. Sure, it strains credulity to think this show could ever have a character get seriously hurt, considering its cartoon physics, but there’s still a ton of sentiment to Rentaro’s speech to Hakari as she’s dangling over that ledge. In romance media, it can often drama and tragedy of love take center stage. Those are, after all, a lot more conducive to narrative conflict than the happier sides of love. Yet that constant focus can sometimes make it feel like love itself is an ordeal when nothing could be further from the truth. Love can certainly be complicated, but at its base, being in love should feel joyous, exhilarating, and comforting. It should make you happy, and 100 Girlfriends never forgets that. Rentaro making that declaration to both Hakari and her mother back-to-back is kind of whiplash-inducing, but it’s also incredibly heartening. For as out there, wacky, or problematic as any given relationship in this show can be, at its heart is a sense of intense, honest empathy.
In case you forgot what show you’re watching, that sentimentalism is immediately followed up by a parade of fanservice, and the reveal that Hahari is somehow even more shamelessly horny than her daughter. We’ve got group bathing. Sexy pajamas. The aforementioned bit where Karen gets up close and personal with Rentaro’s vagina bones. In a move that is sure to anger some die-hard Sailor Moon fans, Kusuri gets an Usagi-style transformation sequence to show off her full-sized knockers. All before finishing off with the implication that Rentaro is about to become a literal motherf*cker at the end of the episode. It is ridiculous and shameless. In any other show your head would spin off your shoulders thinking about how all of this was in the same episode where Rentaro saved Hakari from falling off a building.
Yet that’s just how this show rolls, and with everything packed together so tightly, this episode feels like a shot-gun blast of this show’s unique, highly questionable charms. Capping it off with a new ED just to welcome Hahari into the harem is the perfect choice, even before you remember that they spoiled that surprise in the episode. Now that the shock of “Are they really going there?” has worn off, the show can fully embrace its new reality, and with an episode as funny as this one, it’s easy for the audience to follow suit.
As Hahari is represented twice in the main image, please enjoy some warm and cozy alternate review images to maintain equal representation.
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The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love You is currently streaming on
Crunchyroll.
