Higehiro: After Being Rejected, I Shaved and Took in a High School Runaway

In the first episode, I really thought this would be another throw-away fan service series. Oh how wrong I was!

This is a really good anime, touching on some serious themes that are usually brushed over in other series. And it does it well! It's emotional and heartwarming, has interesting characters and the music and animation is stellar. It's an all around pleasure to watch, and a must watch for any slice of life fan.

This quickly became my comfort anime. It's definitely underrated and worth watching! I love Sayu and Yoshida's relationship dynamics. The plot is very good and I really hope there is a season 2. Would love to see where the series could go.

Such an amazing anime with such greater inner meanings and a valuable lesson for everybody. Must watch.

This anime has a nice message, though you might be put off by the first episodes, it's nice at the end. It's a simple story about caring, honesty and valor, really simple, but still nice to watch. A man takes in a teenager to live with him and then life lessons are taught.

What I think is a let down and I really hope anime story writers could fix this, is that there are few good slice of life animes about adult life, this one still isn't fully in the adult spectrum. I wish it could at least have taken an approach closer to Usagi Drop and Barakamon, which are similar. Animes have the "fan service" thing and I really wish they could cut the hentai crap out. There's definitely a market for animes which are heartwarming and focused on adult themes, with very little supply.

This anime series opens with salaryman Yoshida being rejected when he finally manages to tell a woman how he feels about her. He gets drunk and as he returns home he finds a teenage girl named Sayu sitting by the side of the road. She offers to sleep with him in return for a place to spend the night. He rejects that offer but does take her home and looks after her. He later learns that many men had accepted that offer since she ran away from her home in Hokkaido six months previously. He makes her a different offer; she can stay at his place if she does the housework and cooking. Soon a platonic friendship develops but inevitably there are some problems; society is unlikely to believe their relationship is innocent and one day somebody will come looking for her.

I enjoyed this series even more than I expected; it could so easily have turned into something sleazy but instead, thanks to Yoshida's moral behaviour, it has a purity that is heart-warming and uplifting. Our two protagonists are both likeable and fun to spend time with. Other characters are interesting too although inevitably some are less likeable; most obviously a man she had previously stayed with. The character designs may be fairly generic but they look good and suit the series. Overall I'd certainly recommend this to anime fans; I hope at some point we get to find out what happens next for Yoshida and Sayu.

These comments are based on watching the series in Japanese with English subtitles.