Two high school students are married, and they don’t like it. Rewind. Akane (girl) gets on Saito’s (guy) case for sloppy work on the daily class record. They bicker until their classmate Himari (girl) comes over and asks why Akane gets on Saito’s case so much. She doesn’t have an answer. Another student, Shisei (girl), offers encouragement to cousin Saito. After school, Saito’s boisterous grandfather summons him to a meeting. He arrives…and Akane is there too? Weird. Her grandma inexplicably ordered her to be here. Gramps and grandma appear and drop backstory: they liked each other as kids but drifted apart. They later had long happy marriages, but after having both been widowed for several years, they’ve gotten together in their old age. “We can’t help but wonder what could have been if we were together from the start. So why not realize that love by hooking up our grandchildren?” The grandkids protest that you can’t force them to marry…but the grandparents have leverage. Saito is set to inherit gramps’s business empire, but if he bails, gramps threatens he’ll leave the company to a random stray dog he found on the street. “Don’t be fooled by shortsighted emotions,” says gramps. They are given three days to think it over. Akane calls Himari for advice, while Shisei expresses support for her cousin. Fast forward three days, and the grandkids agree to marry…but they expected to do so in a few years, after college. Nah, it’s happening now.
That was really funny. I know “young folks get married” isn’t a shockingly unique premise for a romcom at this point, but I thought this was quite an entertaining take on the concept. I’m also intrigued by the message to marry young; I kind of felt like the show might actually be sincerely encouraging it, not just using it as a punchline. If so, it would be a strikingly countercultural message in a world where fewer people marry at all and the average age for first marriage has been climbing for decades. In terms of where the show can go from here, beyond the usual romcom sweetness and silliness, there are hints that we could have a harem situation with Himari and Shisei. There are also a few other cryptic lines of dialogue that might be foreshadowing. I think this show has a lot of potential to be cute, funny, and maybe even thought-provoking. Unless you’ve seen shows with similar premises and just hated them, I definitely recommend giving this one a try. I plan to come back next week.
I’m Getting Married to a Girl I Hate in My Class is streaming on Crunchyroll.
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