Random Impulses: Henneko – The Hentai Prince and The Stony Cat (Surprisingly SFW)

So I may throw this on here more often as a shtick kinda thing for when it hits me, but just like with Sabegebu, I randomly picked this show up because I saw a GIF and decided that looks funny, lemme see what it’s like. So today’s target of Nick’s Random Impulses is Henneko – The Hentai Prince and The Stony Cat, and it was posted because I saw this on 9Gag and figured, I wanted to see where this was from:

Contrary to the name, this is actually not Hentai and only mildly NSFW (considerably less than High School DxD or High School of The Dead or…well just about any of those super ecchi High School Shows. From a plot point, the Pervert Prince is Yoto Yokodera, a sophomore who is chosen by his track team coach, the dreaded Steel King, as her successor because he neither skips practice and constantly does squats, by the school gym, outside the window of the indoor pool, when the girls are swimming. I’m pretty sure you can all see through his facade, which is ironically the initial plot point we are given to tie him to The Stony Cat.

The premise of this show is tied to a wish-granting Stone Cat and its impact on Yokodera and the people (mostly women) around him. I’m trying to not ruin the amazing that is this show and its plot but trust me when I tell you that it is full of things that will likely inspire feelings. This show touches on a number of things and gets very serious as of episode 8 while maintaining things comical every now and then. Just to start off we have Yokodera making a wish at the Stone Cat to get rid of his Facade and a very typically over reactive school girl, Tsukiko Tsutsukakushi, making offerings to get rid of traits they disliked of themselves. Yokodera trying to get rid of his facade so he can obtain a truer life and Tsukiko wanting to be able to become more mature so she’d be less of a burden on people. In typical Monkey’s Paw style, they roll up and get their wishes granted in a very hubris filled way, where Yokodera essentially obtains Tourette’s and Tsukiko becomes deadpan AF, like I mean topping Aubrey Plaza and Kanna from Miss Kobayashi. My personal thing for deadpan comedy was a huge draw for this show. I stayed in for the comedy for the first 8 episodes but the last third was because the show kicked it up with some amazing plot components. Most of this is honestly Tsukiko being just hilarious, with her rhetorical questions, jokes, constant eating, hair twitch, and constant kicks her character is drawn up and played out to great timing and humor.

Unlike most Harem shows, these characters do not simply act without reason. Unrequited feelings are a large chunk of this show’s themes and it throws far too many feels for a comedy. This damn show gets real and actually makes the fething unrequited love commonly found in a harem to become a damn major PLOT POINT. Henneko also throws a huge amount of shifts and mechanics that I would almost find annoying but are so well executed I can’t do anything other than highly recommend you watch this show right now.

On the review of the animation and audio, I’ll jump onto the music for the OP and ED (which was actually sung by the VA for Tsukiiko). Both are good but fairly stereotypical for this genre and helped kinda cement the first 2/3rds of this show as standard harem comedy and were lighthearted and catchy. The VA work was ok for most characters, great for Yoto but absolutely perfect for Tsukiko. The one exception being a scene of horrid Engrish where Yoto’s choice is “Dead or Die.” Again, kinda just harping on deadpan but it’s just a fantastic job because she loses the ability to show emotion so they emote her through adorable tone deaf sound bits and hair twitches. From an art standpoint, the animation is rather good especially considering the show came out 4 years ago with solid enough animation and a beautiful depiction of when the female characters are just completely livid with Yoto. My one complaint is a 3-second scene with a CG bike that hurt my soul but it was mitigated. I’m honest when I really recommend this show, the main complaint I have being that the show is short and leaves a few plot points unresolved. The ending was sweet but after the revelations of the last few episodes, it seemed a tad forced and unnatural. So go watch before you get attacked by a rabid high school girl…Pervert.