Medaka Kuroiwa is Impervious to My Charms – Episode 1

Content Warning: Fan service, sexual harassment

What’s it about? For recent transfer student Kawai Mona, winning hearts, turning heads, and generally charming everyone comes naturally. But Kuroiwa Medaka sits next to her in class and doesn’t even give her the time of day. Now Mona’s determined to win him over, no matter what lengths she has to go to.

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I really like romance series—though as I’ve gotten older, my tastes have shifted from liking high school romances to liking books with mature themes, queer couples, and the occasional dragon or authoritarian space society. Point is, while it’s not the meat and potatoes of what I read, it’s always nice to read a story where love is one part of a bigger picture.

This extends to anime as well. While I don’t watch romantic comedies as much as I’d like, I love a bit of romance when it crops up organically. It can add an intertextual flavor to the overall action, and even when it becomes the main plot, if executed well, it can be quite compelling.

Medaka Kuroiwa is Impervious to My Charms is…at the beginning of that path. It’s a show that’s kickstarting what’s clearly going to be a romance. Does it have the foundations of a premiere that promises more? Or is this romance never going to get its Happily Ever After?

Episode 1, “Can’t Charm Him,” opens up with the birth of the world’s most charming child, so charming she charms all of the other newborns as one of their first memories of exiting the womb. She even RADIATES charm in the form of sparkles and flowers! This is, for the viewer, recent transfer student Kawai Mona, a kid who makes her way through life as the Queen Bee everywhere she goes, charming everyone just by breathing. Life is good for Mona: in fact, life is great!

Until she meets Kuroiwa Medaka.

You see, Medaka isn’t immediately won over by Mona like everyone around her. He’s actually, from the viewer’s point of view, the most normal person in her orbit: he’s not rude or anything, but he comes off as just wanting space as he settles into his new school; meanwhile, Mona’s inner thoughts reveal that she’s not too pleased that he’s not immediately fawning over her.

What ensues is Mona making every single attempt she can, no matter how zany or inappropriate, to get Medaka to notice her. It’s a case of “senpai, notice me” syndrome, only they’re in the same class and Mona is determined to get Medaka to like her. Question is, will she get his attention, or are her actions all in vein?

Like an onion, there’s layers here in Medaka, only the layers are the fact that Mona is kind of a pest. That’s part humor, part annoyance because you kind of have to be invested in seeing her behave outlandishly just to get a boy’s attention until inevitably, that attention-seeking turns into a genuine crush. We are, at the point of this premiere, far away from that. Right now, Mona is a bit of a brat, and you just kind of feel bad for Medaka, who clearly wants a break from Mona’s antics.

Another layer is that there’s a lot of…uncomfortable fan service. Mona blatantly flashes her underwear in an attempt to get Medaka to notice, angling just so to try and catch his eye. There’s also her pinning him to a wall in an attempt to seduce him. This amps up to her opening her top and displaying her bra and breasts, then getting upset when Medaka doesn’t do what a boy “should do”, I suppose, and leap to the opportunity. It is not great when Medaka is depicted as being annoyed, and maybe uncomfortable, but then the scene passes pretty clear harassment (which would be outright horror if their genders were reversed) off as a joke.

There’s truth in this just being over the top rom-com anime antics. There’s also truth in there being a reason why Medaka comes off as standoffish, and we get it within the premiere: Medaka is a monk-in-training, forbidden from falling in love. His often tense and tight expressions hide the fact that he does like Mona and is trying to fight off any impure thoughts. 

Even with that explanation, I still found it hard to enjoy when there’s just better boy-meets-girl romantic comedies that already exist. That said, I do think it’s hilarious that Mona sings her own theme song mid-episode. That’s the kind of shitty teen behavior I endorse: more of that than her disrobing around Medaka, please and thank you.

I don’t necessarily regret my time with Medaka Kuroiwa is Impervious to My Charms, but I can say I don’t like it. It comes off like a cheaper, less interesting Yamada’s First Time, with less nuance as well. Right now, it’s just kind of horny girl antics without any respect for the boy she’s pursuing. On a non-sexual level, Mona clearly just wants attention and doesn’t understand that it’s possible for her to exist in a world where someone can not like her in a neutral way. On a sexual level, Mona is being predatory. That does start to fade by the end of the premiere, but I’m not sure when it’s taper off in favor of actual development between Mona and Medaka within the context of the overall series.

Ultimately, this is a bit of a yellow flag kind of series for me. It’s not egregious, but it is a bit off-putting. That said, I’m willing to sit with it, given the content warnings and how far Mona goes, to see if she goes from wetting her t-shirt and showing her underwear to actually engaging with Medaka on an equal level. I’m not saying teens can’t engage sexually or be curious about their sexuality: as someone who works with high schools in my community, I know that for many teens, exploration is how they come to understand themselves, whether that’s through flirting or asking questions about sexual education. I just think that the way the camera handles that in this premiere leaves a lot of nuance to be desired, and that there’s a lot of double standards around how boys are supposed to react to sexual advances from girls.

Give this a watch if it’s your thing: I think it’s definitely going to find an audience, and hopefully get decent coverage. That said, if you watch and  decide this isn’t your thing, please  just go watch Yamada’s First time: B Gata H Kei on Crunchyroll and listen to the old Chatty AF episode about it. That series deserves so much love and attention.