Parents' Guide to

Hot Gimmick: Girl Meets Boy

By Brian Costello, Common Sense Media Reviewer

age 17+

Disturbing bullying in bizarre Japanese melodrama.

Movie NR 2019 119 minutes
Hot Gimmick: Girl Meets Boy Poster Image

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Community Reviews

age 18+

Based on 2 parent reviews

age 18+

Glorification of toxic relationships and gratuitous depiction of emotional abuse

Glorification of toxic relationships and gratuitous depiction of manipulation, emotional abuse, and blackmailing. Additionally, the main female character is consistently objectified and has no personality, instead just following along with what male characters request of her.

This title has:

Too much violence
Too much drinking/drugs/smoking
1 person found this helpful.
age 18+

Not worth the time

Negative portrayal of relationships. Unhealthy relationships.

This title has:

Too much sex
Too much drinking/drugs/smoking

Is It Any Good?

Our review:
Parents say (2):
Kids say (1):

This is a bizarre, overwrought Japanese melodrama based on the popular shojo manga. The lead character, the young teen Hatsumi, lacks even a shred of self confidence, so much so that she feels her only options for true love are with either the "smart and sensitive" boy who has also blackmailed her into being his "personal slave," or the "popular bad boy" who tried to drug her cocktail at a nightclub in order to take advantage of her and then sends her brother a FaceTime video of her unclothed. And these are only the beginnings of the complications and hydra-headed story threads that may or may not lead anywhere.

The chaos of the narrative is matched only by the chaos of the direction. Shots flicker and bounce, and it's impossible to determine how these stylistic choices enhance either the story or character development; they come across as pretentious and annoying. Maybe there's something lost in cultural translation from Japan to most Western audiences, but there really are no sympathetic characters. Like the above-mentioned teen boys, the other teens are deplorable and creepy, and the teen girls are universally mean and judgmental. And when the movie tries to show that the bullying blackmailer and the would-be date rapist are really just sensitive, it's just not believable. By the end of Hot Gimmick: Girl Meets Boy, with everything and the kitchen sink thrown at the audience, it's easy to forget that Hatsumi was concerned that she might be pregnant at the beginning of the movie, and it's impossible to recall if that narrative thread ever got resolved.

Movie Details

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