Higehiro (2021)

[ひげを剃る。そして女子高生を拾う。]

Director: Manabu Kamikita
Studio: Project No.9
Starring: Kazuyuki Okitsu, Kana Ichinose, Hisako Kanemoto
Episodes: 13

Synopsis:
Drunk and depressed after being rejected by his boss, an office worker stumbles upon a runaway and takes her in.

Impressions:
The Japanese title makes it sound like shaving was done in pursuit of acquiring a high school girl, which sounded incredibly sketchy, to the point where I had to check it out to see if that was where they were actually going with it. Despite the syntactic suggestion of the title, it turned out the shaving was a consequence rather than the antecedent. Since this aired on the same day of the week as Koikimo, it was easy to make comparisons about two stories about adult men getting involved with teenage girls. Red flags are rising for many readers, I'm sure, but while Koikimo's Ryou is actively courting the teenage heroine, Yoshida in this series is quite adamantly doing the opposite, to the point that almost no one, especially the heroine, believes him. Rather than budding romance being the focus, it's more about getting Sayu to sort out her life and find the courage to come to terms with her past. It leans on the idealistic side, but it avoids a number of the traps you'd expect for a story like this (while also playing into some familiar tropes). Ironically, because the situation isn't played as much for comedy as Koikimo, some viewers might be more actively opposed to this series. Yoshida and Sayu's relationship is fairly chaste, but that doesn't stop arguments about the subject matter. If it sounds like something you want to avoid, then by all means avoid it, but I found it to be a fairly decent story that's worth a watch.

Rating:
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