English Dub Review: Girlfriend, Girlfriend “Even If That Isn’t the Right Way”

Overview

Based on the Japanese romantic comedy manga series written and illustrated by Hiroyuki. The story follows a Highschool kid named Mukai Naoya who’s in a relationship with his girlfriend Saki Saki (Yes, that’s both her first and last name), but when another girl named, Nagisa Minase, asks him out. He’s compelled to make an unthinkable decision…


Our Take

Aside from his semi-clingy nature, Naoya clearly loves Saki. And while Nagisa really came well prepared to confess to Naoya. Of course, When she confesses her love for the dude, he’s beyond flattered but had the decently to at least turn her down at first, given that he is currently taken to begin with. You’d think this would be the end, but to put it mildly, this show and reality, don’t often meet…

With Naoya’s logic, he thinks two-timing in secret would be too dishonest. And given how wacky this all seems, there’s clearly some sort of psychological disorder with Naoya if he’s compelled to be honest to everyone, he’s very energetic and straightforward. And Saki’s reaction to Nagisa was cute at first, but Naoya’s proposal to make this 3-way relationship gives off a less than thrilled reaction you’d predictably expect from a sane outspoken person like Saki to have in a bizarre scenario like this.

Overall, this was kind of a weird mess judging from the first episode. The intro is interesting, and the animation looks great. The story so far is cringy beyond measure but deals with the whole “expectation vs reality” thing in a very realistic way since a scenario like this would ironically be more normal in a porn or Hentai than a “Slice of Life” anime. Naoya is so stupid that you can’t help but laugh, while Saki and Nagisa are both also slowly dealing with these new relationship dynamics in different ways with Saki possibly realizing her bisexuality, while Nagisa is 100% on board with Naoya’s proposal. What happens in the next episodes I’m curious to find out even if all of this feels like a potential recipe for disaster…