English Dub Review: Hensuki: Are You Willing to Fall in Love with a Pervert, as Long as She’s a Cutie? “Operation: Koharu is a First-Year Student”

 

Overview(Spoilers Below)

Nanjo and Koga have formally joined the Calligraphy club — specifically so that all three of them can fantasize about Keiki together. More importantly, Keiki discovers that he’s being blackmailed by an anonymous individual, who left a scandalous photograph of him reaching into Sayuki’s breasts. He is instructed to meet them in the Astronomy room after school, and when he does, he’s met with a small, high-voiced, white-haired girl. She claims to have been watching him from afar (such is what is done in the Astronomy club) and that she’s fallen in love with Shoma. Keiki is confused about what this has to do with him until she tells him that if he doesn’t help her get with Shoma, she’ll reveal the picture to the whole school. Her name is Koharu.

Aside from being a professional stalker, Koharu is also, surprisingly, an upperclassman — AKA, older than Shoma, who normally only goes for younger girls. Keiki solves this hurdle by talking with Mizuha, who dons a summer skirt all the girls are wearing. Keiki gets Koharu to wear the same skirt (so as to not be recognized as an upperclassman) and Shoma seems to fall for her. In exchange for his services, Koharu attempts to help Keiki figure out who “Undyrella” is.

While on his way to ask Ms. Okita who she last saw in the club room, he bumps into the student council vice president, who lands on top of him and seems smitten.

Our Take

Every girl added to this show seems to be some form of fanservice-y conceptualization — but despite Koharu’s penchant for photography, she’s the first character who actually seems like she’s on Keiki’s side. It unexpectedly broke up the formula of the episodes (which, up until now has been: Keiki interacts with Girl + Girl seems romantically interested in Keiki = Keiki finds out she’s actually just a fetishist.) It seems like it might be a nice change of pace.

This is definitely one of the more “lighter” episodes. The childhood memory between Keiki and Mizuha was genuinely sweet, and it was weirdly nice to see Nanjo, Koga, and Sayuki all bonding. Honestly, aside from these elements, it seems like most of the episode enjoyment stems from one thing: the voice acting.

This is one of those niche times where the English dub winds up existing to a show’s benefit. The plot is clearly idiotic, but because the voice actors know this, they have fun with it. It’s clear that no one takes this too seriously — especially Keiki’s voice actor, who honestly keeps nailing it when it comes to line delivery (ex: “MARRY ME.”) Tone and dialogue is everything with this show — and because of that, there might even be potential for it to become more than just fanservice-y garbage. It could genuinely become a fun, meme-y satire.

The ratio of people who watch this for kinky reasons VS the people who watch this as a comedy would definitely be something interesting to see, at the very least.