English Dub Review: Hensuki: Are You Willing to Fall in Love with a Pervert, as Long as She’s a Cutie? “Cinderella Came Falling Down?!”

 

Overview

Ms. Okita tells Keiki that she recalls seeing Fujimoto (the student council vice president) near the club room on cleaning day. After their mishap in the hallway, Keiki encounters Fujimoto again on a bench outside. She gives him homemade cookies for breaking her fall earlier, spontaneously snuggling up to him before heading to class.

Koharu gets info about Fujimoto for Keiki, who thanks her. Keiki then goes to the club room to find Koga, who trips him and climbs on top of him, trying to berate him for acting perverted in a dream she had. In the scandalous scuffle, Keiki accidentally grabs her boob and she flees in embarrassment.

Keiki then decides to attend a community service clean up event with Fujimoto, in order to get to know her. Sayuki tags along and attempts to seduce Keiki under a nearby bridge — licking him and pushing him under her. Keiki escapes by recalling his grandpa’s trick for getting dogs to calm down: by grabbing their butts. He does this, and Sayuki leaves to go home (presumably to change her underwear.)

He catches up with Fujimoto, who falls into a river. He gives her his sweater, and she takes it gratefully. The next day, she invites him to the student council office, where she romantically lures him to nap with her…

…as a ploy to steal his underwear in his sleep, as she reveals her identity as an olfactophiliac to him.

Our Take

Debate time: is it morally wrong to laugh?

Full disclosure: this show is obviously an embodiment of every bad trope in anime. However, was this intentionally done to frame the show as a parody?

It is in the dub, at least.

There are many differences between the Japanese version and the English dub. While both versions are comedies, the meta-awareness seems to be much clearer in the dub. For example, in this episode, Koga calls Keiki a “generic male protagonist” whereas, in the Japanese version, she simply calls him a “rom-com protagonist.” The dub isn’t just better because the English voice actors poke satirical fun at the characters and story — the dub is better because, without this, the show is just another garbage anime to avoid.

Which isn’t to say it isn’t garbage. Even poised as a parody, it still doesn’t help the graphic depictions of anime bullshit™ that we keep seeing over and over again (underage sexualization, forced sexual advances framed as comedy, etc.) Still, if there’s any way to watch this, there’s no other option but the English dub.

This just goes to show the power of voice acting: these actors (Clifford Chapin in particular, who plays Keiki) took something that is clearly The Worst and turned it into something that invokes genuine laughter. It isn’t just the references to “normies,” or the meta jokes. It’s the amount of fun that the voice actors are clearly having. Every time Keiki and Shoma imitate valley girl voices, or when Keiki spontaneously uses a gruff action-movie voice (like with Koharu in this episode, where her inflection on “super cute” was also hilarious) we’re reminded of what this is supposed to be: a cartoon. Clifford Chapin leads the way for the gang to act as cartoony as possible in this show, lest we accidentally take it seriously.

Was this episode filled with gross, sexual, anime nonsense? Yes, it was. Did the voice actors still manage to make it something enjoyable to sit through? Yes — and at the very least, it’s full of horribly comedic clips to send to friends without context.

This show is exclusively only watchable because of the English voice cast and their hysterical dubbing talents. If that doesn’t speak volumes about their talent, then what does?