26 year old Yoshida just got rejected and on his way home spots a highschool girl sitting all alone by a lamp post. He soon learns Sayu Ogiwara had ran away from her home in Hokkaido and she's been sleeping around for 6 months. Angry that she had to live in such a way, Yoshida decides to let her stay with him in return for doing chores as it was better than having her sleeping with random men but, she was to return home when she felt ready.

Meanwhile, Yoshida's change of habits from being ungroomed and workaholic is getting him a lot of attention from the ladies at work. As the two live together various people learn of the runaway Sayu but after meeting her directly, they do decide to support her and give her room to get her life together. However, things aren't always so forgiving as Sayu soon finds her past catching up with her.

Rather than trying to raise awareness of runaway girls, the author thought of the line, "let me stay for free" and then came up with this idea for a story. Ended up watching it too after seeing some hype on Twitter and also some "undercover" videos on YouTube where such girls in Japan were interviewed.

The show itself is described as a romcom officially and it is a bit of a harem show since Yoshida ends up surrounded by different ladies. Since it's about a runaway girl I was expecting a fan service filled exploitation kind of show and it fairly much starts out that way... Plenty of awkward angles, boobs talk, bed scenes. Even the preview episode shots are of the same. It can be quite graphic sometimes. Sometimes I don't know if the direction's trying to make you sympathise or not; sympathise but check out the body too. Surprised people still think of it as a good show despite it all.

About half way the graphic scenes and fan service stops. It's got some nice scenes when the camera's not pointed at the wrong place. It's quite enjoyable watching Sayu being set straight, being corrected from all the bad habits she's picked up from staying with the wrong people and slowly returning to the norm that would allow her to fit back into society. Some scenes actually remind me of Great Teacher Onizuka.

I feel the wrap-up could have been really good but they kind of botched it by going back to the show's beginning unfortunately. I did like how they kind of found a middle ground rather than a complete happy ever after ending and the extra illustrations were good though.

This might actually be a good show for girls so that they have an idea what issues they could face if they tried to live a runaway life; how worthless it can make them feel, how past actions can come back to haunt them etc. Once the fan service scenes are re-edited and the harem taken out of course. What Sayu experiences here is fairly much what you usually see in documentaries and news stories too.

There isn't much product placement like in a lot of shows and I wonder if that's because there isn't much attention to detail in this show. If they parodied brands they'd have to spend more time on them. Well, guess they parodied Sony brands and the Line app. Kuroneko's Basketball makes a cameo for some reason.

I don't think they ever change the screens they use on the computer monitors either because they're the same throughout the entire show. Feels like they're just switching windows pretending to be busy. Same for the night train scene.

The opening animation kind of reminds me of Your Name with the poses, ribbon autumn scenery and starry sky. The one eye gaze will probably be a signature of this show like, "I mustn't look but I'll have a peek anyway." Also ended up learning about the different coloured driving licenses you can have in Japan.

If you can get by the blatant fan service for guys and focus on runaway Sayu's story of trying to get her life back together, trying to stay strong while not letting her past poor decisions haunt her, it's not a bad show. Otherwise the first episode will be enough to make you drop it.

It's probably best to note while the show mentions it's illegal to house a runaway minor, it doesn't mention there are charities or counselling services that offer help for runaways in Japan.