Girls Bravo

I wish we had more sex comedies that were even half this funny, to be honest.

The more harem anime I watch, the more I notice that nearly all of them have a specific set of power fantasies and pitfalls they can never seem to avoid that give them the scorned reputation they are typically regarded with. But I've also noticed that most of them are still actually pretty funny if you simply lean into them and let them be what they are. At a glance, Girls Bravo is just another trashy jiggle anime for the pile, but it also has more personality than the average series, and might actually be worth your time if you allow yourself to indulge in madcap horny shenanigans like I know you want to.

Animation and softcore porn work best when writers and artists use the medium to its full extent.

A quick story summary here: our shy boyish geek-ass of a protagonist (Yukinari) has a deadly allergy to women - literally, if he makes contact with a girl he breaks out in hives. His girl-next-door childhood friend (Kirie) just happens to be a jigglicious tomboy with a tendency to beat the shit out of him any time she thinks he's trying to peep her goods, but he'll never be able to like her that way due to his allergy. One day during a typical bath towel escapade, Kirie all but knocks him into next week, face-first into the bathtub. But instead of dying from blunt trauma (or drowning), Yukinari finds himself transported to another world called Seiren. No, it's not an isekai situation where he was reincarnated as a ____, just your standard bathtub portal to an alien world where men are a rarity, and lonely, conventionally attractive, mass lookalike straight girls are innumerable.

Anyone who says women don't get horny the way men do has never met a woman in real life.

And while 99% of the ensuing mob looking to finally get their sex-starved little hands on a proper Man give Yukinari the hives, one single alien girl with a strange mark on her forehead (Miharu) is magically able to touch him WITHOUT triggering the reaction. Sensing a spark of hope for the future, Yukinari decides to stick with her, and eventually finds a way to get back through the portal with her in tow, bringing her to live with him in the wonderful world of Earth.

Given she's technically an alien with no concept of earth customs, you can pretty much guess exactly what happens next.

From here, the show begins its rollercoaster ride of random day-to-day misadventures as we are introduced to lustful teenager after lustful teenager, whether from Earth or from Seiren, each one hatching a more convoluted and increasingly cartoonish plot to get a slice of their desired ass. Whether it's spoiled rich boy Kazuharu sidling into frame to cop a feel and subsequently get his skull cracked open by Kirie, his occult-obsessed sister Lisa summoning the Lord of Darkness to bind herself magically to Yukinari, or a kindly old man at a fruit stand inadvertently teaching Miharu how to fellate a banana, there's always some random wacky chaos going on in their world, and every time you think it couldn't get any sillier, the next episode somehow ups the ante even further.

Ah, so that's what all those articles mean when they say I've been eating bananas wrong my whole life.

As far as harem anime goes, this one is mostly a low-stakes slice of life series that relies on carefully constructed horny hijinks to cause maximum nosebleed throughput, but it's all filtered through an over-the-top absurdist sense of humor like that of the super-classics that came before it (i.e. Ranma ½, Tenchi Muyo, Urusei Yatsura, etc). Although boobs are the main course here, everyone is plenty-well animated in their less sexually-appealing body parts as well, with comically expressive faces and body language, and the voice actors bringing a strong game to boot.

It's the show's unflinching desire to just do whatever they want for every episode that really gives it its appeal.

I'm hesitant to really even qualify this as an 18+ entry; it's pretty standard fare for a titty anime. Lots of jiggle and wholly unnecessary pantyshots, embarrassing clothing malfunctions, and general gropage and ogling. But seeing as the world at large is still weird about visible nipples (especially when the characters are declared to be teenagers), I guess it's best practice to mark it as such.

Then again, watching Miharu's megaboobed older sister dry hump Yukinari in public while wearing nothing but a towel is probably a bit much for a PG-13 rating.

That said, although it's clearly intended to be a peep show, the extreme comedy angle of Girls Bravo is what actually powers the series and saves it from mediocrity. If the whole show was just an excuse to show random acts of inadvertent sexual harassment played for laughs, it would grow old pretty quickly. You can only see the same contrived joke about the awkward virgin slipping on the wet floor and accidentally grabbing the girl's skirt on his way down to the floor and glimpsing her oh-so-sacred panties so many times before it becomes blasé or even annoying.

But if you couple it with an over-the-top scene of Kirie delivering a spine-breaking suplex in response, followed by horny rich kid Lisa siccing her lesbian secret service agent on Kirie so she can abscond with Yukinari instead, it turns into something utterly hilarious.

In lieu of showing any actual cocks, there are an unexpectedly high number of gun cocks to be found here.

It's also nice to see this type of show avoiding the usual descent into reference-heavy tropes and homages. Instead of taking the easy road and becoming a series of softcore porn parodies of every pop culture phenomenon ever made, the characters are allowed to be themselves and grow organically into their own specific variety of humor. Some episodes even toy with the formula for standard fanservice staples, like giving the expected Hot Springs Episode a horror twist, and the cosplay episode taking a cross-dressing turn that even sets up for a little story progression. It's nice to see things bloom on their own!

Then again, the show is still painfully straight most of the time. Serial groper Fukuyama is supposed to be getting his comeuppance here by realizing the cosplay babe is actually Yukinari, but it would have been funnier if he suddenly learned he was into girlcocks or something.

There are also a few moments and splashes of heartfelt emotion scattered here and there. These scenes are obviously hard to take seriously given the shameless visual displays, but even that has a certain goofy charm to it if - like I mentioned earlier - you lean into it and just accept it for what it is. The camera might be fixated on some embarrassing location, but the characters are still experiencing emotions, so even if it's framed as less important than peeping someone's titties, the moment happens regardless. Accepting that dichotomy is part of what makes the show funny to me, and also reinforces a strange sort of genuinity in allowing these two things to coexist.

There's also a shockingly intense fight scene in the finale with some Jackie Chan-esque choreography and improvised weapons that really caught me off guard!

And with that, there's not much else to say here. Recommended for fans of jiggle and fans of comedy, especially if you want something on the more chaotic side. If you enjoyed shows like Ah! My Goddess or Ranma ½ but wish there were more butts, this is a great place to start! For the horny among us, this show is barely softcore even at its horniest, and definitely favors comedy over sensuality. Clearly that's not a bad thing though, and I'd recommend it when you're in a light-hearted mood and just want a good laugh.

Don't cry, don't raise your eye, it's only teenage waist land...