Our Dating Story: The Experienced You and The Inexperienced Me episode 1 begins with Ryuto, a gloomy young man who has never had a girlfriend and has only a few friends. He talks about one of the popular girls in his class named Runa, and reflects on how they come from two different worlds. He hears rumors about how she changes boyfriends every 2 to 3 months. He never thought much about it because he had heard those rumors for a while and had never interacted with her before. That is until she asks to borrow his pencil for a moment to write her name on a paper. That’s when he starts to feel sparks for her.
I find it amusing how there are moments when you think about someone, believing you’ll never interact with them, but then you do, and suddenly you start feeling sparks inside of you. These are the most typical high school feelings that this episode truly portrays for a young boy.
Later in the episode, during lunch, Ryuto and his two buddies were eating and discussing gaming and their grades. When the topic shifted to grades, they decided to turn it into a competition. The person with the best grades would lose, and the one with the worst grades would win. The loser had to do whatever the winner said, and the bet was that they had to confess to someone. For a moment, Ryuto didn’t have a specific person in mind until Runa popped into his head. They believed he would get rejected. Thinking he would experience the feeling of hitting rock bottom. Ryuto confessed to Runa, and to everyone’s surprise, she accepted.
Bets can truly lead to unexpected outcomes, especially those that seem easy but don’t turn out as expected (that’s why I avoid making bets now). Our Dating Story: The Experienced You and The Inexperienced Me characters so far seems to have really reasonable and quirky highschoolers.
As Ryuto and Runa walked home, they discussed their relationship and the shallow feelings they had for each other; it was indeed a shallow connection. Runa expressed her belief that they could give dating a try, to see if they truly would grow deeper feelings for each other. She also shared that she had been in many relationships but had never gone very far before. When they arrived at Runa’s house, various things happened, but the most significant moment occurred when Runa thought that Ryuto wanted to have sex. This assumption was based on the common belief that many boys desire sex the most in a relationship, and they might find a girl boring if it doesn’t happen. However, Ryuto clarified that, despite his thoughts suggesting otherwise, he didn’t want to rush things. He expressed his desire to take it slow, and they both agreed to that approach.
It’s quite endearing how they are taking things slow in their relationship, just as they did earlier in the episode when they both had shallow feelings for each other. They want to get to know each other better and figure out if they genuinely like each other. Obviously consent is crucial when it comes to sex. Our Dating Story: The Experienced You and The Inexperienced Me makes a good approach to that.
Overall, I find Our Dating Story: The Experienced You and The Inexperienced Me very charming, where both of the characters are quite different from each other, and they are eager to learn about one another and figure things out. Even though one of them has experience, this is still a new experience for both since they have never been in a relationship that took things slowly. I see this as an opportunity for both of them to gain new experiences and grow as individuals while being in the relationship. While there are more details towards the end of the episode, I recommend watching it to discover how their thoughts about this relationship will develop further in the future.
The key takeaway from this episode is that even when two people come from different backgrounds, they can still learn unexpected things about each other, leading to a strong connection and sparks between them.
I give episode 1 of Our Dating Story: The Experienced You and The Inexperienced Me a 7/10
Screenshots via Crunchyroll
© Makiko Nagaoka, magako / KADOKAWA / Kimizero Production Committee