First impressions: Kanojo ga Flag wo Oraretara

Time to trigger some flags!

 When I’d seen this show looking at the Spring Preview, I thought it looked interesting, both because I love harem-y high school romance comedies and because of the premise of the flags, usually used metaphorically, and here realized literally. I don’t know if I was ready for the reality of the show, tho.

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 I wasn’t too sure about this series after seeing the trailers because I thought it was going to be just another typical romance comedy filled with super moe characters. but I think we might be in for a real surprise! Well maybe…

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Contrary to Expectations

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Nanami is quite the interesting character.

Highway// This show got the whole idea of it being a wacky light comedy out of the way right off the bat, putting our main characters in mortal danger within a minute of the start. That was just the first thing to change my mind about this show. And yes, Souta did save everyone with a well-placed sentence, but it was kind of one of those things where you’re thinking “wait, did that just happen the way I think it did?  A really surprising start.

One of the things that I’d thought was different about the show was the very ‘young’ looking characters. Even though this is set in High School, the characters look more like elementary school kids, short, rounder, cuter, not really having the height that you’d expect from post-pubescent kids. But high school it is, and so there are high school topics, like living alone. And Death. Boy, there was a lot more death in here than I thought. Not that people actually died yet (although with so many death flags, you have to think someone will), but it’s kind of ever present in the show, especially with Souta telling Nanami that all of the people who get close to him suffer bad fortunes, so she shouldn’t hang around him.

Tripping flags yo!

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I love Akane! She was a lot of fun to watch.

Fosh// Flags in anime usually pop up whenever we get a hint of a character either falling in love or possibly them dying and the first episode of Kanojo we actually see several flags appearing on various characters heads that range from friendship, romance and yes even the dreaded death flag which was triggered twice in one episode and magically our main character was able to break these flags to prevent events from happening such as death which is kind of overpowered in that world; however it seems that Souta also hates his power to see the flags and has no idea how to get rid of it! Now we have the story so what about the characters? For the first episode we only meet Nanami and Akane who both seem to be drawn in by Souta especially Akane who desperately wants to be friends, but she reveals her past to Nanami that she was only interested in helping the poor since she comes from a rich family and regrets not helping a poor person from her past and she almost died in the same episode?! At least he kissed her and saved her life or did he just make things a lot worse for himself later on by triggering her love flag? I guess we will see how massive this harem truly becomes.

Extra moe

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The best trio~

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Sure why not?

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First episode and we already have a kissing scene?

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Hnnnnggggg.jpg

End thoughts

Well this certainly was an interesting first episode and I have to ask was anyone else surprised at how serious the tone was in the first episode? I know I was because I mean if we look back at the original trailers they only showed us the comical side of things to quickly remind me of Kotoura-san’s first episode which turned super serious with in the first five minutes. Now we will have to see if this series can maintain the serious tone, but the best part of the episode for me was Akane voiced by Ai Kayano who had me laughing the entire time because she was a hyper ball of energy around the main character! I liked that a lot and I look forward to seeing the other girls especially Kana Asumi as Kikuno Shoukanji so yeah I can’t wait to see more of this.

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To answer Fosh’s question: I was certainly surprised at the tone of this show. But that’s not bad. It wasn’t as devastating as, say, the first episode of Kotoura-san, but it was still much more sober than I had expected. The look of the show is interesting as well, with almost a ‘retro’ look (if something from the middle of the last decade can be ‘retro’) and as he said, the performance of Akane was great. I’m really interested to see more of this show, and think it has a lot of potential.

So what did you like about this first episode?

Preview

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See you next time!

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We live, laugh, enjoy and strictly believe on "more the merrier". When together, we usually come up with very chatty, conversation-based episodics and interesting posts.
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18 Responses to “First impressions: Kanojo ga Flag wo Oraretara”

  1. skylion says:

    I felt like some of the drama was a bit forced, specifically when he initially rebuffed Nanamai. Are a couple of days since the sinking of that cruise liner enough to build a consensus of, “everyone around me suffers misfortune” ? Or, is this a life long thing? Narrative wasn’t very clear.

    Putting that aside, I loved the show. Kouta and Nanami are a perfect pair, already thick as thieves.

    • Foshizzel says:

      Our main character might be related to Mr. Touma from Index! SUCH MISFORTUNE!!! As for the drama I suppose I could see it being forced but at the same time it wasn’t really that dramatic since Nanami was the only one who heard about Akane’s past.

      That is a good pairing but there are a LOT of girls still left to fight for him even though I think the OTP is Nanami and Kouta.

  2. Liza says:

    I enjoyed this episode but I felt Akane was really…forced.0_o. Like how she kept on trying to be his friend in that little bit of time. Maybe if she was stalking him throughout the day trying to be his friend I wouldn’t find such a problem with it.

    Also does Nanami have a green streak in her hair that she braided. 0_o. That is incredibly odd.

    • skylion says:

      I thought the braid was really neat. I don’t know if she died her hair or if it’s an accessory? Hey, maybe it’s a princess something or other thing!

    • Highway says:

      I’m pretty sure that’s a ribbon accessory.

    • Foshizzel says:

      I thought it was cute that Akane didn’t give up wanting to be Kouta’s friend but I guess I am alone in that lol…

    • akagami says:

      Ahhh, hahaha, I went through the whole show without even noticing the green braid (until I read your comment). I didn’t really like her character so I was mentally blocking her out it seems.

  3. zztop says:

    Preview for Kanojo’s OP by Yuki Aoi, out this 30th April:

  4. Highway says:

    Something I just remembered about the ED, with all the girls with flags. First, geez, there were a lot of girls. It makes me think that it’s going to be like the start of Samurai Girls or, worse, Infinite Stratos, which had 7 straight episodes of introducing a new girl into Ichika’s harem. I really hope that all those girls aren’t harem members.

    Second, and probably more importantly: the ED went through all those girls, but taking pride of place as last girl seen was Nanami, plus, her flag she was holding was significantly bigger than all the other girls’ flags. Makes me think that this show is on rails.

    • Foshizzel says:

      I noticed that too HWY! There are SOOOOOOO many girls but I hope we don’t get one episode a week to introduce them and the preview kind of showed us a few girls at once so maybe he will meet them in batches at a time? Like 3 each week?

      Yeah most of the girls in the ED had love flags and some had random flags.

  5. Mexu2d says:

    Despite it being all flag based on friendship an love and other random things. It’s really dark, like at the end there’s this black twisting flag on his own head. What does that signify, misfortune perhaps? It makes me kind of excited. 🙂

  6. d-LaN says:

    The place I hang out at have a very annoying user who will flat out ask ppl to skip something cuz he hated it and this show/manga is on his list when I post stuff abt it.

    If you ask me based on the first episode though, KanoFlag is not *that* horrible but nothing too special either. The only thing that I’m not fond of hs Akane talking style (I warmed up to her a bit after she reveal her back story though) and the dorama. While death in that accident is possible, she looks too… unharmed lol. And somehow breaking the death flag heals your injury. (She at the very least should have some bruises)

    Whether or not I will follow it weekly will depend on whether is it possible to catch up with the amount of shows I’m watching this season.

    • Highway says:

      “I didn’t like it, so nobody else should watch it!” Ahh, the mating call of the small-minded…

      • d-LaN says:

        Maybe I am being harsh, but he enjoys repeatedly telling ppl that object A is shitty as if he doesn’t want ppl to like it.

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