Wasteful Days of High School Girls S1 Collection Review

4 star hilarious and fun anime series.

Wasteful Days of High School Girls is a 2019 Japanese anime series based on the manga written and illustrated by Bino. Directed by Takeo Takahashi (Spice and Wolf), it is adapted for anime by studio Passione (Love Flops, Yuri is My Job!).

It is available to own in the UK on Blu-ray from 25th August 2025, courtesy of MVM Films.

“Hey, can I say something amazing right now?”

It’s the start of a new year at Sainotama Girls High School and three middle school friends, Akane Kikuchi (Luci Christian – Fullmetal Alchemist, One Piece), Nozomu Tanaka (Elissa Cuellar – Shirobako, Dororo) and Shiori Saginomiya (Genevieve Simmons – Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon) have just discovered that they will be in the same class together. This is a disaster for Tanaka, who didn’t realise it was a girl’s schools and wanted to work on her relationships with boys. To make matters worse, any hopes for an attractive teacher are immediately dashed by homeroom teacher Masataka Sawatari (Scott Gibbs – Iroduku: The World In Colours), who makes it perfectly clear he only has eyes for college girls.

The first order of business is to sort out nicknames for everyone, “Robo” for Shiori as she is an emotionless scientist, obsessed with microorganisms, “Wota” for Akane, for her love of manga, and after a few failed efforts (including “Bit Character” and “Family of Noodists”) “Baka” meaning idiot for Tanaka. This also extends to their classmates, Saku “Loli” Momoi (Hilary Haag – Girls und Panzer), short and very young looking, Minami “Yamai” Yamamoto (Maggie Flecknoe – Love, Chunibyo and Other Delusions!), blonde, covered in bandages and believes she is a dragon warrior from another realm.

We follow this irreverent and occasionally anarchic band of school girls through their first year of high school, with all its highs and lows, surreal conversations and general difficulties of being a teenage girl.

“I want someone to love me for who I am, without having to put in any effort.”

Wasteful Days of High School girls is absolutely hilarious, but will almost certainly only appeal to an audience who were at some point teenage girls. I can imagine it being somewhat baffling to the males of the species.

The characters are totally relatable, reflecting on some level almost everyone you went to school with and it’s great fun sharing this journey with them. They are socially awkward, not particularly popular and yet make up for all of that with their shared shenanigans. It’s surreal, irreverent, occasionally outrageous and always full of heart.

An excellent watch and well worth adding to your collection if you are a fan of slice-of-life stories.

“Oh God. I’ve become a high functioning whack job.”

Wasteful Days of High School Girls is available now on Blu-ray.