English Dub Review: SUPER HxEROS “New Roommate (?)”

Overview

We left off with the crew befriending Chacha, the daughter of the Kiseichuu Queen, who’s currently taken the human form of catgirl Kirara. She’s offered her help in defeating the Kiseichuu, and Kirara knows first hand that she can help the HxEROS build up more H-energy than ever before with her pheromones. 

Our take

Why is anime so obsessed with telling us that characters with noticeable differences are twins, while making every. single. side character. look exactly the same? I feel like I’m losing my mind. Anyways, the episode opens with the crew bringing Chacha to Anno (who I guess wears his pajamas over his normal crop top outfit?) for advice on adding her to the team, because why wouldn’t you immediately trust a member of the species that’s trying to eradicate humans just because they said so? 

We’re treated to a “give us all you’ve got/You can count on me!” moment as Anno gives his blessing to have Chacha spend the night, before jumping into the main storyline of Chacha using her shapeshifting powers to get the rest of the crew all horned up.

A small bit of dub humor: Matt Shipman’s emphasis on the rising tone for the question mark in “New Roommate (?)” made me smile. In Japanese, the question mark gets its own word (ka) but since English relies on the tone change for questions, the contrast between his intense “intro voice” for titles and the question mark is funny, possibly only to me, but still.

Chacha wakes up next to Kirara disguised as Retto, and attempts to build up her H-energy. What’s interesting in this scene is that Kirara seems to be the one initiating things? I thought Chacha was disguised as her until the last second. Kirara bans Chacha from disguising herself as anyone in the house other than Runba (the weirdly human attracted house dog), which she does, but then basically immediately “fuses senses” with Retto, basically trapping him in a kind of sunken place, but for far less socially relevant purposes than Get Out. In fact, it’s more like the scene in Rocky Horror Picture Show where Dr. Frank-n-Furter seduces both Brad and Janet, although even that is still arguably more culturally valuable (and funnier, since he uses the same exact lines on both of them.)

The rest of the episode is basically Chacha interacting with everyone in the house in various sexual situations, supposedly in the name of discovering the source of Retto’s H-energy, which would be semi-wholesome scientist energy if it weren’t so goddamn creepy. “I’ve never seen an animal that can get turned on from doing random activities that have nothing to do with reproduction. Fascinating!” A small note of visual humor comes from the massage scene with Momoka as Chacha preps her fingers without moving the rest of her body.

I just. I don’t know, man. I keep watching this anime, and it’s just the same recycled smut every episode. Did the people making it enjoy their work, like, in a non-sexual manner? Am I the fool for wanting anything other than visual gratification and fap material? 

The weird implication of Retto being turned on by Momoka being vulnerable and nearly taking advantage of Kirara (even if Chacha was kind of running the show at the moment) is truly disturbing. Retto is able to shut down the situation because his feelings for Kirara are genuine (a sweet moment that gives me whiplash considering it’s in the middle of a near-rape scene. Like, what the actual fuck?) Kirara gets to put them in their place with her newly controllable powers, and Brittany Lauda impressively shows off her growling abilities to put some power in her voice.

Once we finally get to the action scene for the episode, Kirara is really going for it (and even gets a cheesy bug pun in there!) before immediately regressing because of the trauma, because can’t let the sex interest have actual agency, right? So annoying.

Things wrap up with the implication that Chacha may be the Queen Kiseichuu herself rather than her daughter, and a reminder that Kirara was extremely horny when she was younger.