B Gata H Kei - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

is a four-panel manga

Manga

Manga is the Japanese word for "comics" and consists of comics and print cartoons . In the West, the term "manga" has been appropriated to refer specifically to comics created in Japan, or by Japanese authors, in the Japanese language and conforming to the style developed in Japan in the late 19th...

series published by Shueisha

Shueisha

is a major publisher in Japan. The company was founded in 1925 as the entertainment-related publishing division of Japanese publisher Shogakukan. The following year, Shueisha became a separate, independent company. Magazines published by Shueisha include Weekly Shōnen Jump, Weekly Young Jump,...

which was adapted into an anime

Anime

is the Japanese abbreviated pronunciation of "animation". The definition sometimes changes depending on the context. In English-speaking countries, the term most commonly refers to Japanese animated cartoons....

series. The story focuses on the salacious wishes of a high school girl, whose perceived drawback of being a virgin leads her to lusting and pursuing a rather average and unremarkable boy in her class.

Outside of Japan, the series is licensed in Traditional Chinese by Sharp Point Press

Sharp Point Press

Sharp Point Press is a Taiwanese publisher of manga and music. It was founded in June 1982.-History:*1982 - Company established. Mainly publishes military and models related books.*1985 - Started publishing annual Zodiac fortune telling handbook....

.

A drama CD has also been released.

Story

B Gata H Kei revolves around 15 year old high school student Yamada whose lascivious nature causes her to aspire to one day achieve sexual relations with 100 different partners. However, her insecurities as a virgin leads her to reject every guy that attempts to make a move on her. In order to hurdle this mental barrier Yamada goes on a search for her "golden cherry

Virginity

Virginity refers to the state of a person who has never engaged in sexual intercourse. There are cultural and religious traditions which place special value and significance on this state, especially in the case of unmarried females, associated with notions of personal purity, honor and worth...

", an inexperienced boy whom she will bestow the right to be her first. One day while perusing a bookstore for the replacement of a dictionary she had defiled by highlighting all the sexual terms, Yamada has a fateful encounter with classmate Kosuda Takashi. Believing that Kosuda is the boy she is looking for Yamada goes to great lengths to try and seduce him. All the while, she discovers the difficulties in making that first important step towards reaching her goals, not to mention, finding out her true feelings for Kosuda Takashi.

Yamada

is a high school girl who is best described as oversexed, flirtatious and lustful. She is particularly vain and is unabashed in flaunting her looks in public. Upon entering high school, her goal was to have intimate relations with 100 different men; however, her insecurities as a virgin caused her to turn down any advances. Yamada believes the first step towards realizing her dreams is to lose her virginity to an inexperienced boy. This leads her to pursue Takashi Kosuda when she accidentally falls on him at the bookstore. While initially seeing him as a tool for her lust, over time she starts to develop genuine feelings for him which includes jealousy when she finds him in the presence of another female companion, however is in complete denial to this. Despite living at home with her younger sister, Yamada is unashamed in her licentious habits, which involve highlighting sexual terms in the dictionary, collecting women's sex magazines, taking pictures of animals having sex, and after freaking out over Kosuda's bodily reaction, downloaded pictures of a hundred uncensored penises. Yamada is an excellent student although that can partly be attributed to reading the dictionary and her ability to quickly read and memorize articles about sex.

Yamada's first name is not revealed in the series.

Yamada's Eros Deity

Aiding her towards her goals is who takes on the appearance of a super deformed

Super deformed

Super deformed or SD is a specific style of Japanese caricature where characters are drawn in an exaggerated way, typically small and chubby, with stubby limbs and oversized heads, to make them resemble small children...

version of Yamada, save the mustache, and floats around on a pink cloud. This character also acts as a narrator at times, recapping past events as well as occasionally breaking the fourth wall

Fourth wall

The fourth wall is the imaginary "wall" at the front of the stage in a traditional three-walled box set in a proscenium theatre, through which the audience sees the action in the world of the play...

to address the audience.

Miharu Takeshita

is the best friend and classmate of Yamada. Despite her friend's prurient interests, Miharu tries her best to be of help, even going so far as to invite Takashi on a double date at the water park. At times, she is the subject of Yamada's envy due to her being busty, of which earned her the moniker "F-shita" as a reference to her cup size. She also has a boyfriend who is a college student, but whom she rarely talks about because of Yamada and her lewd prying. It is hinted that she lost her virginity to her boyfriend right after her junior high school graduation. She later becomes friends with Mayu, having a great respect for her innocence, and she even practices cooking with her.

Unlike the other characters, she actually has two Eros Deities, one in a sexy dress (Ero Plus), and the other dressed in a business attire(Ero Minus). She believes the sexy dress side came about because she spends too much time with Yamada.

Takashi Kosuda

is one of Yamada's classmates, and is the main subject of her lust throughout the series. He is often perceived by Yamada and their classmates as being nothing special, even "plain and ordinary". Takashi is initially taken by Yamada's advances, but that later turns into confusion and anxiety, due to her mixed signals, as well as his insecurities as a virgin. He lives at home with his older sister, who is a college student. One of his hobbies is photography although it's mainly landscape photos. He is afraid of heights

Acrophobia

Acrophobia is an extreme or irrational fear of heights. It belongs to a category of specific phobias, called space and motion discomfort that share both similar etiology and options for treatment.Most people experience a degree of natural fear when exposed to heights, especially if there is little...

. Takashi has feelings for Yamada while being totally oblivious that she only wants him to lose her virginity.

Kosuda's Eros Deity

also looks like Kosuda. He wears a bathrobe and has a laid back attitude. His advice is also fairly ineffective, such as give up and go to bed. He does not play a large role in the series, only showing up a handful of times. That is, when he has a speaking part.

Mayu Miyano

is the childhood friend of Takashi who lives directly across the street from their house. She is depicted as a shy, clumsy, yet busty girl with glasses

Meganekko

is a Japanese word which translates to "glasses girl"....

. Mayu has feelings for Takashi but doesn't have the courage to confess to him. Because of her close history with Takashi and her relatively large bust size, she is perceived by Yamada as a rival, although Takeshita considers her totally sexually innocent and a virgin. One of her favorite hobbies is cooking. Her first love was actually Takashi's sister Kazuki, who she thought was a boy, because of her strong nature.

Miyano's Eros Deity

is in the form of a cute small fairy that is as innocent as she is. For example, she suggested Mayu kiss the cookies she was going to give to Takashi for an indirect kiss.

Kyoka Kanejo

is a transfer student who ends up going to the same school as Yamada and Takeshi. She is extremely wealthy, and classifies herself as a perfectionist who can do everything, including modeling, cooking, and sports. When she transferred to Yamada's school, she was quickly deemed a finalist in the school's beauty pageant, but lost in the voting to Yamada because not many students knew who she was. She then becomes obsessed with becoming queen and gaining revenge on Yamada. She has an excessive brother complex to where she has a secret room filled with pictures and products sporting his image, to a point where she wants her own brother, Keiichi Kanejō, to take her virginity away from her. She will do absolutely anything at all costs to win his affection but unfortunately for her, he is currently studying in Harvard where she can not follow. As part of her revenge strategy, she confronts Yamada and declares she will try to steal her boyfriend, easily eliminating Kosuda as a possibility. Since she and Yamada share the same combative personality with a superiority complex, they often don't get along very well.

Kanejo's Eros Deity wears a noblewoman's attire, complete with a fan. Though, does not seem to show up in the animated series.

Chika Yamada

is Yamada's little sister, who is unaffected by Yamada's perverted nature. She is very popular, often using her cuteness to get boys to give her whatever she wants, a trait she inherited from her mother. This experience allows her to clearly see what is going on in Yamada's love life. In the manga, although she already has many boyfriends who come and visit, she stated she is still a virgin.

She too has an Eros Deity, but it takes the form of an exact copy of her and overlaps with her real self, making her and her Eros Deity completely synchronized.

Kazuki Kosuda

is the older sister of Takashi, who is a college student living at home. Though often teasing her brother, she deeply cares for him. She is also not shy, and often walks around the house barely dressed despite her brother being there, much to his objection. She recognizes Yamada has interest in Takeshi early on when she visits.

When asked whether she has an Eros Deity, Kazuki replies that it's a secret.

Keiichi Kanejo

is Kyoka's brother who has been studying at Harvard for his MBA. He is the object of every woman's infatuation, even a princess from a foreign country could not withstand his "charm". When he visits Japan, he becomes interested in Yamada, much to Kyoka's chagrin, because Yamada is the only woman that has not instantly fawned over him, and he considers the "hard to get" attitude an interesting challenge. Yamada asks if he's a virgin with the hopes that it would stave off his advances, but he responds by revealing that he is indeed one, although he is unaware that his sister had been secretly eliminating his potential girlfriends. He later on even becomes a guest English teacher at Yamada's school, and continues to pursue Yamada relentlessly, until Yamada affirms that she finally likes Kosuda. At the end of the series, Keiichi decides to stay in the teaching profession, becoming a "legendary teacher" and the Minister of Science and Education.

Yamada's Mom

Yamada's mom is also extremely popular in the neighborhood as she seems to receive many gifts from visitors.

Daisuke Matsuo

Takeshita's boyfriend. He is a student two years older who met Takeshita at the bookstore.

Akai

Yamada's homeroom and P.E. teacher. She initially pairs Kosuda and Yamada as representatives for their school's sports festival after hearing that Kosuda announced that he likes Yamada during an informal beauty poll by the guys. She starts getting worried Yamada and Kosuda might be fooling around after finding them alone in the storeroom. During Christmas while out jogging she finds a distressed Yamada and listens to her problems, internally shocked about her talk about sex. This is compounded by overhearing Kosuda propositioning Yamada at the school stairs, and Yamada writing that she wants to lose her virginity on her career counseling form.

Akai-sensei herself is single and in her mid-20s. Her Eros Deity is portrayed as herself in high school as she never matured.

Classmates

Mami Misato: Yamada's classmate with the hair buns. She is as boy obsessed as Yamada. She's the first one to fall for Keiichi Kanejo when he returns to Japan, and even goes as far as break into his estate. Later on she becomes interested in an effeminate looking guy named Kawai Mizuki, and even gets a brief makeover to look mature.

Aoi Katase: Yamada's classmate. She is Misato's friend and has been looking after her since elementary school. She has a sour attitude towards boys after being in a relationship where her boyfriend cheated on her.

Akimoto: Kosuda's friend. He gets a crush on a rich girl at the Christmas party.

Kudou: Kosuda's friend with narrow eyes. He develops a liking for Katase.

Sakai: Yamada's classmate who also has light hair like Yamada. She hosts a party at her place with the guys and girls following the Kanejo Christmas Party.

Ishibashi: Yamada's classmate.

Kobayashi: Yamada's classmate who seemed determined to pursue a rich boyfriend at the Kanejo Christmas party.

Mrs. Ishihara

Kyoka's housemaid. She finds Kyoka's activities rather strange, but tries to support her.

Manga

The series is written and illustrated by Yōko Sanri. A pilot appeared in Shueisha

Shueisha

's Monthly Young Jump special Makaku and the Weekly Young Jump
Weekly Young Jump
, launched in 1979, is a weekly Japanese magazine that publishes various seinen manga in each issue. It is published by Shueisha under the Jump line of magazines.- History :...

in 2003. The manga then appeared regularly in Weekly Young Jump from issue 20/2004 to 10/2011 (February 3, 2011). The serial chapters were collected into nine tankōbon
Tankobon
, with a literal meaning close to "independently appearing book", is the Japanese term for a book that is complete in itself and is not part of a series , though the manga industry uses it for volumes which may be in a series...

with the first one released on February 18, 2005, and the eighth on July 16, 2010.

Outside Japan, the manga is licensed by Sharp Point Press

Sharp Point Press

in Taiwan.

Anime

B Gata H Kei official premiered on the KBS

Kyoto Broadcasting System

is a commercial broadcasting station headquartered in Kyoto, Japan. It is doing business in Kyoto Prefecture as and in Shiga Prefecture as Its radio station serves Kyoto and Shiga Prefectures and is a member of National Radio Network . Its television station serves Kyoto Prefecture and is a...

and Tokyo MX television network on April 1, 2010. The opening theme song for the series was and its ending theme was . Both theme songs are performed by Yukari Tamura

Yukari Tamura

, is a popular Japanese singer-songwriter and voice actress, affiliated with the talent agency I'm Enterprise. Affectionately called Yukarin by her fans, she is also known for her high-pitched voice and interest in Lolita fashion...

, and a maxi single containing the two themes was released on April 28, 2010. There is a total of 12 episodes. Funimation Entertainment

Funimation Entertainment

Funimation is an American entertainment company. Originally founded in 1994 by Gen Fukunaga, the company became a subsidiary of Navarre Corporation on May 11, 2005...

has licensed the series with the subtitle Yamada's First Time, and will be released on January 31, 2012.

Reception

Anime News Network

Anime News Network is an anime industry news website that reports on the status of anime, manga, Japanese popular music and other otaku-related culture within North America, Australia and Japan. Additionally, it sometimes features similar happenings throughout the Anglosphere and elsewhere in the...

reviewed the first episode of the series as a preview for the spring 2010 anime season. Carl Kimlinger initially assessed the series as having "real promise", and Theron Martin felt the comedy was on how Yamada focused on the sex side of a relationship rather than the emotional side, finding the first episode "fanboy-pandering", but somehow reticent about showing fanservice. Tim Maughan noted that although the premise could be interpreted as a "ballsy teen-sex comedy" about the pressures teens feel about becoming sexually active, but noted that due to the 1am screening time, the audience was "otaku

Otaku

is a Japanese term used to refer to people with obsessive interests, particularly anime, manga or video games.- Etymology :Otaku is derived from a Japanese term for another's house or family , which is also used as an honorific second-person pronoun...

men-children" rather than teens. Zac Bertschy regarded it as "yet another in a long line of crappy anime sex comedies".

The B Gata H Kei anime team announced that they had received "multiple threatening letters" about the content of the anime.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.