My First Girlfriend is a Gal: My First Cultural Festival
はじめてのギャル はじめての文化祭 (Hajimete no Gal: Hajimete no Bunkasai)
- Comedy
- Ecchi
- Romance
- Harem
- School
- Episodes
- 1
- Duration
- 23 min
- Aired
- Dec 26, 2017
- Status
- Finished Airing
Synopsis
On the day of the school cultural festival, Junichi Hashiba and Yukana Yame’s class café is off to a strong start. During a brief break from her shift, Yukana hears an urban legend about the festival’s after-party: if a couple shares the final dance, they’ll stay together for life.
The rumor spreads quickly, and before long, others set their sights on keeping Junichi and Yukana apart before that last dance can happen. With distractions and interference mounting, the two have to find a way to stay together—or risk being pulled in different directions.
Otaku Consensus
Otaku Den Consensus: My First Cultural Festival lands as a compact, fan-service-forward OVA that plays better as an extra dessert for Hajimete no Gal viewers than as a corrective to the TV anime’s weaker habits. Its brisk festival structure and more overt harem energy give the cast a clearer comedic engine, while Yukana’s appeal as a slightly subverted gyaru remains the main reason fans are charitable toward it. The common complaint is unchanged: the ecchi humor and exaggerated character designs, especially Nene Fujinoki’s, can feel more distracting than funny.
Why You Should Watch
Watch My First Cultural Festival if you want a short, low-commitment school-romance OVA that delivers the exact post-series bonus episode energy: costumes, jealousy gags, harem interference, and a sentimental couple ritual without asking for a full season’s investment. It is best for viewers who liked the trashy-sweet side of My First Girlfriend is a Gal and want more of Yukana’s gyaru warmth rather than a serious relationship drama. Tonally, it sits closer to the ecchi rom-com chaos of To Love-Ru than the grounded awkwardness of Horimiya, but in a single-episode package. If your favorite festival episodes are the ones where side characters actively sabotage the couple for laughs, this scratches that itch cleanly.
Key Characters
- NNene Fujinoki(VA: Yui Ogura)
Nene is the character fans most often single out visually, with her exaggerated design becoming one of the OVA’s most talked-about and divisive elements.
- JJunichi Hashiba(VA: Shintaro Asanuma)
Junichi remains the awkward rom-com center of gravity, useful less as a power fantasy than as the target every competing harem gag can ricochet off.
- YYukana Yame(VA: Yuki Nagaku)
Yukana is the OVA’s strongest asset for many viewers, carrying the series’ light subversion of the gyaru archetype with more warmth than the premise first suggests.
What Makes It Stand Out
- 1
This is a one-episode OVA rather than a second-season continuation, released on December 26, 2017 after the main TV run; its appeal is the concentrated festival-episode format rather than long-form development.
- 2
Studio NAZ is credited for the production, keeping the OVA visually aligned with the TV anime’s glossy ecchi-comedy presentation instead of repositioning it as a different kind of romance.
- 3
The episode leans more explicitly into the harem label than some viewers felt the main series did, with multiple characters functioning as active romantic interference rather than background teasing.
- 4
Its reception shows a split between broad anime-database users and smaller general-audience ratings: it holds a 6.45 on MyAnimeList from 38,366 votes, while IMDb lists it at 7.1 from 96 ratings.
- 5
Nene Fujinoki’s character design became a focal point in user criticism, to the extent that one mixed review opens by calling it the first thing that stood out on rewatch.
Fun Facts & Trivia
- Fun fact 1
- The OVA is listed on Wikipedia under the alternate English title My First Girlfriend is a Gal: My First Cultural Fair, while anime databases commonly use My First Cultural Festival.
- Fun fact 2
- Crunchyroll’s listing includes Japanese audio with subtitles in English, German, Latin American Spanish, European Spanish, French, Italian, Brazilian Portuguese, and Russian, reflecting a wider international release than its single-episode status might suggest.
- Fun fact 3
- The official streaming content advisory flags suggestive dialogue, sexualized imagery, and profanity, which accurately signals that the OVA keeps the main series’ ecchi-comedy identity intact.
- Fun fact 4
- On MyAnimeList, the OVA’s popularity rank of #2813 is far stronger than its score rank of #8300, indicating a title many people sampled despite middling aggregate approval.
- Fun fact 5
- The credited main Japanese voice cast includes Yui Ogura as Nene Fujinoki, Shintaro Asanuma as Junichi Hashiba, and Yuki Nagaku as Yukana Yame.
Studios
- NAZ
