Ah, there’s a nice wind out, the smell of flowers wafts in through the windows and episode 2 of Hensuki surprises no one by being amazing again.

Last episode was centered around the investigation of Tokihara Sayuki to see if she could be the Cinderella that left her panties for our hero, Keiki Kiryu. In the beginning of the episode, we found out that Sayuki-senpai is actually a huge masochistic pervert and that she wants Kiryu to ‘own’ her. This is not addressed for the rest of the episode, after we see Sayuki-senpai go off happily with a dog training book, saying that she’ll be ‘reborn’. Her major role in this episode is to basically tease Kiryu.

This episode is centered around the investigation of Koga Yuika, the cute, blonde Kouhai. It’s the usual pattern of date, inciting event and reveal. Last episode, the inciting incident was the kabedon, or the wall slam and the reveal was that Sayuki-senpai is an M, a masochist.

This episode, the inciting incident was the part where Yuika gets hit on by some random dudes during her date with Kiryu and the reveal was at the end, where this cute, little girl pushes Kiryu onto the floor, mounts him, and shoves her freshly removed panties in his mouth. She turns out to be a raging sadist, with a thought process along the lines of, “Every guy’s dream is to be dominated by a cute girl”. No it isn’t.

Once again, there is impeccable use of the jazzy soundtrack and once again I should mention that I love the art style, even though the animation may be lacking at certain parts. I like this episode, unfortunately not as much as the first one. The problem with this episode lies in how it reveals that Yuika-chan is a sadist.

You see, in the light novel, there were hints given to and fro that pointed to Yuika-chan being a saidst. Nothing outright, always subtle, but still there. If you would remember the first episode, you’ll see that there were hints given that Sayuki-senpai is a masochist. Her reaction to the wall slam is slightly exaggerated, the scene with the dog and also her reactions during her confrontation with Kiryu. There is no such hint given with Yuika-chan, which makes the reveal that she is a sadist, shocking to say the least, and also quite weird.

I mean, I knew she was a sadist, but the pacing of the episode and also direction of the anime managed to make me shocked during the reveal as well. I don’t whether this speaks more for the quality of the direction of the anime or the ease of shocking me. Whatever the case maybe, the reveal could have been done better. It’s too sudden. On one hand, we have this cute kouhai who gets jealous that her senpai is going date with his senpai and who acts like a normal, cute kouhai and on the other hand we have a ‘shove-panty-in-mouth’ monster who can push a guy almost twice her height to the ground with one hand and almost orgasms by doing so. The gap moe is not present in this scenario. This is not my biggest problem.

My biggest problem is that Yuika-chan is not a good sadist. In the episode, we see that Kiryu actually cares about Yuika-chan and Yuika-chan seems to reciprocate those feelings, truly thinking about Kiryu as a nice person and caring for him. Then when she reveals herself as a sadist, all those feelings of love and care seem to evaporate like the water from Grand Blue and she disregards anything Kiryu says and basically forces herself on him until he faints. That’s not how you treat someone you care about, sadist or not. It’s a funny scene though, I’ll give it that.

My second biggest problem, however, does not lie with Yuika-chan’s reveal as a sadist, but with the inciting incident of the episode, the random cold approach by the group guys during her date with Kiryu. I don’t know whether this is a problem in Japan(I don’t think it is), but what is up with these random dudes hitting on girls they don’t know, and being forceful to the point that one could righteously call the police for sexual harassment or assault?! I don’t like this cliche. If someone cold approached a girl like they did to Yuika-chan in the anime, those fuckers would be going to jail, or they would be beat up by the locals. You just don’t force women into a corner like that.

Anyways, that was episode 2. Look forward to the episode 3 discussion.

Farewell for now my dear readers! It seems we are back on schedule!