By Dustin Cabeal

You’re probably saying, “doesn’t this have a different title” and you’d be correct, but I don’t like that title, so I went with the title Amazon gave it because even they were like, “no, we’re not calling it that.” The actual title has a translation that doesn’t quite translate to another language, but roughly it’s virgin with sexual knowledge. Hence the banana.

I knew I was in trouble when all of the background characters were transparent green and pink people. Basically, if you weren’t a main or supporting character, you could go fuck yourself in this anime. Strangely enough when the story took them camping to do the traditional “let’s cook in the woods and have a fear test” they illustrated the background characters. That looked weird since it had already been seven episodes of laziness.

The general idea of the story is that an average boy falls in love with the class rep and asks her out. She says yes and then instantly states that she’ll begin practicing and studying the karma sutra. He’s confused because he just wants to hold hands and get to know her and this is the gag for the entire show. Unfortunately, there are very few sex jokes that are funny. Most of them are low hanging fruit and may be humorous to teenagers that are still discovering the world of sex and somehow don’t have the internet to help them along. Meanwhile, I can’t stop making comments about how gorgeous an announcers hair is while watching Ultimate Beastmaster and having my wife looking at me like I’m an idiot. Needless to say, I’m comfortable with myself and well past this awkward stage in life. My problem with the story being that a good story would instantly rekindle those experiences or at the very least give me something worth laughing at!

The story has all the tropes of a harem; he has multiple women in love with him, but not in any serious way. His next-door neighbor/childhood friend/older sister character likes to tease him, but her romantic feelings for him are lame at best. His little sister just wants pats on the head and for as many lines as the show crosses, her exclaiming her love for him isn’t one of them.

The only humor comes from the girlfriend’s parents that are the exact same. The mom thinks everything is about sex while the dad just wants to hold hands and enjoy the moment. They introduce another character that loves women, and she gets a few good jokes in, but she’s the same type of idiot as the girlfriend, so she feels redundant to the story. They introduce another gay character that’s interested only in the main dude, and while his scenes are hilarious for the story, it breaks down here. The roles reverse in that the boyfriend is clueless about what’s happening and the girlfriend is all too aware of the man after her man. Sadly, it was the only part of the story in which I laughed. He’s added to the story incredibly late too which is a real shame, at least I would have his scenes to look forward to if he was there at the start.

The artwork is bland. There is a lack of sexuality to the story which isn’t a complaint. I think that’s a saving grace to it because it would have tanked this story more if it had been like My Girlfriend is a Gal. There are some teases and such here and there, but it’s all rather timid considering the medium. It relies on what’s being said to be dirty rather than the artwork. The character’s all have tropy designs, and you can spot which character is which just by looking at the banana image. The details are lacking in general which kills the show. That and it falls apart when they’re in their gym clothes, which ends up being a lot more than normal shows.

At its core, there could have been a really funny love story here. It had potential, but the lame jokes tank it. Add in the fact that every supporting character is over the top and ultimately a distraction from any real character development and you have a show ripe with potential becomes one of the worst shows of the past year.

Score: 2/5

My Girlfriend Is Too Much To Handle
Creator: Namiru Matsumoto
Director: Nobuyoshi Nagayama
Writer: Hideki Shirane
Studio: Diomedéa, Studio Blanc