It’s good, you know?  So help me, Domestic Girlfriend is rather good.  The OP is good (yes, I finally watched it and paid attention), the production is good, the cast is good, the writing is good.  Today.  Next week, next month, who knows?  I’m never going to lose the suspicion that this is all a cruel trick the universe is playing on me, pulling me in more and more so that it will be that much more painful when it smacks me in the face with all the offensiveness this series should by rights be projecting.  But right now, it’s good.

For me, the enjoyment of this show comes down to a combination of a couple of different elements.  Yes, there is a certain voyeuristic side to it, a guilty glee is enjoying all this melodrama (like the scene at the cafe) playing out.  But it’s also the fact that the characters are acting kind of like real people, warts and all, and that Domestic na Kanojo is very good at highlighting both the similarities and differences between the mistakes adults make and those teenagers make (and that’s pretty rare in anime).

Hina (she’s a PE teacher, apparently) is still ensconced in her affair, and the rugrats still bent out of shape about it.  I noted last week that Fumiya was kind of interesting in the best friend role, and we can add to that he’s kind of a baka.  That’s the only interpretation I can make of the fact that he apparently convinced Natsuo and Rui that the best plan was to steal Hina-nee’s phone and have Rui call her boyfriend impersonating her sister, and break up with him.  It’s a dumbass plan for starters, and what’s more, whatever you may think of the kids butting into Hina’s affairs in the first place, I would imagine there aren’t many who’d disagree that this goes way, way over the line.

After that goes disastrously (and predictably) wrong, things are mercifully brought to a head when all the relevant parties run into each other at the cafe.  Again, there’s a lowbrow appeal to this to be sure (though I don’t extend that to Tsuda Kenjirou’s ultra-camp manager), but a kind of emotional honesty, too.  The boyfriend is Hagiwara Shuu, and while I suspect he isn’t a seriously bad person, he comes off as a dime-a-dozen two timer – a guy bored with his wife seeking the pleasure of a younger woman, stringing her along with promises he never intends to keep.  As much as I’ve gotten on Natsuo and Rui for not minding their own business, I totally understand their reactions here.  And I was glad one of them decided to throw water on Shuu at the very least.

If anything, it seems to be the effect this is having on her family that convinces Hina to take the action she claims the next day to have taken, dumping Shuu.  I don’t suspect he’s going to give up that easily (not least because he has a name seiyuu in Hirakawa Daisuke) and I’m not even 100% convinced Hina’s telling the truth.  But assuming she is, this would be a case of the right thing happening for the wrong reasons (she should dump him out of self-respect, if anything), and of dumb actions (by the kids) leading to good results.  I’m fine with that, because in my experience much if not most of the good stuff that happens in real life comes about that way, and Domestic na Kanojo is refreshingly honest in painting its scenario and premise without idealizing either.

Finally, I want to call out the final act of the episode as another example of Domestic na Kanojo going somewhere you just wouldn’t expect a show like this to go, and doing it well.  It’s the girls’ mother’s birthday, and I suspect also the anniversary of Natsuo’s mother’s passing (that would be sadly ironic) – certainly it’s the day he visits the grave.  His flashback to her life and his own crybaby tendencies and self-doubts about how she’d feel about his current situation were really well-executed, and I thought having the sisters show up to pay their own respects at the grave was a nice touch.  So far at least this series is showing us flawed people doing dumb stuff and trying to figure life out, and not exploiting their humiliation for entertainment purposes.  As long as that continues to be the case Domestic na Kanojo will be a refreshing change rather than a depressing nightmare.