The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love You Season 2

Episode 17

I suppose it's only appropriate that 100 Girlfriends would debut its long-awaited Sports Girlfriend on Super Bowl Sunday. To be sure, the newly introduced Sutou Iku plays baseball, not football, but I've been waiting forever for this particular niche, so beggars and choosers and all that. Besides, there's going to be 100 of these girls, that's plenty of time for another athlete or two to be added. Tokimeki Memorial had three Sports Girlfriends, after all; the harem genre can be a cornucopia of sweat and activewear.

As the premiere power player for Rentaro's team, though, Iku is pretty great. Compared to the last few additions like Meido and Kurumi, where there was a period of figuring them out or winning them over, Rentaro and Iku hit it off pretty naturally and enjoy a sweet, simple courtship. As "simple" as anything in this anime can ever be, particularly in this case, when it becomes apparent that Iku's violent dedication to baseball practice goes beyond reasonable conditioning and into fetishistic territory. This could be a simple running gag or a character issue at Iku's expense in other contexts, but here it's another opportunity for Rentaro to demonstrate the depths of his devotion.

I appreciate how experienced Rentaro's gotten at this girlfriend assessment thing, which I guess he should be after eight previous entrants. Rather than stressing at the sight of Iku's masochism, he takes her as she is and provides her some service for her preferences as a way to work up to formally asking her out. The possibility of kink-shaming never even comes up—Rentaro recognizes where the bases for Iku are and immediately starts playing ball. Unconventional compared to his earlier courting of her, but still rather uniquely sweet. The scene of Rentaro faux-rejecting Iku to give her that sweet, sweet agony is also just a home run for the comedy of 100 Girlfriends as usual, Rentaro levitating from vomiting blood so hard since he's still not used to this whole "hurting someone he loves on purpose" thing. Truly, this is an opportunity for him to grow and discover more sides to himself.

Because Iku is won over so quickly, they're able to get to her interacting with the rest of the girlfriend team in this same episode. This is good, the best episodes of 100 Girlfriends are the ones where more happens. Iku fits right in with the rest of the family as well, noted by fellow extra-weird members that the more outlying types tend to gel a little easier. Kusuri even happily steps up to the plate to spank her with a baseball bat, they're going to get along swimmingly.

This also gives 100 Girlfriends the opportunity to get going with an ongoing plotline alongside Iku's introduction, needing to get everyone trained up to win the big game and save the baseball club she's currently the sole representative of. It interfaces with a minor subplot about the other girlfriends trying to lose weight after all the eating they've been doing since Kurumi was introduced, which is probably the only part of this episode that feels undercooked. There's so much else going on that I don't think they needed this extra motivation to make everyone want to play. The lack of shame around Iku's masochistic kinks makes the mild implicit shame of the others putting on a few extra pounds feel a smidge more unpleasant.

This practice portion is a stirring spectacle of the girls being varying degrees of bad at baseball. It's anchored by their core interactions with Iku, as the combination of her thinking she needs to continue carrying the team and her predilection for self-punishment causes her to over-extend herself. It's more than simple after-care can fix, though Rentaro still goes the extra mile trying, anyway. He already proved himself earlier in the episode, so it's sweet seeing all the girls step up to support Iku as well—also incredibly funny in a few aside places, like Hahari hiding under her bed, and Kurumi's reaction to that detail. It demonstrates how Iku benefits from joining a group that can mutually watch out for and support her. Truly, this is why love must be a team sport.

I was looking forward to liking Iku by default, and now that she's here and confirmed as a sporty charming tomboy masochist, I genuinely love her even more than I'd expected to. Plus Rie Takahashi is already killin' it as the character, being able to make some unholy noises in service of her…preferences. Also, this arc is potentially leading to a full baseball game played in the next episode, and as we all know, Baseball Episodes of anime are always good. I've got no other choice but to declare this episode a home run, and also admit a whole team of alternate girlfriend review images into the baseball hall of fame.

Rating:

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The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love You Season 2 is currently streaming on Crunchyroll on Sundays.

Chris has watched at least 100 anime, and really really really really really thought most of them were at least okay. You can peruse his thoughts on those and other subjects over on his blog, or see which cartoon girlfriends he's reposting art of over on his BlueSky.