Domestic Girlfriend


Domestic Girlfriend is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Kei Sasuga. It was serialized in Kodansha's Weekly Shōnen Magazine from April 2014 to June 2020, with its chapters collected in 28 volumes. The manga was published digitally in English by Kodansha USA. An anime television series adaptation produced by Diomedéa was broadcast from January to March 2019 on the MBS's Animeism block. Sentai Filmworks has licensed the series in North America and other countries.
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Synopsis

Premise

Natsuo Fujii is hopelessly in love with his teacher, Hina Tachibana. Trying to move on, he agrees to a mixer. There he meets an odd girl, Rui, who invites him to sneak out. She takes him to her house and asks him to have sex with her. Natsuo, frustrated that his love will not bear fruit anyway, loses his virginity to her. The next day, Natsuo's dad tells him that he wants to remarry and his prospective partner is coming to their house that evening. As the door swings open, Natsuo is taken aback to discover that Tsukiko Tachibana, the woman his father plans to marry, has two daughters: his longtime crush, Hina, and her younger sister, Rui.

Setting

Domestic Girlfriend tells the story of Natsuo and his forbidden love towards his first love, who is forced to break up when discovered. In the void left, Natsuo embarks on a new romantic journey with his stepsister, the girl he lost his virginity to. The story delves into the controversial and complex issues of romantic relationships that involve student-teacher dynamics and step-sibling bonds, while also highlighting the themes of youth, family, friendships, learning, growing up, career, happiness and trust.

Characters

; Natsuo Fujii
; Hina Tachibana
; Rui Tachibana
; Momo Kashiwabara
; Miu Ashihara
; Akihito Fujii
; Tokiko Tachibana
; Fumiya Kurimoto
; Yuya Masaoka
; Kazushi Kine
; Reiji Kiriya
; Shu Hagiwara
; Masaki Kobayashi
; Alex J. Matsukawa

Media

Manga

Written and illustrated by Kei Sasuga, Domestic Girlfriend was serialized in Kodansha's Weekly Shōnen Magazine from April 23, 2014, to June 10, 2020. Kodansha collected its 276 individual chapters in 28 volumes, released from July 17, 2014, to August 17, 2020. An extra volume was published alongside the last volume.
In North America, the manga was licensed for English digital release by Kodansha USA in 2017.

Web video

A web video was released in May 2016 on YouTube, coinciding with the publication of the manga's ninth volume. Meant to be a "demo type love simulation drama", the video allowed the viewer to interactively influence the story by choosing between clicking two annotations that lead to separate videos. The video starred Anna Konno as Hina and Hanami Natsume as Rui.

Anime

An anime television series adaptation was announced on July 12, 2018. The series is directed by Shōta Ihata and written by Tatsuya Takahashi, with animation by studio Diomedéa. Naomi Ide provides the series' character designs. The anime aired from January 12 to March 30, 2019, and was broadcast on the Animeism programming block on MBS, TBS, and BS-TBS. The opening theme is "Kawaki wo Ameku" by Minami, and the ending theme is "Wagamama" by Alisa Takigawa. The series simulcast in Australia and New Zealand on AnimeLab. Sentai Filmworks acquired the distribution rights for the series in North America, the UK & Ireland, Australasia, South Africa, and other territories, and simulcast the series on select platforms. Hidive announced that they will produce an English dub of the anime series. MVM Entertainment have acquired the distribution rights via Sentai Filmworks for the United Kingdom and Ireland.

Reception

By April 2020, the manga had over three million copies in circulation. The first volume was reviewed in Anime News Network by three reviewers. Nik Freeman felt that the manga's stepsibling love triangle was a contrivance and that the sexual elements were a waste of Sasuga's talents, but complimented the drama and comedy, along with the characterization. Rebecca Silverman called the manga's setup a more mature Marmalade Boy, but said that the manga is less melodramatic due to Natsuo being more grounded and sensitive. Amy McNulty noted the manga's extra layers of reality and melodrama, finding Hina to be a multifaceted character and Rui to be the most relatable character while Natsuo is still realistic, concluding that the manga has a more honest setup of its tropes.