My Girlfriend is Sho-bitch.

Sho-bitch- is a portmanteau of the words shojo and bitch, and is only used for the anime series. Shojo (処女) is a Japanese word meaning virgin, while in Japan the English word bitch—pronounced “bicchi” (ビッチ)—is used to mean slutty or promiscuous. Therefore, a more accurate translation of the title would be “My Girlfriend is a Slutty Virgin (Via Wiki)

Thanks for teaching me a new made-up word Japan, please keep your light novel titles long while expanding my vocabulary.

It has been a while since I watched a full-throttled ecchi rom-com. The type that is full of perverted wordplay, sexual context, and just over-the-top interactions. I personally don’t mind these shows, but as I have gotten older I have found it more difficult to stomach. I’m not sure if it is due to my older self not being able to take cringe like I could when I was a teen but generally, these are series I avoid now and days. But with that being said I do think overall a lot of these shows are overlooked, passed up as ecchi garbage. Though that argument could be easily made, there is one thing that exists within these series that has always fascinated me, the complex and vibrant wordplay that entails casual words but in a perverted context.

Stuff like this is not easy as it really shows the talent and understanding that a writer has to pull this off. I am a native English speaker, I have a college-level education in said language but my confidence to tell a story with that deep of wordplay is, lacking. So changing from my norm I decided to give a 10 episode from 2017, an over-the-top slapstick series that is about a simple boy, confessing and getting a girlfriend, what could possibly go wrong? Without furtherer ado let’s look into the world that is My Girlfriend is Sho-bitch.

Sho-bitch follows Haruka Shinozaki, a sleepy fellow who has a crush on the council rep Akiho Kousaka. Akiho has it all, she’s beautiful, athletic, smart, and hard-working. Swallowing all of his fear Haruka steps up, confessing to Akiho. Accepting his proposal to be his girlfriend Akiho gives a glimpse into her personality that Haruka wasn’t expecting. Akiho wasn’t going to stop at simply just being his girlfriend, she was going to deep dive into every kink and sexual gratification to be the perfect girlfriend possible.

Naturally, Haruka dismisses this as unnecessary, cementing himself as the only non-horny personality in this show. And then weirdos come out of the woods. Enter childhood friend and one year to his senior, Shizuku Ariyama. Actual sister and one year to his junior, Kanata Shinozaki. Kanata’s Innocent friend who just always gets caught up in whatever fucked up conversation she is having, Misaki Aikawa. Bonker in chief and president of the council, Saori Igarashi, and finally the last two I want to mention, transfer beauty Rina Saijou and yaoi friend Seiya Hoshikawa.

Alright, how do I want to do this?

A lot of series like this tend to have many layers that play into the storytelling. So many layers in fact I don’t understand most of them as an English native and even the ones I do understand would take way too long to hash out here. So instead of dwelling on that, I am going to generalize this series and what it contains.

To be blunt the con is the same with every show of this vein. It is extremely perverted, full of gimmicks and kink tropes, and unlike a show such as Shiomenta, doesn’t really give much more than a few laughs. But within that is where the beauty of series like this really shines. Akiho falls into the kuudere trope, the quiet type who is just trying her best. As a fan of this trope it was not much of a surprise that she is a massive pervert, comes with the territory. And as time goes on others equally play the part, even Akiho’s mother has a quite heavy role in why her daughter is the way she is, and her father finding comfort that Haruka is level-headed like he is.

God, honestly, I don’t know what to do with this. Sorry but this is going to be one of my most meh posts ever. I have been working on this for four days and sadly, cannot seem to grasp what I wanted to.

Sho-bitch is about as mid-tier as they come but that is exactly what one would be looking for in this. The wordplay is fantastic, complex, and on point but at the end of the day they are just talking about sex in creative ways so it doesn’t need to be admired that fucking much. If you like to part, can stomach, and just want to watch some silly pervy show, it fits the bit, if not, well I am not sure why you are still reading this.

Thanks for the read!