Are You Okay With a Slightly Older Girlfriend? Volume 1 | Light Novel Review

Title: Are You Okay With a Slightly Older Girlfriend? Vol 1
Author: Kota Nozomi
Illustrator: Nanasemeruchi
Translator: Sean Orth
Publisher: J-Novel Club
Copyright © 2018 by Kota Nozomi

This is one of of those times when a light novel is the perfect pick for the SJWs to cancel and convince themselves they’ve done something for society. There’s no anime adaptation, so it’s going to take a while before that happens.

First-year high school student Momota Kaoru just saved a beautiful high school girl, Orihara Hime, from a train molester. One thing leads to another, and they end up going on a date! They have a lot in common: they both love video games, they both jam to their favorite songs on mixtapes, they were even both born in the Year of the Snake. Except… Orihara’s first game console used cartridges… and her old mixtapes are all on MiniDisc… and, oh, her birthday is actually 12 years before Momota’s! When her secret comes out, she thinks it must all be over… but will Momota really let something like a little age gap get in the way of his love for Orihara? Find out if love really can transcend generations in this sugar-sweet romantic comedy!

The novel could be disturbing or it could be a beautiful story based on that description. I must say it’s neither.

The story is something you would expect from an anime of the romance genre with a bit of fanservice. It does its best to be cute, but at the same time, it breaks some of these adorable moments with teenage talk.

I’m going to give you an example of it. At the beginning of the light novel, our protagonist, a high school student called Momota Kaoru, is on his way to school on a train. He sees Orihara Hime, the other protagonist, and starts describing her beauty, her clothing, her hair, and then:

“And… so BIG. There they sat, underneath her blazer, pushing up her thinly knit sweater: two rolling hills with the ability to drive a man insane with one look. So abundant… hanging so heavy… the kind of terrifyingly beautiful breasts whose very existence feels like a crime, breasts that make you want to sue someone.”

Momota Kaoru

Through the story, you’ll find interruptions like that. I know that as an anime fan I should’ve gotten used to it, but some variety wouldn’t hurt readers, in my opinion. Kudos to the protagonist and the funny way to deal with the train molester. I won’t complain about some good humor.

After the things I said above, I must say that it does make sense. Momota is a teenage boy, and most teenagers have their hormones acting crazy. It’s expected to see our protagonist having an extra pick at a woman’s curves. However, in the relationship (it’s not a spoiler, from the title you know they’ll start a romantic relationship), Momota shows himself very shy; he gives Hime space and never tries to do anything weird to Hime. He always does his best to make her feel comfortable all the time and even finds the right words to make her smile. He acts his age and a bit mature at the same time.

Hime is where the problems begin. She’s a 27-year-old woman with a good job and a position as chief, although she mentioned that her position sounds more impressive than it really is. We get to know her more later in the book; some chapters focus on her first-person perspective. It is a good detail to see pages from her eyes and thoughts. But this left me a lot of questions—one of them asking who’s the real adult in the story: Momota, a 15-year-old student, or Hime, the 27-year-old worker. This is the first time, even in fiction, that I see an adult worrying so bad about a teenager and his feelings; and the feelings she started to have for him.

We see a really dumb explanation for it, and a dumbest reason why she was wearing a school uniform in the first place. I’m not kidding, I tried to imagine the situation they described, and I still don’t see anything that makes any sense.

If you think that the “age/maturity” of the adult protagonist is my only issue, you’re wrong. Their friends are the exact kind of weird people whose the more years they’ve lived, the more immature they talk. Momota’s friends are the high school students you would expect; they act their age and do their age. I have no problem with them. Hime’s friend, though, is another story; first, she is the reason why Hime was wearing a school uniform, and second, she spoke like an adult when we met her and warned Hime about the legal consequences that relationship might bring. Pages later, she seems so okay with that romantic relationship that she almost seemed like the person trying to make them go a little further.

To be fair, the light novel is not bad. I don’t consider it offensive or a cringe-fest. I am not sure, though, if the author just tried to make an excuse to make a student’s proportions that big telling she’s a 27-year-old worker. Hime acts so childishly that I can’t have any other impression of it, but I don’t know the author, and I prefer to give the benefit of the doubt. I guess if you like fan service with a few cute moments, this could be your cup of tea, but I bet there are many better options out there.

If you’re still interested in reading the light novel, here’s the official website –

Thank you for reading my review.