English Dub Review: Toilet-Bound Hanako-Kun “Yousei-san”

As Nene becomes Hanako’s human assistant as a magical side-effect of the mermaid scales they both ingested, she’s forced to spend her afternoons cleaning the toilets for him which puts a dent on several school-related meetings where Hanako can see through the bullshit on, but Incidents begin to occur of people suddenly losing their personal objects in school, culminating with even the loss of the school’s locker doors. Aoi Akane, Nene’s best friend, tells her of the recent rumor of “Yousei-san”, horrifying faeries who purposely steal from humans, and the warning never to look these apparitions in the eye.

It’s here when Nene accidentally stumbles upon a trail of the lost things and a monstrous creature with multiple eyeballs, but Hanako saves her from it. The creature then splits itself into numerous small, pink rabbit-like creatures known as Mokke, a species of supernatural creatures that are mischevious by nature that’s lived peacefully with humankind for thousands of years. As supernaturals mystically bound to the school are unable to go against their rumors lest they disappear from the world, Hanako asks that Nene change the Mokke’s rumors for him that is charged with the duty to maintain the school’s balance of supernatural creatures, and it’s at this point Nene begins to consider Hanako a friend.

A young first-year exorcist named “Kou Minamoto” arrives at the rooftop to perform an exorcism on Hanako. As Nene defends him, she is disturbed by Kou’s warnings that Hanako is dangerous due to an infamous history involving an implied murder. Although Kou initially gains the upper hand with his sacred lightning weapon, Hanako successfully defeats him while expressing hope in the young boy’s potential. He then vows that he will not disappear with he claim that he was given this role of managing supernaturals by God to atone for his past sins when he was still alive. Nene expresses her concerns for him after the skirmish, which ends on a hilarious yet unsettling note when Hanako makes a playful comment about his disturbing past before leaving which makes Nene realize that she really doesn’t know anything about Hanako as a person.

Our Take

This episode was hilarious. The animation quality was lacking in places which I’m not sure was done on purpose as quite a lot of faceless character shots felt like were there which is often a practice used to save on animation costs when it came to background characters in the scenery. (Even RWBY Season 1 infamously did this), but thankfully the plot and characters more than makeup for it in tandem with great direction, art, and a creepy atmosphere.

Overall despite the small lack of animation quality in some scenes, I still think Hanako has moments of creepiness in places. Also, the presence of Kou being added was unexpected but at least helps serve a purpose. The darker moments were awesome and left me wanting to know more about Hanako’s past and the possible murder he committed and why he did it in the first place.

Let’s hope episode three delves more into that.