Story:
Hensuki stars our main protagonist of Kiryu Keiki, a boy whose simple high school boy wish is just to get a girlfriend. After finding an enclosed pink letter dedicated to him in the Shodo club, he soon finds that this mysterious 'Cinderella' left behind a calling card as well; a pair of pink women's underwear. His goal now? Find this Cinderella amongst the people he knows and confront her with underwear in hand so that hopefully he can accomplish his high school wish.
Now I can't really stamp a genre on what Hensuki really is. On one hand the series plays its hand as a generic (albeit extremely perverted) harem where the MC is attempting to find 'the one' amongst a plethora of available bachelorettes. But on the other hand, it's almost a parody of what it's supposed to be by systematically making any choice among the available girls the wrong choice since everyone is either insanely horny or pushy thanks to their embodied kink. Because of this, Hensuki becomes this weird amalgamation of tropes and meta jokes that all stem from asking if Kiryu would be able to survive getting into a 'relationship' with a girl who's main ask of him is satisfying the thing that turns them on.
Surprisingly enough, the story actually does go through the story arc that it sets out to do, something I genuinely thought it wouldn't do considering a lot of harems don't really have an answer to since they wouldn't be a harem series otherwise. So does that mean Hensuki is good? ...Not really. A lot of the early episodes as a result of trying to get to the show's stopping point end up being rushed and almost unsatisfactory with how quickly things transition from one to another. The series does a lot of switching from one brand of crazy to another, and the show gives very little breathing room for the audience to process what's going on before the next girl shows up and makes Kiryu go through a similar song and dance over again.
On top of that, the series relies heavily on shock value and perverted antics in order to keep the engine going. Hensuki does a lot of things I never thought a writer crazy enough to write it would put on a page. And yet, here we are. In combination to the show's ludicrous amount of retorts and snappy commentary on the sheer outlandish nature/stupidity of the situation, Hensuki makes an almost valiant attempt at telling the audience on how much of a fuckfest it really is. There is hardly any real romance in this show. So little in fact that I find it insulting it's even tagged that in the first place. But that's kind of why I like the story.
It's (sort of) self aware at how dumb it is and never takes itself seriously since being perverted and ironically generic is what makes Hensuki a fun watch. Its story is garbage without much substance to it beyond asking the question of 'what's going to happen once he finds the Cinderella', so why not just sit down and enjoy watching the trash fire slowly burn away with weirdly sexy moans going on in the background?
Characters:
Kiryu Keiki is one of the best things in Hensuki. He's also probably the only thing in Hensuki that lets the show be a mostly tolerable watch. While his simple wish of getting a girlfriend doesn't paint a positive picture for him as a character, Keiki serves as the foil to most harem protagonists by being a competent human being. Often we're shown just how calculating and serious he is in trying to figure out the mystery on who left their underwear behind, all through varied and different scenarios. The most standout trait about his character however is his moral compass and infallible ability to retort back. Very often Keiki serves the role of either outright rejecting the suggestions of his female cohorts or asking them to repeat themselves to make sure what he heard was right the first time. He's a breath of fresh air being a protagonist that actually knows what he's doing being aware of the kind of deep shit he's constantly in. Ironically because of the early episode rush, his relationship with all of the girls are not very solid, which serves as a bit of the series's downfall considering how often his relationships with them is brought up.
To counteract this are the five girls that he interacts with over the course of the series, all with varying relationships with Keiki, most of which are sexual in nature with several of which involve extorting him for personal gain in some way. Sayuki, Yuika, Mao, Mizuha, and Ayano are their names, and by god there's a lot to unpack here. The one upside I will give them is that most of them are memorable, but usually because of the wrong reasons. Regardless, they are what gives Hensuki its title to begin with, and do well in serving their roles as the problematic girls that legitimately are probably a lot more troublesome than they're worth given how pushy they are to begin with and the awkward situations that come out of Keiki not wanting to satisfy their kink.
The final members of the cast worth talking about are Koharu and Shouma, a duo that gain a lot more traction towards the latter half of the cour with their own mini-arc to boot. Likewise to the troublesome girls listed above, both of them have equally troubling niches with Koharu being a stalker and Shouma being a lolicon. Two traits that really should make you reconsider who your friends are, but hey, we've dealt with five other flavors of crazy already. I bring them up mostly because the show makes a very honest attempt to take itself seriously using them. Occasionally the series gets into 'debrief' mode where both of these characters sit with Kiryu in order to solve the Cinderella mystery whilst having sneaked photos be either mounted to the wall or being actively printed while the conversation is going on to add a bit more absurdity to this already crazy amalgamation of a show.
Aesthetics:
Art is a bit of a weird subject for Hensuki. Produced by a dual effort of Seven and Geektoys, the look of Hensuki has a light, almost visual novel feel to it with its whiter color palette and stylized cutesy designs. It's a style that I got used to when watching Saekano, which becomes a better comparison since both shows also share a weird red outline on the eyelashes in the artstyle. Kind of average all around, but still has a style to it that doesn't make it seem as generic.
However where the art is at the very least interesting, the animation is lacking in more ways that one. That 'way' being it's almost non-existent. There really isn't a lot of movement in Hensuki, and any major movement done is really small potatoes and helps lead into the reasoning as to why the visual shock value of the series outweighs any other way the series has to make the audience at least mildly amused. I expected for a few more things to be dynamic, but alas that was not meant to be.
Now I don't know why, but for some reason the music for Hensuki is really catchy? Ayaka Ohashi 'Daisuki' is an OP that for all intents and purposes does not deserve to be as good as it is. It's a poppy song that features the girls clapping along to the beat, but for some reason that combination on its own is something that keeps drawing me back to this song. I don't know why, but I really like it and is weirdly enough one of my favorite OPs of the season.
In contrast "Mubyuu no Hana" by Mia REGINA is a calmer song that by comparison isn't as memorable or catchy. It's got a smoother beat with a bit of a jazzier tone to it that I don't fully understand why it's here. My theory is they wanted some nice song to help the audience cope and process what they just watched in the episode prior, but I'm most likely wrong about that. Regardless, the music really is a lot better than it has any right to be, and I kind of like that? Expect the unexpected I guess.
Personal Enjoyment:
Hensuki has really become one of my guilty pleasure series. Don't get me wrong, the story is TERRIBLE. It's a weird cliched mess that ends up throwing more cliches and one liners back in order to keep the ball rolling. Topping that crazy cherry pie with a fetish induced nightmare where everyone wants the MC just to satiate their unique fetish becomes downright scary in some circumstances, and highly entertaining in others.
Because of this, I really could not stop laughing watching this. It's the kind of dumb comedy routine and combination of things that don't mix yet somehow work that really makes this show seem like it's something worth considering. Keiki is a very good protagonist acting as the sole counterbalance to everything, and for that I really can't be more thankful. Having a protagonist with common sense really helps a bunch. That being said, this show is not the faint of heart since Hensuki doesn't exactly have a filter, and the series's innately raunchy and sometimes abusive story beats make this more of a niche show that I would definitely not recommend to the general audience.
All in all, if you want a harem that isn't completely a harem with hijinks and carefully planned events to fish out information from extremely horny high school girls, then be my guest. If I can give it anything...it's definitely unique. And take that statement how you will.
