Art: The art in this show, is pretty generic but has good aspects that make it stand out from other shows like it. Majorly, what I found that liked the most was the colors. Everything was bright and had a distinct look to it. One of the things that was different than the generic were they eyes. Now I found that the eyes had a little less detail than average, but it really worked. For example, one of the main characters loses her ability to show emotion on her face, and this way of drawing eyes relative to her face makes her look emotionless, not like she was inanimate, but more like she was just indifferent to everything. If this wasn’t the way they took that character and made her like that it wouldn’t have been believable, and I’m glad they did.
Sound: This is where the show falls short for me. Not saying the music and sound was bad by any means but the story sucked me in that I lost track of where I was. Sometimes there were places where the sound makes the show really good, but others, it just sounds a bit cheesy. This being said I really loved the introduction animation. The song was catchy and the animation was fun to watch, albeit a bit repetitive. As for the closing, most times I was so eager to get to the next episode I would just skip over those endings, and while I know i shouldn’t do it, I felt like the endings--when I did watch them--didn’t really add much and weren’t worth watching.
Story: This story was fresh and amazing. A story about a student named Youto who has a bit of an obsession with dirty magazines (even so, Fan-service is present, bu not abundant) but he has a façade that he puts up so no one can see the real him. When he is fed up with living a lie he hears about a stone cat idol on hill with a tree that grants wishes and gives what it takes to someone that needs it. So Youto goes and offers his façade and wishes it to be gone so he can be who he truly is. While there he runs into Tsukiko Tsutsukakushi, a first year looking to try to get rid of the way she has whatever she is thinking is shows up on her face. The Cat God responds by taking her emotions and removing his façade. Now, even if he wanted to lie about what he is thinking, he can’t hold back from saying what he is thinking. The story then revolves around the relationship between Tsukiko and Youto, and how even though he never seems to realize it, things never seem to work out the way they are anticipated.
Personal Reflection: This show has been on my “to watch” list for the past two years. But I have a pretty strict rule about not watching shows from my list until I come to them, and this show makes me want to start breaking that rule. I say this because this show was so good and made me feel so many things inside, and it has been on my radar for so long, If I had chosen to watch this show earlier I could appreciate it more. It is a show that I will recommend and I will watch again. Some may be turned away from this show simply because the title has the word “hentai” in it, when that word is just Japanese for “pervert”. Also, while Youto may seem really hard to deal with at the beginning, he does get better and the show does at times become really heartfelt and it is hard not to like this show. Please, watch The “HENTAI” Prince and the Stony Cat.
