First up, Higehiro. Which is, actually: Higehiro: After Being Rejected, I Shaved and Took in a High School Runaway. Yeah...sounds awful, right?
So, I would NOT have actually tried this one at all based on the title and the description: On his way home from drinking his sorrows away after being rejected by his crush, the 26 year old salaryman, Yoshida, finds a high school girl named Sayu sitting on the side of the road. Yoshida is completely drunk out of his mind and ends up letting Sayu stay at his place overnight. Not having the heart to put Sayu out on the streets since she ran away from home, Yoshida allows her to stay at his place...
Because there's a whole lotta potential NOPE in that. But, I saw in the comments of another anime someone talking about it and I decided to try it. It's actually both better and worse than I would have imagined and a far cry from what I thought it might be based on different shows with sort of similar themes.
One, it's very clear that she's been abused since she ran away and has been basically selling herself to find places to stay. They animated some scenes in flashbacks where it was just, like, whoa. Had to actually pause it once and check I was on the right show, thinking I wandered into something else entirely. When Yoshida meets Sayu, she is at her lowest and has no sense of self value at all.
Two, though he is, perhaps, tempted when she tries to throw herself at him (thinking that's what she "has" to do), he is a decent guy and refuses. They wind up in a sort of quasi-sibling relationship. He's by no means rolling in money though, so there are definite sacrifices on his part, but it's also the start of her starting to learn what it is to be treated like a person. Of all the people she could have run into, she found herself in the hands of the right one.
Looking at the episodes, I stopped when I was 6 episodes into the 13. I do think I will go back to it at some point because, horrid title or no, it was going interesting places and it was surprisingly wholesome (though kinda depressing). However, they'd also introduced two women (one who Yoshida was crushing on who is his boss? and another younger lady who is way too nosy) and...I dunno. There's something OFF about both of them but I'm not sure I'm supposed to feel that way or not. It's actually been quite a while since I watched it so I'm having trouble remembering exactly why they were icking me out.
It's definitely a show where it had a lot of potential to go very, very wrong but seems to actually go very right. I sincerely hope the ending upholds that, which is why I will likely go back to it now that I remember watching it. There was a lot of real life stuff going on in between then and now, so yay for the reminder of watched lists.
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