Higehiro – First Impressions

Is it a drama? A romance? I really couldn’t tell after the first two episodes. What I could tell is Higehiro will keep me glued to each episode.

POTENTIAL SPOILERS. PROCEED WITH CAUTION

Admittedly, the title is what hooked me. How the heck can someone get rejected, shave, and then end up caring for a high school runaway? It had me intrigued because the series of events that had to take place must of been a doozy.

And, I wasn’t wrong.

Our protagonist, Yoshida, is a nice guy. We seem to have a lot of that going around this season. He’s a good-looking, regular, nice guy leading an ordinary life. After pining over his boss, Gotou-san, for years, he finally musters the courage to invite her back to his place. She quickly tells him that she’s been seeing someone and turns him down. Devastated, he makes his way to an izakaya, calls his married friend, and vents. On his way home, he sees a girl sleeping underneath a lamppost. He strikes up a conversation to get the girl to go home and quickly learns she has no where to go. She flirts with him and asks to stay at his place. In his drunken stupor, he agrees to let her stay for one night.

What follows could potentially be a very heartwarming story.

We have two protagonists that are broken in some way. We know that Sayu has had to compromise herself to survive. She has run away from home and we don’t know the circumstances leading up to that other than after some research, no missing person report is out on her. In the first two episodes, we learn how much of a caring man Yoshida is. He takes in this poor girl and starts to shower her with affection that she isn’t used to. So far, I can’t tell if that affection will bloom into something romantic, or whether it will bloom into a beautiful friendship.

Either way, I think this show has the potential to be heartwarming. So far, we’re only a few episodes in, so it isn’t too late to put this one in the queue and give it a try.