Man oh man, last week’s episode of Hige wo Soru. Soshite Joshikousei wo Hirou (Runaway Girl for short) was quite the doozy. To quickly set up the scenario for those not watching, a high school girl has run away from home and used to sleep with guys in exchange for a place to stay. She eventually finds a salaryman who can’t stand to use her for sex and instead tries to make her grow into an independent person. However, when she gets a job to start earning cash, one of the old guys she slept with works there and he says he’ll blackmail her by exposing her past if she doesn’t let him come home with her after work. Our girl doesn’t want to have her ass put on blast so she complies, and after the two reach the apartment where our salaryman is allowing the girl to stay, blackmail boy tries to rape her.  Hopefully that’s a concise yet informative summary of the situation. Now here’s the kicker.

Salaryman arrives home early and stops the attempted rape. I suppose some could argue it wasn’t entirely rape because after she tried to shove him off her, she remembers the potential blackmail he could use and sort of gives up and lies there dead waiting for him to just get it over with. Since she fought back some I’d still definitely throw the rape word on it. So Salaryman kicks Raper Boy the fuck out of his apartment in the nick of time. However, as you may recall this guy is now the main girl’s coworker, so she has to see him the next day anyway. And what happens you might ask? Some wack shit. Another coworker, who also happens to be a friend of the runaway girl starts asking questions. “He’s acting weird, did he try something with you?”. The coworker friend quickly finds out and starts berating the boy for you know, attempted rape, and I’m sitting here like “AY GET HIS ASS, how do you say FIRED in Japanese? Report this to the manager and seal the deal baby”. But alas, I counted my chickens before they hatched. The coworker, who I repeat is a girl and also the friend of the main character girl, slaps the boy once and is like “don’t do that”. Huh? In what fucking world do we find out about attemped rape on a friend and we let my man off with a “you naughty for that one chief” warning and that’s it?

"It's not what it looks like man, I tripped right onto her by accident."

You thought we were done? Hell no. Just when you think “damn, that got resolved fast for rape” the RUNAWAY GIRL HERSELF somewhat accepts the dude’s apology. She notes that she doesn’t forgive him yet, but she’s not mad anymore because he apologized? Huh? Sorry for almost forcing my dick in your pussy bud, it was truly a classic blunder. After he apologizes the runaway girl asks why he didn’t leak her past since things went south at the apartment, and this motherfucker says shit like “What? I blackmailed you to let me come over, and you did. I’m a man of my word.” Oh gotcha. Now I get it. Rape? Kinda bad I guess, if you respect sexual boundaries or whatever. Going back on your word? Now THAT’S some weak shit. It was at this point my immersion was broken for the episode and it was exceedingly clear I was watching an anime. As we move away from this moment in the next episodes I think I’ll be sucked back in as the rest of the anime has been interesting so far, this just feels like a weird misstep. Or maybe rape is more chill in Japan or something, I don’t know.

I'd fucking hope so girl.

Fingers crossed cause I am enjoying the cast and their interactions so far. Are you watching Runaway Girl this season? Do we forgive attemped rape since nothing actually happened? Was the cast too quick to be chill with this dude? Run away from rapists to the comments below!