B Gata H Kei: Yamada's First Time: Complete Series Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.0
Overall		2.5

B Gata H Kei: Yamada's First Time: Complete Series Blu-ray Movie Review

Like a virgin.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman January 16, 2012

There was a funny moment on this year’s Golden Globes Awards telecast where Ricky Gervais, ever the provocateur, introduced Madonna by stating she was “still just like a virgin.” Madonna, never one to shrink from a challenge (or a slight, even a joking one) responded, “Ricky, if I’m still just like a virgin, why don’t you come over here and do something about it?” Pause. “I haven’t kissed a girl lately.” Pause. “On television.” Of course no one really seriously considers Madonna virgin territory (and frankly probably never did even back in the “Like a Virgin” days, part of that song’s intentional or unintentional irony). Madonna’s kids may have something to do with that perception, unless of course one puts her in the same class as that other, perhaps more iconic, Madonna. Madonna (the singer-actress, not the other one) might well be the role model for Yamada, the young heroine of Yamada’s First Time, one of the most salacious, bizarrely sexually centered animes of recent memory. Yamada is a 15 year old high school student, and one who might be unusual in the annals of pop culture or at least anime, in that she has a positively male singular fixation on sex. Of course it’s probably not fair, or even realistic, to saddle guys with being the only gender preoccupied with sex, but let’s face it: millennia of experience, and depictions of the genders and their various interests in all sorts of artistic pursuits, have more often than not posited the men as the more sexually obsessed gender, while women sigh and put up with it all. The roles are rather dramatically reversed in Yamada’s First Time, for Yamada is on a mission to bed 100 guys, all without a clear idea of her own sexuality, the “rules of the game” (so to speak), or even how to properly talk to a guy, let alone seduce him. That aspect of Yamada’s First Time may be the series’ major saving grace, for it anchors the otherwise kind of unseemly goings-on of the main character in a more believable, even sweeter, ambience that makes her fumbling and fretting something that’s at least a little relatable. But Yamada’s First Time is certainly no “kiddie cartoon,” and in fact even older folks may find the show kind of smarmy more often than not, despite its attempts at lampooning teens’ halting steps toward adulthood, and its simultaneous attempts to cast everything with a sort of buffoonish humor.

Any fan of ecchi, the sexually charged wing of anime, will no doubt recognize many of the ideas in Yamada’s First Time, though with this series’ emphasis on underage sex, and perhaps (as politically incorrect as it may sound) its emphasis on a young teenage girl trying to bed 100 guys, some may think that this anime puts the “ecch” in ecchi. The fact is the show actually ends up concentrating almost exclusively on Yamada’s attempts to bed just one guy, a high school classmate named Takashi Kosuda. Yamada meets Takashi at a bookstore, where she’s attempting to replace a dictionary she has ruined by highlighting all the sexual terms. Yamada is preternaturally gorgeous, a girl who seemingly could get any guy she wanted just by batting her big green eyes, but instead she decides that her first conquest should be Takashi for the very reason that he’s “ordinary,” a kind of quiet geek who is obviously just as sexually inexperienced as she is.

The rest of the series plays out as one comical escapade after another where Yamada has big plans to get Takashi into bed, and of course something always gets in the way. One of the things that gets in the way, in one of the series’ weirder and really squirm inducing moments, is Takashi’s own erection, which completely freaks Yamada out in an early episode. This is the sort of humor the show exults in, with some admittedly clever animation accompanying perhaps less than funny ideas, in this case a little sprite inflating a sausage like tube. There are also some other really bizarre elements to this series, including Yamada staring at her own genitalia in a mirror and, again, freaking out because she feels like hers looks different from everyone else’s.

As unseemly as a lot of Yamada’s First Time may strike at least some viewers, the show does have some fitfully agreeable humor that helps to blunt its kind of (for want of a better word) icky feeling plot arc. Yamada’s interplay with her best (female) friend is often kind of funny, and some of the supporting players, including a less geeky guy who actually does want to get it on with Yamada provide the show some balance. But so much of this show is centered on Yamada’s at the very least questionable quest that whatever saving graces the series may in fact have seem to pale in comparison to this central plot point, which is played for about as much prurient interest as can be crammed into an anime franchise. Yamada’s First Time also (as strange as it may sound) doesn’t really have the courage of its convictions, and the series’ 12 episode arc comes to a close without Yamada and Takashi ever consummating their relationship. That may make parents of 15 year olds breathe a little easier, but it may leave the more salacious minded feeling used and abused.

B Gata H Kei: Yamada's First Time: Complete Series Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Yamada's First Time is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of FUNimation Entertainment with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. This isn't an expecially innovative looking anime, with fairly traditional characters, including chibi as well as some sprites that pop up to make piquant commentary. Colors are bright and varied, though the series perhaps has more of a pastel palette than other recent animes. The Blu-ray offers really quite excellent line detail and nicely saturated colors, with few if any compression artifacts to speak of. But Yamada's First Time just has a kind of middling, standard fare design aesthetic to it that may make this high definition presentation less spectacular looking than it could have otherwise been.

B Gata H Kei: Yamada's First Time: Complete Series Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Yamada's First Time offers two lossless audio options, the original Japanese language track delivered courtesy of a Dolby TrueHD 2.0 track, and an English dub featuring a lot of the usual FUNimation suspects delivered via a Dolby TrueHD 5.1 mix. It's interesting to hear the differences in the voice actors in both of these tracks, as the quieter, less bombastic Japanese track might strike some as being more ostensibly "childlike," although a lot of the female voices in the English language track similarly sound extremely young, making the whole sexual aspect perhaps uncomfortable at the very least. One way or the other, both tracks offer excellent fidelity, though this series doesn't have the whiz-bang opportunities for an aural assault, and so either of these tracks may strike some as somewhat laid back. Dialogue is crisp and clear in both tracks, and the 5.1 track does offer the J-pop inflected score a chance to stretch its sonic wings, which may in fact be enough to recommend the 5.1 track for at least some listeners.

B Gata H Kei: Yamada's First Time: Complete Series Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Episode 1 Commentary features ADR Director Zach Bolton hosting Brittney Karbowski (Yamada) and Scott Freeman (Takashi). Highlight of this typically raucous FUNimation commentary: Karbowski sharing with us that's she not a "skank" like Yamada. Delightful.
• Episode 11 Commentary features Jamie Marchi and Leah Clark, two of the series' writers. This one at least has virtually no mentions about whether the commentators are skanks or not.
• Outtakes (HD; 2:54) are voice actor mistakes.
• Textless Opening Song "Oshiete A to Z" (HD; 1:32)
• Textless Closing Song "Hadashi no Princess" (HD; 1:31)
• Trailers for other FUNimation Releases

B Gata H Kei: Yamada's First Time: Complete Series Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Adolescent to somewhat older males are no doubt the target audience for Yamada's First Time. Guys would love to meet a girl as sexually preoccupied as most males are at this age, and that's the chief selling point—at least to this demographic—that the series offers. For older audiences, the fact that we have pretty young kids, and girls at that, out to have "serial sex" may be unsettling at best, downright disturbing at worst. The show tries to overcome this salacious subject matter by introducing quite a bit of humor, and it must be admitted that the buffoonish mishaps that Yamada and Takashi inevitably find themselves embroiled in do add some comedy, as well as a thin veneer that allows the show to separate itself from its more sensational aspects. But that's probably not going to be enough to warm many viewers to Yamada's cause. Rightly or wrongly, sexually aggressive females have never been given their due in either real life or in various media, but making the heroine of an anime series a sexually aggressive (or at least a wannabe sexually aggressive) 15 year old just seems to be pushing the bounds of taste a little too far.