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

Overview

Keiki has a nightmare about being married to Sayuki, but wakes up to thankfully discover his living nightmare — Mizuha, curled up next to him, giving him a good-morning kiss — is real. Keiki attempts to set boundaries with Mizuha, and calls his father to ask if Mizuha was adopted. His father tells him, “Um, yeah, duh,” and literally has to remind him of information he apparently “forgot.” He asks Shoma and Koharu what he should do, and they both encourage him to go for it, since he and Mizuha aren’t actually blood-related. As he spends the day alone, trying to decipher his feelings, Nanjo appears to help him. He simply tells her that he and Mizuha got into a “spat” and Nanjo reminds him that people who love each other fight all the time.

Meanwhile, Mizuha waits for Keiki to get home, having flashbacks to the car crash that killed her parents. Keiki eventually arrives — now sick from walking in the rain. During his fever, Sayuki and Koga come over to comfort/seduce him, and after a while, Mizuha shoos them away.

Mizuha confesses that she’s felt this way from the moment Keiki first promised they’d always be together after she was adopted. Keiki is reminded of this promise and decides to live with (and sometimes humor) Mizuha’s advances, not letting it get in the way of the real love he has for her. The episode ends with Mizuha admitting she’s an exhibitionist.

Our Take

Stop. Do not pass go. Do not collect one hundred dollars. Go directly to jail. Period.

There are so many bad things to unpack about this episode that it’s hard to even start. First of all, let’s start with the glaringly obvious issue: who just forgets their sister is adopted!? Even if Keiki was a young child, Mizuha has a perfect memory of it — plus, nobody comes out of being orphaned via car crash without needing serious support from people around them. That being said, it’s just not possible that Keiki had zero reminders of the fact that Mizuha was adopted throughout his life — and even if he didn’t, did he really need any?

Now to the real take: this show is not Clueless. This is not a case where Mizuha was just adopted, where she and Keiki had just met. Are the two blood-related? No. However, did they grow up together, as siblings? Yes, yes they did. Even if Keiki and Mizuha aren’t blood-related, it’s still incest — they grew up together as siblings, therefore, crossing that line is a form of emotional and psychological incest. It’d be a different story if they had just met, but obviously, the show wanted some drama.

Hensuki, are we willing to fall in love with a pervert, as long as she’s a cutie? Not if she’s our sister. It’s heartbreaking how this show has such hilarious dialogue and line delivery from the voice actors, but ultimately, it’s the only good thing about the series. This isn’t a satire: we just wanted it to be, because of how lightheartedly the VAs went about it. Instead, we got incest.

You just hate to see it happen.