Review for The Hentai Prince and the Stony Cat Collection

Introduction

I’m often guilty these days of judging anime by the covers, as I rarely have time to read up around them, let alone watch them when streamed, but judging this show left me in two minds. The title is an instant draw, invoking the same kind of must watch compulsion that Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai did. I mean, Hentai Prince and the Stony Cat... it’s provocative and it rolls off the tongue. But then there is the premise, the blurb on the back of the case (or website listing) which reminds me of Nyan Koi, the mayhem caused by a magical stone cat idol, which in the latter show resulted in something entertaining, if forgettable and mediocre. That show had its protagonist assailed by the ability to understand cats, when he had an accident with a cat statue in a shrine; the problem being that he was allergic to felines. Hentai Prince and the Stony Cat at least on the surface gives its protagonists, relatable and interesting problems to deal with when they make an ill advised wish.


Yoto Yokodera is a boy with a self-perceived problem. He’s a pervert, obsessed with girls. That isn’t the problem by the way; the problem is his ‘facade’. He covers his obsessions with obfuscation and diversion, which has other people thinking that he’s pretty normal. He thinks that if he loses his facade, he’ll be able to be honest with his feelings, and be able to speak plainly, increasing his chances of getting intimate with a girl. When he hears of a cat statue on a hill that reputedly grants wishes, he thinks he has a solution. But when he gets there, he encounters a girl with the exact opposite problem. Tsukiko Tsutsukakushi is too open with her feelings, wears her emotions on her sleeve. She thinks that by controlling her emotions, she’ll become more mature.


Surprisingly, the cat statue grants their wishes. But they should have been careful with what they wished for. Now everyone knows that Yoto is a pervert, and the closest any girl will get is to punch him in the face, and suddenly Tsukiko is so deadpan that it hurts. The thing is that those aspects of their personalities haven’t just vanished, they’ve been transferred to people that needed them more. They’ll have their work cut out if they want to get back to normal.


Twelve episodes of Hentai Prince and the Stony Cat are presented on two Blu-ray discs from MVM.

Disc 1
1. Hentai-san and the Stony Cat
2. Fairy-san Doesn’t Get Angry
3. Speak Before Getting Sad
4. How to Defeat the Carefree King
5. Goodbye, My Home
6. Welcome, My Friend
7. Someday, My Family
8. 100% Girl
9. The Lucky Prince

Disc 2
10. To Have Felt the Longest
11. Inside Tsutsukakushi’s House
12. Outside the Memory with the Hentai Prince

Picture

The 1.78:1 widescreen 1080p transfer is just what you’d expect from a Sentai sourced anime show. The image is clear and sharp, detail levels are good, and the animation is smooth, with no sign of visible compression or aliasing. There might be a smidge of digital banding, but it remains mostly unobtrusive. Hentai Prince and the Stony Cat is a somewhat typical harem comedy with fairly generic, but likable character designs. The world design is bright and shiny, and has enough in the way of detail to warrant the HD treatment.

Sound

The Hentai Prince and the Stony Cat gets a solitary DTS-HD MA 2.0 Japanese Stereo track with player locked English subtitles. The audio is fine, the stereo giving the harem comedy a nice bit of space, without being overly taxed by effects and action. The dialogue is clear throughout, with the actors really suiting their roles well. The subtitles are accurately timed and are free of typos. The show gets some nice music, especially the theme tunes, which, while sounding more appropriate for a fairy tale, really do get the feet tapping.

Extras

The discs present the contents with static menus, and each episode is followed by translated English credits.

The extras are on disc 2.


You get the textless credits and trailers for Problem Children Are Coming From Another World, Aren’t They? Science Fell in Love, So I Tried to Prove It, NOZO X KIMI, and Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? III.

The HENNEKO BBS offers 6:24 of comedy short previews for the show. Note that the second preview lacks subtitles.

Conclusion

Just when you might think that they’ve run out of set-ups for rom-com harem anime, they’ll come up with a new twist that warrants your attention. With Hentai Prince and the Stony Cat, it’s all about wishes. The Stony Cat of the title doesn’t refer to the other protagonist in the premise, the girl Tsukiko that wishes away her expressions. She may seem stony faced as a result of the wish, but it’s the statue that she and the Hentai Prince, Yoto wish upon that is the stony cat. It’s pretty predictable as a comedy, with a whole lot of fan service, and a suitably perverted and cheeky main character, that a whole bunch of girls inexplicably fall for. But when it comes to the story and premise, Hentai Prince and the Stony Cat turned out to be a series of disappointments before a redemptive and emotionally effective ending. It’s definitely an odd experience the first time around.


The thing is that the premise, the blurb sets forth some expectations, introducing Yoto as the boy that wishes away his inner censor, compelling him to verbalise his perversions to everyone in earshot. At the same time, Tsukiko wishes away her expressiveness, to make her seem more grown up. Thereafter, she attains the personality of your typical grey-haired-girl, very Yuki Nagato, although with the saving grace of some obvious verbal sarcasm. You expect this to be the character dynamic and setup for the rest of the series, but it only takes a few episodes for Yoto to reverse his condition. It seems early on that the show has dispensed with its raison d’être, and thereafter seems focused on introducing new girls into Yoto’s slowly growing harem, each with issues of their own, and ill-advised wishes that they have made.


Tsukiko’s big sister “Steel King” Tsukushi is the president of the athletics club, of which Yoto is a member (in order to peek into girls’ changing rooms), and she deals with Yoto with an iron fist at the best of times. Early on, to excuse his perverted problem, Yoto creates an imaginary twin brother to blame it on. Tsukushi actually starts believing in his existence, and even starts to fall for him, which creates a really weird love triangle, with Tsukiko falling for Yoto as well.


Then there is the typical transfer student cliché in Asuza Azuki, a princess type who refuses to show weakness in school, and has difficulty trusting anyone. And somehow, Yoto ends up as her ‘pet dog’, creating a connection with her. Then a little girl named Emi appears, looking to connect with her ‘big brother’ Yoto. Each of these characters wind up making wishes on the Stony Cat that cause no few problems, wishes that wind up needing to be reversed. At one point, Yoto’s house disappears, forcing him to move into the Tsutsukakushi mansion. Another wish turns the school into a little Italy, and turns all girls’ uniforms into swimsuits.


It all seems rather contrived, with girls showing up, and dangerous wishes causing mayhem, but more tellingly, the show seems to keep breaking the rules of its universe when it comes to the wishes. At one point, the stony cat disappears, only for a larger version to appear. That then vanishes, and the cat god starts possessing people, and animals, and the rules of the wishes keep changing.


Hentai Prince and the Stony Cat has the sense of a wasted premise through much of the series, and really only works on the strength of the characters and the comedy. It’s spirited and saucy stuff, while the characters are well written beyond their basic clichés, and hold the interest. But all the while through the episodes, a couple of character arcs are maintained and developed. The first thing is that we learn that the sisters Tsukushi and Tsukiko live alone in the family home, and their parents passed away previously. There is a neediness and loneliness that drives their respective characters, which is usually played for comic effect. At the same time, it gradually becomes clear that Yoto has a hole in his memories. The girls he encounters all seem to know him, but he thinks that he’s encountering them for the first time in these episodes.


The final episodes resolve these character arcs, and it’s here that Hentai Prince and the Stony Cat redeems itself. It’s here you learn the source of all of the wish mayhem, and there is a really emotional conclusion, as the truth behind Yoto’s selective amnesia is revealed. It’s a really good ending that makes you re-evaluate the rest of the show in the light of that knowledge. There aren’t too many of these, harem rom-com anime with genuine heart to their stories. That alone makes Hentai Prince and the Stony Cat well worth seeking out. This Blu-ray release presents the episodes to the expected standard in high definition.