Run Away to Tokyo – HigeHiro Episode 1 First Impression

I’m not sure what to expect from this. 

I mean, if I’m honest this was my most anticipated anime series for the spring.  

I planned on making it the other half of the two anime series I enjoy reviewing on a weekly basis during the spring and fall seasons. 

But now, I’m not too sure I’ll be picking this one up. 

It’s not so much the story we got so far, it’s what we didn’t get that’s bothering me. 

The atmosphere is so…tense. 

There was little to no background music, not to mention for the majority of the premiere the two main characters were just sitting in various cramped spaces in an apartment. 

Which yes, I know Tokyo has cramped spaces blah blah…etc. – that’s not what I’m getting at here.  

I think my own personal issue with Higehiro is that it plays with your mind. 

I’ve been seeing people on the internet calling Sayu a whore, or ‘unpure girl’ because she is not a virgin.  

That’s not something that actually bothered me.  

It bothered me more that an event (or multiple ones) took her to the point that she was sitting alone at night in her school uniform offering to sleep with any male who would look her way to put a roof over her head for the night. 

What has this girl gone through – that got her to this point? 

That’s all that ran through my mind the entire time watching. 

Then the more Yoshida tried to respectfully pry into her past, the more horrified I was along with him. 

Sayu has been a run away for six months in our current story. Six months. 

I think she mentioned that sometimes guys only let her stay until they get tired of her, and that can be less than a week. 

If she has no money and needs to eat, sleep, and wash her school uniform she’s had on for six months straight (which some people find to be a fetish, by the way) – how many men has she slept with for a warm place to spend the night? 

How many times has she been put in dangerous situations that could have gotten her killed? 

How many times has she been exposed to potentially deadly diseases, STDs, or STI? 

Then considering the line to Yoshida about him being kind for not smoking in front of her…just how many times has Sayu been used and thrown away by these ‘adult’ pigs? What exactly is Sayu’s backstory on why she ran away? 

Why has it been six months and her parents don’t care where their daughter is? Why doesn’t her school care?  

(I know it’s Japan and it would be considered ‘troublesome’ for the school, teachers, or police to get involved and high school is technically optional there but my gosh really?) 

Why is it better for Sayu to take her chances in the big city far away from home basically sleeping in the streets than at least being in her own city? 

I mean…the yakuza blackmailing and kidnapping runaway girls into sex slavery is a thing over there in Japan. So are soaplands, and compensated dating. 

Coupled with the national age of consent being 13 years of age…Sayu is 17.  

She would not be considered an adult of legal drinking age until 20, but she is a child.  

And there are a lot of freaks who get off on the idea of a little high school girl in her school uniform willing to do anything for a place to rest her head for the night.  

I don’t know if I’m rambling at this point but it just really disgusted me. The whole entire situation. 

And I hate that I was still suspicious of Yoshida. 

At first, I thought Yoshida didn’t sleep with Sayu only because he didn’t want to “stoop any lower” after being rejected by his 5+ year long crush who he never not once thought to ask if they were single. 

Then him silently congratulating himself on not sleeping with the minor while he was drunk cemented my initial thoughts about Yoshida in my mind.  

Again, maybe I’m just overthinking all of this. Or to some degree, I’m thinking about times I’ve been taken advantage of by older men as a teenager and projecting. 

Either way, I think I’ll leave this series as just a first impressions review. Sorry if that’s a copout ☺. 

How did you feel about the first episode of Higehiro?   

Have you read the manga series for this show?  

And…what do you think Yoshida’s true intentions are with Sayu? Is he trying to save her? Or…see how long he can hold out from not sleeping with her? 

Leave your thoughts in the comment section below, I’d love to hear from you! Also be sure to follow us for more spring anime reviews! 

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