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EP. REVIEW: Domestic Girlfriend

Also, while Hina's casual attitude toward Natsuo is well-intentioned

Good to see that Domestic Girlfriend seems to be doing well right away since I am a big fan of the manga. I think James put it best. It is a series that puts every trashy ecchi and hentai trope into the blender and hits "puré" (teacher/student, Step-siblings, harems, you name it), but it works surprisingly well as a serious melodrama even without utterly condemning any of those tropes. If I had to break it down I would say it is thanks to a few things.

1) The characters are fleshed out to have personalities outside of their romance.
2) It has a moderate sense of realism and applies very real feelings and consequences to these outlandish situations.
3) It is smart enough to understand that these relationships are very prone to being unhealthy and doesn't shy away from that even as it explores a scenario that tries to make them work.
4) It is ambitious enough to tackle more than a few serious themes aside from the ones baked into the romantic setups, including slut-shaming, depression, creativity, sexuality, abusive relationships, toxic masculinity and a lot more. I can't say for certain that it does all of those well but from my p.o.w. most of them land very well. I think I read somewhere that the author is a woman and unlike certain other shows that doesn't just feel like an excuse for the trashy aspects. It feels like this was written from a female perspective.
5) The sex-scenes doesn't hurt it either.

but once Hina was alone on the roof flirting with Natsuo, that's some "special" individual attention.

I cannot really understand what the reviewer found so clunky about this episode. I can understand why the reviewer would dislike the bar character. Also, it's weird that we cannot like an animated show with unhealthy unlawful dynamics. It's not reality after all. In our fantasies, everything should be possible. If it just stays that way.