"Oh my god! This is just moe American Pie!
— Gigguk (stumbling onto a way to sum up the series for new watchers)
At a literature club in high school, as a means of ending some tension, the club members are asked what was one thing they wanted to do before they died. One girl, Niina Sugawara, bluntly states that she wanted to experience sex. As such, this starts the girls' journey through the awkward stage of adulthood.
Known in Japan as Araburu Kisetsu no Otome Domo Yo, the manga was written by Mari Okada (of Toradora! and Anohana fame; she also scripted and helped direct the anime) and illustrated by Nao Emoto. It began serialization in Bessatsu Shōnen Magazine in December 2016. An anime adaptation began on July 5th, 2019 and was distributed by Lay-duce on the Animeism programming block. It is also available on Sentai Filmworks's HiDive streaming channel. Both the manga and the anime finished within two weeks of each other; the final volume (with a "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue) was published on October 9, 2019, just after the anime ended on September 24, 2019.
The manga provides examples of:
- All Women Are Lustful: From a few of the main characters to their female classmates who have no shame in bragging about their looseness.
- Babies Ever After: In the Epilogue Juujou is seen to have had her baby, and apparently married her boyfriend.
- Beta Couple: Rika and Shun, who sort out their relationship before anyone else and don't run into any further complications, in contrast to the Kazusa-Izumi-Niina love triangle and the sketchy relationship between Hitoha and Yamagishi.
- Betty and Veronica: At the end of it all, Izumi with Kazusa and Niina. Kazusa serves as his Betty, being his childhood friend and someone he genuinely likes and eventually dates; while Niina serves as his Veronica, more sexually exciting than Kazusa but requiring more than a few hoops to get her (namely, breaking up with his girlfriend and risking a friendship being torn apart). Before the penultimate chapter he even tells both girls as much.
- Book Ends: For the anime— it starts off with Kazusa looking at a tunnel, certain that a train wouldn't fit into it, and ends with her and Izumi on a train and the same hole emerges. She is delighted to see that it does fit inside of it.note
- Caught with Your Pants Down: Kazusa catches her childhood friend Izumi in the act when she was told to give him a take out box of food her mother made.
- Childhood Friends: Izumi and Kazusa. Some of Kazusa's emotional conflict comes from her being torn between wanting a Childhood Friend Romance and being terrified of sex.
- Evolving Credits: In each episode, the spoken word part of the credits reflects the previous episode.
- Foreshadowing: When Kasuza discovered that Izumi's porno was about bus molestation instead of train molestation, she rationalizes it by suggesting Izumi would never want to dirty his genuine train enthusiasm. This is basically how he treats his relationship with Kasuza herself once they get together; he loves her a lot and cares for her, but he can't usually think of her in a sexual way.
- From Bad to Worse: The exaggerated Love Triangle reaches a point where all the girls involved lay out their feelings and Momoko demands that Niina not tell Izumi about her own feelings to him and in a tense moment Momoko runs away and Niina follows her just for the latter to fall on top of the former. Then Izumi hears all of this, and Momoko asks him to say his feelings for Kazusa outright and reject Niina. He replies that he's in love with Kazusa, bit os sexually attracted to Niina, which hurts the two and Rika outright tells him that this is the worst thing a guy can say. Kazusa thinks Izumi isn't into her sexually and Niina thinks Izumi is only into her body. Although she pretends to be content with this. Then things get exacerbated when Niina lies by saying Izumi touched her and she felt so hot. Though it gets better.
- Hormone-Addled Teenager: The entire teenage cast is at the age where hormones start acting up, and the point of the series is exploring how each of them deals with it. This trope is played with a lot, as each girl and boy is a different example.
- Generic Cuteness: Though Niina's exceptional beauty and Kazusa's relatively plain looks are important plot points, from the art alone, you'd have a hard time noticing either of these things. Niina's only unique characteristic is her ghostly-pale skin, and Kazusa gets plenty of Animation Bump close-ups in addition to being no less cartoon-cute than anyone else.
- G.I.R.L.: Inverted. Hitoha doesn't misrepresent herself on the internet, but thanks to borrowing all her sexual experience from sex scenes in old literature written by straight guys, Tomoaki engages with her online persona convinced that she's a Dirty Old Man merely pretending to be a teenage girl. When he discovers that Hitoha actually is a teenage girl (and one of his students, no less), he's immediately horrified, bails from the meetup, and tries to pretend that That Didn't Happen, only for Hitoha to blackmail him into becoming the literature club's much-needed supervisor.
- It's Not Porn, It's Art: The inciting incident of the series is the girls of the literature club coming to the realization that the various classical novels they read sure have a lot of explicit sex scenes in them. Rika has the most trouble accepting this, and is the most eager to rationalize it away.Rika: The act of intercourse in literature is just an expression of the writer's art, whereas intercourse in real-life is a carnal thing—senseless desire devoid of all reason! No aromatic nectar could flow between the legs of those ghouls!
- Karma Houdini:
- While he gets punched in the face by Niina, Hisashi is nevertheless free to further psychologically break and groom other potential girls.
- Satoshi gets away unscathed after accusing Momoko of being a psychotic slut, and in the epilogue, he even has another girlfriend.
- Let Us Never Speak of This Again: Izumi offers this as a solution to Kazusa in the first episode, but she races out before she could respond to it.
- Love Triangle: Kazusa and Niina (and before her, Megumi) both like Izumi. Making matters worse, Izumi is romantically attracted to Kazusa but sexually attracted to Niina. And then there's Momoko's feelings for Niina too...
- Maybe Ever After: Whether Niina and Momoko become a couple or just got closer is uncertain. Given how both blush at each other in the epilogue, it could suggest the former, but there is no concrete proof.
- Official Couple:
- Rika and Shun.
- Kazusa and Izumi.
- In the epilogue, Yamagishi is revealed to have successfully tied the knot with Tomita and is going to marry her.
- Really Gets Around: Many of the main girls' female classmates boast about their conquests. Though probably some of it is just boasting to seem like it. This is further implicated when Megumi asks Izumi out only to be rejected.
- Sex Is Evil, and I Am Horny: Early in the series, Kazusa and Rika suffer from this. Rika suffers more from the 'Sex Is Evil' thought, and Kazusa more from 'and I am Horny'.
- Sustained Misunderstanding: Invoked by Niina. Her plan to get Kazusa and Izumi together was to not resolve the misunderstanding that she and Izumi had something going on and instead make it worse, forcing Kazusa to take the stand and ask Izumi out. It ultimately ends up subverted when Niina does start falling for Izumi for real.
- Teacher/Student Romance: Not without effort, but ultimately subverted with Hitoha and Tomoaki. Hitoha develops feelings for Tomoaki and often aggressively tries to nab him, but he isn't interested in high school girls at all and likes a fellow teacher.
- Wham Episode: Episode 8 brings a lot to the table for the viewer to digest:
- During the reading of the urban legend during the culture festival, Niina goes off the script and walks down towards Izumi and her acting teacher, and places her hand on Izumi's chest.
- Rika swallows her pride and publicly confesses to Shun at the bonfire. And the feelings were mutual.
- After mulling it over with Niina, Izumi walks into Kazusa's shadow and confesses to her.
- Despite of the confession, Niina goes over her feelings of having been rejected by her first love to her acting teacher, and decides that she would allow herself to obsess.
- Episode 9 ups the stances from the previous episode.
- Tomoaki apparently takes Hitoha up on her offer on sex.
- Momoko reveals her feelings to Niina as a means of stopping her from ruining her friendship with Kazusa only to be told that she couldn't have sex with a friend.
- Niina orchestrates a claim of getting groped on the train as a means of forcing Izumi's hand on her butt.
- Episode 11:
- Kazusa learns of Niina's intents on confessing to Izumi.
- Shun and Sonezaki are expelled after they were both found at the love hotel.
- The literature club tries to repeal the ban on nonplatonic contact between the sexes by kidnapping Milo and holding him hostage and then sending out messages to the rest of the staff on their demands.
- Wham Shot: Played for Laughs. When Kazusa finds Izumi masturbating in his room, she acts like her entire world has turned upside down. Of course, her overreacting to what should be just an awkward situation is the point of the scene.
- Episode 9 provides more shocking sights after the events of the eighth episode:
- Hitoha asks for Milo to have sex with her again, and unlike with the other instances, it seems that he will take her on her offer.
- To prove she's serious about this, Hitoha throws her undergarments into the trash.
- With her former acting teacher's probing, Niina takes Izumi's hand and places it on her butt under the guise of there being a groper on the public train.
- Episode 9 provides more shocking sights after the events of the eighth episode:
