Domestic na Kanojo: First Impressions (Eps 1-2)

When I first saw the premise of "Domestic na Kanojo", it reminded me of the Winter 2017 anime “Kuzu no Honkai”. It kinda also sounded like a hentai. The main character Natsuo has a crush on his teacher, Hina, but due to the taboo nature of such a relationship and the fact that she has a boyfriend, he ends up having a one night stand with another girl his age, Rui, who just wants to “try it”. Teenagers will be teenagers I guess. However, in a twist straight out of a hentai, his father remarries and both his teacher and the girl he had sex with become his stepsisters, hence beginning a love triangle between Natsuo, Rui, and Hina.

While sex is a be part of the initial premise, I don’t think it will be a large part of the story as it is in Kuzu no Honkai. The characters, fortunately, aren’t extremely horny teenagers looking for an outlet for their sexual desires. Even when the Natsuo and Rui have sex, we don’t actually see the act. This is not to say that there won’t be any sex anymore in the show, but I don’t think it will be common occurrence or even a driving factor. Given this fact, the show’s kinda like a more toned down Kuzu no Honkai.

Characters

"Do you use any social media?"

"I don't do any of that, and I think using up time for that kind of stuff is... pointless" - Rui, episode 2

The characters are pretty likeable. Rui’s straightforward attitude, Hina’s playfulness, even Natsuo’s father, who is just a side character, is funny to watch because of how "genki" (energetic) he is. This is quite a big difference from Kuzu no Honkai: there weren’t many likeable characters and we only started to support them after they began to make the right choices to fix their mistakes. I hope that our main cast (which I imagine to be just Natsuo, Rui, and Hina) receive good development throughout the show. The only thing is that we’ve yet to be introduced to 2 more girls (seen in the OP) which I assume will be side characters. I don’t think the show needs to add more, because I think we can have enough drama with our main trio and they might just end up dragging out the show. Then again, it’s too early to say.

Themes

An interesting theme I think that could be explored is whether sex without the emotional attachment is truly possible. While Rui just wants our main character to shrug the fact they had sex off and act like it was nothing, I wonder if it’s really possible for him to forget. I predict that, assuming the show will have a decisive ending (not incomplete or ambiguous), Natsuo will fall in love with Rui and get over Hina. Of course, only after lots of fooling around and drama with both girls. I think he will return to Rui partly due to the fact that they had sex for the first time with each other, which forms a kind of emotional connection that in my opinion is hard to ignore, and also because Hina is an adult (despite her seeming more like a child) whose world is different from Natsui's.

I don't expect the whole incest aspect, the "we're stepsiblings now" thing, be very thematically significant. I doubt the taboo of incest is really gonna play any part. I think the fact that they move to the same house is just a cataylst to bring the characters closer together and incite more drama.

Opening

I'm also really digging the opening, "Kawaki wo Ameku" by Minami Kuribayashi. The musical structure of the song is similar to YUI's "Again" from "Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood". I love how dynamic it is; the gentle guitar at the start, then the sharp piano drop at 0:15, its slightly faster pace afterwards, slowly building up to the explosion of Minami's voice at 0:55 and her equally amazing second explosion at 1:10. The amount of emotion that Minami conveys when her voice explodes is overwhelming!

The standoff

As for the visuals, we open with Rui playing the piano and singing in the rain, before a hand reaches into water as if to grab something. The song's piano drops and the opening truly begins. The opening is a mix between black and white and full color. We see black and white whenever Rui is seen playing the piano, while it is full color otherwise. Basically, we only see black and white when we are in Rui's world, which could reveal that she is depressed on the inside due to knowing Natsuo loves Hina. The falling rain foreshadows the moody, dramatic nature of the episodes to come. Rui and Hina are both waiting for, who I assume to be Natsuo, to show up for a date. However, he doesn't come and both are worried. They begin running, trying to find him, but end up finding each other and have a tense standoff which I like. From this we know that there will be rivalry between Rui and Hina for Natsuo's heart. I still don't know what's up with the other two girls shown running. We also see Natsuo is also sinking in water, unable to get up, which probably foreshadows that he'll be swallowed up by his inability to decide between the two girls. At the end, the hand at the beginning reaches for Natsuo's hand and manages to grab hold of him. Whose hand it is, we don't know, but I guess that's what we're watching to find out.

Conclusion

The show has pretty much got me invested. It’s got a setup which is begging for drama to happen, interesting themes that could be explored, likeable characters, and a great opening. I look forward to what the show has to offer. My only fear however, is that the show will not receive a conclusive ending- this is because the manga still hasn't ended, and many readers feel like the story is dragging for too long. While it would be no surprise for it to just end inconclusively as a message telling the viewers to read the manga, I hope the studio is bold enough to give a proper ending to the show.