8 min read · Jun 29, 2021
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Perhaps every anime season, there would emerge popular yet controversial offerings, and Higehiro: After Being Rejected, I Shaved and Took in a High School Runaway (Hige wo Soru. Soshite Joshi Kōsei wo Hirou., 2021) might qualify for this category. Despite the favorable ratings in the global scale, making Higehiro as Project No.9’s best rated production to date, Japanese audiences in particular seem to be quite divided on its overall reception. There were even reports being surfaced of real life situations mirroring events in the series that did not go too well. Was Higehiro worth all the hype or was it, as some reviewers might claim, a risky yet self-righteous precedent? Warning: spoilers ahead!
Yoshida’s pursuit of justice: Should we all bring justice and fairness to our hands?
One may have not read the Good Samaritan bringing the robbed person he met by the road to his home, but Higehiro’s protagonist Yoshida took pity to another level. For someone who did not seem to carry a surname (note of earlier examples like Kyon of Haruhi Suzumiya), 26-year-old Yoshida was the focal point of the plot, which revolved around taking care of a runaway high school girl in his very home for around half a year. It turned out that the girl, 17-year-old Sayu Ogiwara, came all the way from Hokkaido but since running out of cash, entered into shady deals with willing adopters. Sexual favors included. While Yoshida was surrounded by similarly beauteous ladies with less hangups in their past, he did not seem to forget Sayu, who after he helped return home to her family in Hokkaido met her once more in the same spot during his walk home two years after. Many have praised Yoshida for his moral authority in resisting Sayu’s misguided advances, but while he himself said men like him were quite normal to begin with, the plot progression did not seem to agree. Later on, Yoshida himself would admit that he considered taking in Sayu because she was “cute” than anything else, so it begged the question. Did he take in a total stranger, who even brought other strangers to his home (like Asami Yuuki and Kyouya Yaguchi) without much of a permission(whileshedidinformYoshidaattimes,shehadalreadybroughtthemtohis place anyway), in order to satisfy his egoistic drive towards proving how he could handle women? Remember that he had at least two failed pursuits, his first love Kanda Ao (who only appeared in the anime through a photo), and his second love, manager Airi Gotou (a fan service favorite who rejected him, as the title suggested). At this juncture, it would be understandable how deflated his pride would have been because his kindness and other good traits have been taken for granted, then came someone like Sayu who depended on him as if he was her parent.
Meanwhile, people around them kept on being the voice of logic and reason which they seem to have largely ignored. Yoshida’s friend and workmate Hashimoto, who also did not appear to have a last name, warned him multiple times about falling for a woman like Sayu,evenpointingouthowYoshidashouldnotinvolvehimselftoomuchonwhatwasanOgiwarafamilyaffair. Besides, it would have spared Yoshida the financial and the emotional baggage if he merely followed the Good Samaritan by the book, facilitating Sayu’s return to Hokkaido and allowing life to move on from there. His romantic interest and boss Airi Gotou made a fairly accurate assessment of Sayu’s temperament and stability, after only meeting her once, and the same probably goes for his another co-worker, Yuzuha Mishima, who revealed to have ran away from home for a while, too, although her reasons were based more on principle than a family quarrel. At best, the plot progression might seem a fantastic journey which may be borderline isekai in some aspects. Despite the legal and ethical questions on Yoshida and Sayu’s actions, they never appeared to have been largely affected by the potential consequences, as if sociocultural issues did not exist. It may have even been implied subtly that the authorities were not to be trusted because Yoshida decided he was the best person out there to complete Sayu’s rehabilitation, as if a person’s psychology could be altered in a couple of months. There might even be prospects of a potential romance developing because the issue of age was no longer a great barrier to overcome. Sayu returning two years later implied that she would have been already around 20bythen, and Yoshida did not even seem half-interested pursuing Airi any further during that time, although having as premise that he had eyes on his boss for five years since. It would not be surprising if Yoshida’s preferences changed, but such a predictable outcome might have also eroded all the moral authority he was supposed to have since taking Sayu to his home. He was supposed to be the person above the emotional fray, regardless of the age gap issue(whichwasnottheshow’slargestissue anyway), but if he eventually entered into a relationship with Sayuaftermeetingupagaininthefuture, which the ending left wide open for interpretation, then everything the story built up to hail Yoshida’s personality would be for naught. It would then seem like a long game that actually worked, even if neither of them may have realized it then, than a truly altruistic act with no law of equivalent exchange at play.
The nice girl never wins the guy? Redeeming Yuzuha Mishima
While Sayu’s backstory did not exactly redeem her as a person,demonstratinghowshedidnotspendherrunawaymoneywell (with 300,000 yenasstartingmoney,nolessprovidedbyherbrother, she had two months worth of minimum wage)andmadebaddecisionsonherown, Yuzuha’s backstory did. A worker who prioritized efficiency and working smart, she may come out as lazy and carefree to those who fail to appreciate her attitude, but the movie aficionada was also revealed to be a runawaysometimeduringherpast. However, she did not have to go Sayu’s way of wandering aimlessly for a year, and she did not seem to be needing other people’s redirection to have been enlightened. Her capability to have overcome such a phase, while keeping her integrity intact, displayed a fortitude which Sayu unfortunately did not seem to have. In the end, she was shown to be an earnest worker able to handle leadership roles, perhaps the only one of the major characters who actually showed professional development moving forward.
Another aspect of Yuzuha that some may have failed to appreciate was her romantic interest for Yoshida. Of all the ladies around him, Yuzuha was the only one who loved him even though she had the least connections to him and Yoshida paid little attention to her in general. She saw him as a likeable person even before any other woman did, Airi and Sayu included. The runaway Sayu only realized she liked Yoshida because they lived together, while the enigmatic Airi saw him as a prospect after he improved his appearance and somehow verified that his intentions were possibly beyond physical attraction. However, Yuzuha appreciated his other traits, such as his loyalty and his heart, and she supported him in his every pursuit, even his decision to care for Sayu, despite her personal aversion. If some of her tactics might seem too aggressive or perhaps even annoyingattimes, it may be rooted to the fact that she had too little to work with. How would one feel if a stranger could have your love’s contact details, yet you as a close friend and a coworker did not? To the end of the series, there seemed to be no real development between Yoshida and Yuzuha’s relationship. Would the saying “good people never win the day” be also applicablehere?
Saibancho, the verdict
Sayu’s journey towards the future was likely that of finding a true family, but Yoshida and the people around him were quite inclined to believe that romance could possibly emerge from all these events. If some of the audiences also saw this perspective, then they were not exactly alone. However, in creating a progression which allows a potential relationship to develop, the social issues Higehiro tried to tackle seem to have been reduced in significance. As the conclusion was supposedly open-ended, so did the anime’s judgment on whether or not the story itself was justifiable to begin with. If Airi, for instance, was more receptive at the start to Yoshida’s declaration of love, then Higehiro might have come down differently. Or perhaps if Yuzuha was quicker to the pitch in hinting her interest, the Sayu route might have been less tenable than it turned out to be. Beyond the speculations, however, it was nonetheless worth noting that the anime’s message of hope and new chances was commendable. All people had their shortcomings. No one would be truly perfectinanimperfectworld. Thus, forgiveness and reconciliation ought to always be available for those who sought them. Sayu, however, in casually offering Yoshida favors to the very enddespiteclaiminghowshedeeplyhateddoingthem, seemed to have a lot to go thus far before she could completely turn away from the sins of her past and conquer them.
Real world issues such as suicide, parenting, and relationships, meanwhile, also needed solutions to address them. Much of the lessons from Higehiro were not explicitly demonstrated, making it difficult to derive which of them were truly advocated by the series or were simply translated from the creative imagination of the viewers. However, if there was one important lesson from all these, it would be the evasion of making bad decisions in the first place. Of course, humans have limited knowledge and cognition. Rationality might not always be present, and perhaps circumstances may dictate how there was no good option out there, but by studying history and regarding the experiences of others, one could have a better idea of how to lead a life and help improve other lives as well. If one would be in bad company, perhaps it would be for the best to find another circle which might help improve your life choices. Hopefully, it would not take one a scathing rejection of love and a drinking session to realize.
(Photos from the anime series courtesy of Project No.9)
