A Girl & Her Guard Dog Episode 1 Review

All right, in case you weren’t aware, we here at LAN are not very excited for this series at all. We covered the first volume here, so you can check that out if you were curious.

The reason we aren’t excited? Well, it’s a Romance/Shoujo about a girl who is 15 and a hot yakuza guy who’s 26. Ohh, but he acts childish and she acts mature so it’s okay, right?

WRONG. ALWAYS WRONG. It’s gross. The first volume was gross. But we’re watching it here for you, our dear reader, because we know you’re morbidly curious. It’s okay. I was, too.

Let’s… just get into the episode.

Content

We begin with exposition. Isaku’s parents died in a car accident when she was 5, so she was taken in by her Grandfather, the leader of a Yakuza group. On the first day she was taken in, she met Keiya, the person assigned to be her personal bodyguard, who was 11 years older than her. Meaning, when she’s 5, he’s 16. He says just about the creepiest thing I’ve ever heard when she starts crying about how she misses her parents: “I’ll be your Papa and Mama. I’ll be your older brother, too. I’ll be all of them.”

YOU JUST MET HER, BRO.

Well, now poof, timeskip and she’s going into high school. When she tells her father (and Keiya, who bursts into the room) that she’s passed the entrance exam, Keiya picks her up like a child.

Isaku rants to us (and her Grandfather and Keiya) about how she’s excited to do normal, stereotypical high school things, and internally thinks that if she gets into a relationship in high school, she can get over her crush on Keiya.

Well, we learn that Keiya bribed the school so that he could enroll beside her. When two boys walk up to Isaku and Keiya to strike up a conversation, he threatens them subtly by saying things like “my specialty is torture” in his introduction. Isaku’s want of forming a friend group is slowly getting ruined.

Well, when nobody volunteers to be the Class Rep, Keiya volunteers, and says that Isaku volunteers as well, putting the spotlight on both of them. Isaku is horribly embarrassed to be in the limelight, but Keiya seems to think it’s funny.

There’s a horribly creepy scene of Keiya snuggling with Isaku on her bed.

Isaku seems to want to practice volleyball at home so she isn’t shunned during class for being bad at it. She asks the other members of the Yakuza to practice with her, and Keiya beats them up when the ball hits Isaku.

Bro, Isaku wants to get better at something — how will it ever work when you’re being so overbearing?! You want her to stay 15 forever!? Maybe he does. Maybe that’s exactly what he wants. GROSS.

Well, when some of her female classmates notice she’s got bruises on her, they ask what happened and she explains that she practiced at home. They are in awe and praise her for being so hard working, and Isaku actually seemingly does a little well at volleyball. Apparently the whole class is doing some kind of competition?

But of course, Keiya is a grumpy little kid when he sees Isaku getting on just fine without him, and sneaks out to smoke a cigarette. Isaku follows him and shames him for smoking. He tells her to try and do well with the volleyball competition the class is doing.

During the competition, Isaku seems to sprain her index finger. Despite that, she somehow pulls through and wins them the competition. Keiya picks her up and runs out of the gym to take her to the nurse.

At the nurse’s office where Keiya wraps her finger, he whines about how Isaku won’t need him as she grows up. Isaku says she’s only able to be mature and good at things because Keiya is there. Keiya is happy about her needing him around and not being an individual.

Opinions / Analysis

Now here’s my thing, and it’s a fundamental issue with this story.

Why couldn’t Isaku be a freshman in college instead of a freshman in high school? College is just as much about finding yourself and your crowd as high school is. What was the purpose of making her underage? What does it do for us? What is there to gain?

Absolutely nothing. Everything about this story could’ve been achieved just as easily if Isaku was a freshman in college instead of high school. And then poof, all the controversy goes away.

I already mentioned how I read the manga, and one of the most fascinating things (and gross things) is that they specifically made Isaku more “endowed” as well as taller in the anime than she is in the manga. I can only assume they did this with the express purpose of making her seem older in the show, to avoid this controversy.

Gross. That’s nasty, guys.

This whole show is weird so far. Ew.

Let’s talk about the actual episode now:

• The animation quality is very static. Isaku’s expression is always ‘^’
• Keiya’s expression is literally always the same blank-eyed stare with a “~” mouth.
• The pacing makes everything feel super strange. If they wanted us to be less uncomfortable, they should’ve tried to make it at least a little more comedy and less shoujo. This show is taking itself far too seriously and it’s creeping me out.