Kandagawa Jet Girls – Episode 1

By: Vrai Kaiser October 9, 20190 Comments
Misa and Rin on their jet ski

What’s it about?  Namiki Rin has come to Tokyo with dreams of becoming a professional jet ski racer like her mother. Her new roommate, Aoi Misa, has lost her passion for the sport until Rin’s enthusiasm revitalizes her.


Content Warning: NSFW screenshots.

Pack it in, folks. Nothing this season is gonna be hornier than this one. It’s camel toes as far as the eyes can see; breasts bouncing boobily at every turn of the head (even though these girls should really be wearing supportive sportswear); and cheesecake shots basically every time the camera changes angles.

But also, if you’ll permit me a moment before I hand in my feminist gun and badge… I kind of had fun watching it?

Rin leaning forward toward the camera. subtitle: This will be my first time riding one so big!
This is the first time I’ve wished I had GIFs, because this image really cannot convey the constant, hypnotic swaying of those dangerously unsupported melons.

Like TWOCAR a few years back, this is a “sports” anime that is only very nominally interested in the sport itself. Mostly it’s an excuse to get its heroines out on the water so they can lean suggestively on jet skis and each other.

But despite that, it actually puts in the effort to make the racing sequences feel exhilarating. The old standby trick of first-person shots do a lot of the work, but it’s also channeled through protagonist Rin’s boundless energy.

Rin isn’t a particularly original protagonist, but I was so endeared by watching her walk around Tokyo going gaga over pretty girls and Taking A Stand against the designated haughty bully that I was almost swayed into watching another episode just for her. Her blatant crush on Misa is also kind of sweet, but I think that’s because I’m so hard-up for queer content this season that even the prospect of fanservice yuri created by cis men would be enough to tide me over.

Not that I have any particular illusions on that front. In all likelihood this won’t even take the leap into being yuri proper, staying instead in the realm of fanservice-heavy shipteasing.

But even as I say that, it’s somehow hard to get too mad at a series that’s so upfront about its purpose and so silly. “Why is this a weirdly sci-fi sport that has lasers?” “I DUNNO, TITTIES.”

Even the relentless horniness was hard to take seriously, partly because some of it was channeled through Rin’s POV, partly because it just never stops, and partly because it lacked the humiliation-based angle that’s so depressingly normalized with fanservice.

Rin and Misa on their bike, Rin worried. subtitle: Is your butt okay?!

At least until the last few minutes, when the show has its first race. At that point, we learn that the reason there are lasers is because they’re used to knock other drivers off-course by… shooting their clothes off (don’t worry, it’s a “safety precaution!”). And then it plays straight into that humiliation fanservice, as Misa tears up in pain after a shot of said lasers shooting her right in the lightbar-censored crotch.

Dumb, honest horny shows can have their own charms, but the cynic in me has a feeling the humiliation-driven fanservice in those final few minutes will become a lot more prominent as racing becomes the focus. Not even some low-quality gay could keep me here through that.

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