There’s No Freaking Way I’ll Be Your Lover! Unless… – Episode 1

Content Warning: Nudity (bathing), social anxiety

What’s it about? Amaori Renako has decided to reinvent herself in high school, from anxious introvert to outgoing normie, and part of that is making friends with school starlet Oudaka Mai. Unfortunately, after one good heart-to-heart, Mai declares that she’s fallen in love. Renako isn’t looking for the stress of dating, but Mai proposes a compromise: they’ll alternate being friends and girlfriends and see who can convince the other.

Summer of yuri continues! If Bad Girl is a schoolgirl comedy that’s about dancing around getting to a confession, No Freaking Way I’ll Be Your Lover, Unless… (unless?) is about hitting the ground running…while also leaving our main couple in very different places about their feelings. As someone with a soft spot for themes of “performance” in yuri, this is utter catnip, but it may end up being hit-or-miss depending on how you feel about its slightly breathless pace.

Visually, the show is a treat. There’s a certain neon edge to the color scheming that goes along well with the sometimes-frenetic comedy; while director Uchinuma Natsumi is pretty new, they’ve really thrown themselves into trying to create a high-energy production, and it’s well matched by a script by the more senior Arakawa Naruhisa (Let’s Make a Mug Too, MAOYU). This is part of a run of rather lovely yuri adaptations lately, but given how often the genre is stuck working with strained resources, it’ll never stop catching me by surprise.

“High energy” here means doing a speedrun of popular high school yuri jokes for comedy. A quiet moment of opening up between the awkward underclassman and her beautiful, perfect senpai? It’s the first time they’ve talked one-on-one, and the next day senpai declares her love. The blurry line between “very nice friends” and “girlfriends”? We’ll just split the time, as decided by Mai’s hairstyle! Maybe my favorite little tweak is Renako’s response to the infamous “is it because we’re both girls” question: it’s not that, it’s because dating is a minefield of potential stressors and Renako is looking for something she views as concrete and unassailable. Friendship isn’t really that either, but it feels like it’s something easily earned and maintained, and all Renako has is her preconceptions.

It’s a plot designed to work because the entire cast is a pack of absurd idiots. Mai is kind of smug and pushy in a way that might turn some viewers off, but her privileged smugness is also part of the joke, and she does have lines (like nonconsensual kissing) that she knows better than to cross. There’s also already moments where she is already a good friend, covering for Renako from the moment she learns that she struggles as an introvert among ultra-extroverts. Renako isn’t an overwhelmed push-over, either. The fact that they have an almost enemies-to-lovers vibe while simultaneously each wanting to build a close relationship is fun and prickly, and there is one foot on the ground despite the absurdity. “Let’s date some days and be friends others” is, ideally, just how a romance works, but it’s not surprising to think a teenager wouldn’t know that given the many rigid and intimidating expectations around romantic relationships.

They are, of course, going to fall in romantic love—possibly with some harem-tinted misdirection along the way, if the opening theme is anything to go by. Given how quickly the first episode is bent on progressing, I’d be surprised if they didn’t hit that milestone before the end of the season…but maybe that’s just my wishful thinking, given the inescapability of the One Season Yuri Curse. Still, this is definitely leaning heavily to the “com” end of the “rom-com” spectrum, and I think coming into it with that expectation can only help.

I’m definitely along for the ride, and if you’re interested at home I recommend checking the show out sooner than later. This is one of two titles licensed by REMOW, which means it’s currently on YouTube for free…but also that, reportedly, each episode will be taken down when the next one airs. If it all goes back up collectively at the end, it’ll probably be locked on the Samsung TV Plus app (where last season’s Your Forma is also hanging out). So, y’know. The current licensing hellscape is continuing apace. At least the subtitles were done by a human.