Hige wo Soru. Soshite Joshikousei wo Hirou (After Being Rejected, I Shaved and Took in a High School Runaway) or HigeHiro, is one of the few anime I was interested in checking out this season. This is because I’m a fan of its manga adaptation as it’s one of the few light-hearted rom-coms with a lot of substance and endearing characters.
Yoshida the Samaritan
The anime follows Yoshida, a disgruntled office worker who summons enough courage to ask out his coworker Airi Gotou, who he’s been crushing on for five years. Unfortunately, his confession was rejected, so he proceeds to drown his sorrow in liquor. That same night, he finds a high school girl sitting alone on the side of the road, which turns out to be a runaway named Sayu Ogiwara looking for a place to stay. To get a place to sleep for the night, Sayu attempts to seduce Yoshida, but her advances are promptly rejected. However, Yoshida, being the good guy he is, still accepts to take her in and take care of her while she figures things out in return for doing all his housework.
While we don’t get the full grasp of Yoshida’s personality in the first episode, we do know that he’s somewhat impulsive but has strict morals and principles he adheres to, which is a trait that is hard to not recognize or respect. While the bar is set pretty low for not having sexual relations with a teenager, the anime clarifies that he isn’t one who would, which is good I guess?
The Runaway High Schooler
Sayu, on the other hand, is a cheerful and vibrant girl despite her circumstances but also has misguided ideals seen with her incessant need to repay favors with her body as she understands most people don’t do favors for strangers free of charge. Hence why she’s noticeably uncomfortable when she is unable to repay said favor.
But due to her young age, she’s also a little spoilt and fails to see how dangerous the world can be for a young girl like her, a point Yoshida tells her outright upon meeting her. However, we also don’t know her background is or what lead her to run away from home in the first place as the anime never gives us a direct answer, only hinting that Sayu may have undergone some sort of abuse at home, which might explain why her family never filed missing person report on her. The anime decides not to focus on this aspect too much, for now at least.
The episode also makes it apparent how morally and legally questionable it is for an adult male to house a runaway which is definitely something that’ll cause trouble for Yoshida down the line. Despite that, we’re still shown tasteless and compromising camera shots of the high school girl’s body, so it best viewers choose what to pay attention to.
Animation & Direction
While watching the episode, I noticed how nearly identical the feeling was between watching the story and character interactions and reading it, except the anime does this much better. For one, the voice actors did an excellent job of replicating each of the characters’ personalities and demeanor quite well in the anime, and its production quality further enhanced the viewing experience. Other than that, the anime’s production is pretty impressive. The animation is fluid, the visuals are crisp, and the character designs are pretty accurate to the manga.
Overall, there isn’t much else to say about the first episode of Higehiro as not much else has been established other than It is an excellent adaptation of the manga and novels, and I find watching the chemistry between the characters to be the main appeal of the series, so I can’t wait to see how that’s handled in the rest of the anime. And seeing as the manga has only volumes, the anime may quickly catch up to the manga. That said, it’ll also be interesting to see if the anime directly adapts the novels or sticks with the manga.
Final Thoughts
While HigeHiro plays around with a very dangerous subject matter, the first episode of the anime still succeeded in meeting my expectations, and I truly hope the rest of the anime continues to do so.
HigeHiro is available to stream now on Crunchyroll
Have you seen HigeHiro? What’s your favorite romance anime? Let BagoGames know your thoughts in the comments section below.