Disclaimer: This is a review of the 10-episode (+ 1 OVA) anime series "My First Girlfriend is a Gal," also known as "Hajimete No Gal."The first shot of the first episode, the first second in, of "My First Girlfriend is a Gal," is of the camera looking up a green dress at some of the most obvious panty-cameltoe I've ever seen.Romantic-comedy anime has a well-earned reputation and tradition of being risque, and in this case, the television broadcast did have some censorship. I usually don't think too much about it. But I didn't think I'd be starring at a second pair of lips in this show of all things, and certainly not that quickly. "First Girlfriend" is upfront with its target audience, and honestly, that audience is probably thrilled not to have to wait a few episodes before getting "the good stuff." Anyway... um, yeah, the premise. Broadcasting in 2017, "My First Girlfriend is a Gal" is one of those anime that seems to start a small trend, not based on the story, but based on the title and profile of the main character(s). A "gal" is a nickname in Japanese slang for a girl, usually a teenager, that's fashionable and trendy, wearing cool colorful clothing, wearing makeup and a nice hairstyle, talking about music and the film actors they have a crush on, say "ohmegawd" and "girlfriend" with their friends, etc. Basically, it's the stereotype for girls that just wanna have fun and hang out with each other, opposed to the quiet nerds or school sports star or multiple-club-going student-president types we typically see in anime. "Gal" is also the type of woman that most men probably fear the most as being unapproachable (the first words we hear in the English dub of the show is of the lead girl muttering to the leading man "you're gross"). While "First Girlfriend" didn't invent the term, it's worth mentioning that a few other shows featuring "Gal"'s as a premise followed shortly after. In the first episode, Junichi is in the middle of his high-school life, and is STILL a virgin! Left to hang out with three other losers and watching seemingly everyone else at school hugging and kissing, he's horny and depressed. After some forceful encouragement from his virgin buddies for them to get some traction, he's put in a position to ask Yukana, the most fashionable girl in class, on a date. Initially seeing Junichi for the pervert and virgin he clearly is, Yukana surprises him and says yes: just like that, the two begin dating. As the series goes on, Junichi has to learn how to act with his first ever girlfiriend, worried enough about it that sex is no longer the first thing on his mind. And Yukana is just having fun with the whole thing... unless, she really does like him?The first episode of "First Girlfriend" is a lot grosser than the premise already appears on paper. Junichi's three virgin friends give horrible advice that only serves to be a bad influence to him, modeled after the three guys from "Prison School," but worse: they're resentful of the other romances in the school, only see women for their sex appeal, read porn magazines in class, and openly admit to preferring elementary school kids (how it got away with all this in 2017, I'll never know). Junichi's personal lack-of-a-sex-life isn't as hopeless as he thinks it is either: like other shows of this genre, there's a harem of other girls in the character list, two of which practically confessing their interest to Junichi before he goes to Yukana. The other two girls seem more appropriate in every way too, falling on the dude for either not being interested himself (your fault for being picky!), or not picking up on the hint. Not to mention we get a glimpse at some of the other awkward character designs, like Nene, a high school student with the size and appearance of a sixth-grader, but with the largest breasts in the school, the size of two Happy-Birthday balloons... I haven't seen body proportions this extreme since those OVA's that everyone made fun of decades ago. 
Everything about my initial impressions of "First Girlfriend" almost made me turn it off. On the other hand... a part of me thought it was kinda funny. The anime doubles down on its "American-Pie" tone and doesn't let up, even when it should, and that perseverance made it difficult to look away. Funimation's English dub was a "broadcast dub," I believe, meaning they tried to dub each episode within days of it airing in Japan. And that dub sounds like it was recorded within a matter of hours, full of ad-lib jokes and impressions that weren't in the Japanese script, like a comedy improv troupe taking the premise and running hard with it. Yukana's heavy "Clueless"-teen accent was grating, but otherwise, the dub is totally the way to watch this show, if you plan to watch it at all. As the episodes go on, the sex-puns and slang gets heavier and more off script, with increasingly more swearing and explicit descriptions. The show is surprisingly raunchy, and it manages to successfully be funny, making me laugh out loud often in each episode (again, the English dub is important here). If you understand and accept that all the characters in this universe are idiots, perverts, pedophiles, or all of the above, and if dirty talk makes you giggle, then "First Girlfriend" might be the most fun you'll have with a romantic-comedy anime. It even manages to reach an a satisfying emotional climax by the end (spoiler: Junichi only gets to his first kiss, not even close to third-base). Visually, the show is colorful, but character design choices range from good to bad (if nothing else, characters are distinct and memorable-looking). Animation is passable, but nothing to write home about. Given all the talk about sex, you might be surprised that there isn't any nudity, not even nipples, which might disappoint some viewers (but the laugh-out-loud out-of-context sex puns makes for a great alternative). Frankly, the music was a bit of a disappointment, coming off as a distinct afterthought relative to everything else. "My First Girlfriend is a Gal" is the type of show you'd get if you picked the grossest pervert in your high school class to write a series, and then somehow got the rest of the students to act it out. Having regular people give it there all makes this anime a lot more fun than it ought to be. There's a LOT you'd have to overlook: make no mistake, this show is gross. But it's kind of cute and endearing in its own way.