Spoiler: This review contains spoilers for Go For It, Nakamura!, Episodes 1 and 2 “Go For It, Nakamura-kun!!” “Super Exciting Cooking Class!!” and “Panic! The Secret Bible!!”
Wait! Before you throw tomatoes at me for this headline, let me explain.
It takes courage to go up to your crush and utter even one coherent word. It takes a hell of a lot of courage to do it when you’re gay and the dictionary definition of introvert. Go For It, Nakamura! premiered with two episodes on April 2 and was animated by Drive. The setting as well as the school uniforms set the story in the 1960s to 70s and fans of Rumiko Takahashi’s works will probably see a lot of likeness in the designs. The story follows sixteen-year-old Okuto Nakamura, a closeted but intensely introverted high schooler, who tries on multiple occasions to muster up his courage to talk to the cute boy in his class, Aiki Hirose.
Unfortunately for him, no matter how many times he has visualized their first meeting, their first conversation, Nakamura always somehow fails spectacularly.
Expectation A: Hirose drops his handkerchief and Nakamura has the perfect plan: he’ll handsomely pick it up with two fingers and smoothly offer to tutor him some time.
Reality A: In his rush to beat a female classmate from getting to the napkin before him, Nakamura stomps on the handkerchief with all his might. So hard that everyone can see the shoe imprint.
Expectation B: A cockroach runs wild in the classroom. Nakamura will swoop in and instead of killing it, he’ll set it free! That’ll show his bravery and compassion!
Reality B: When the roach (possibly moved by Nakamura’s “compassion”) creeps into his sleeve and under his uniform, Hirose swoops in and saves Nakamura and the roach.
I had to pause and smush my face in my hands so many times; this is peak secondhand embarrassment and frustration. While I personally have never been in these situations (I prefer to pretend my crush doesn’t exist, act suave and cool when they do talk to me, then proceed to blush furiously), how could you not feel for him?
Perhaps the most relatable thing for me was in the second episode when Hirose discovered Nakamura’s Bible–I mean, BL manga. I’ve had to hide all things LGBTQ+ in my room from my parents or come up with ready excuses to explain why I have a mountain of BL manga on my shelf. It’s exhausting. It’s tiring to always stay primed to hide part of yourself.
Here, though, there was no judgement. Just a genuine acceptance from Hirose as he said, “I think it’s fine if you read [BL].” There are obviously homophobic BL fans in real life, but I’m interpreting this as Hirose saying there’s nothing wrong with Nakamura being gay. It’s an enormous weight off your shoulder knowing that there’s someone who will stand by your side.
Go For It, Nakamura! hits all of the retro vibes perfectly, from the coloring and lines that really does feel like a manga from the 70s was brought to life. The lines felt a bit rougher with some subtly craggier edges. The anime adaptation also proves why animation is such a fantastic medium because the exaggerated physical comedy that the studio did created a lot of hilarious moments that translated very well. As enjoyable as the first two episodes were, unfortunately, I found some of the pacing to be off which was most noticeable in the second half of Episode 1.
Go For It, Nakamura! isn’t the typical BL that fans might expect to see, but it doesn’t make it any less fun.
