Komugi: She's with her male friends right now.
Nanako: Don't you mind that?
Komugi (blushing slightly): Not at all.
—An idle discussion among members of the Hen Zemi club
Nanako Matsutaka is a university student who is participating in an Abnormal Physiology seminar led by the deviant professor Kenji Meshiya. She desperately tries to keep her morals as well as her sanity while amidst the strange group of students in the study group.
Hen Zemi is a Seinen Manga series by TAGRO, which was serialized from 2006 to 2015 in Morning Two magazine, published by Kodansha.
The series had two Animated Adaptations, 2 OADs by Xebec in 2010, which follows the Manga in proper order, and 2011 an actual Anime Series was made, also by Xebec, which follows select stories from the manga, coupled with a few original situations.
This series provides us with a constant stream of very daringly dirty humor, which is heightened by the stark contrast with the extremely cute and pudgy animation style, the soft color palette, and the just plain casual but by no means deadpan tone in which they comment on their... strange fetishes. And they are truly strange even by anime standards. This should give you an idea of how strange they are.
The anime tones down the sexual content of the manga, where sex and their fetishes are actually shown, by making these merely topics of conversations or an abstract visual respresentation.
Tropes included in the work:
- All Men Are Perverts: Subverted because everyone is a pervert, though some more than others.
- Art-Style Dissonance: The art style is absolutely adorable Puni Plush which would fit right in alongside any children's anime. The content is some of the most frank examinations of the most vile of fetishes found in any medium.
- Delinquent: Anna seems to be one on the outside, but subverts various aspects of the role.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: The fruitflies in Miwako's ears. Think about it a bit.
- Emotionless Girl: Makiko
- Fetish: One of Komugi's various fetishes is Netorare.
- Gross-Out Show: Interestingly, most of the gross-out is purely verbal, in the Manga no so much.
- Guilty Pleasures: Nanako seems quite non-perverted when compared to the rest of the cast, but as the series progresses she begins to like and admit some of her odder preferences. Such as enjoying the smell of her flatulence in the bathtub, or beginning to strip at a party when the lights went out.
- Indirect Kiss: Central topic of episode 10.
- Lovable Sex Maniac: Miyako. It is seen by the way she acts, but don't you just love that puni plush ahegao face.
- Moment Killer: Komugi purposely cranks Nanako up to peak anticipation, then casually switches tracks. Also Hishiyashu's mother, who frequently bursts into his room while Anna is visiting.
- Only Sane Man: Nanako all the way.
- No Periods, Period: notable exception
- Not So Above It All: Nanako. She may seem all pure and innocent, but the constant exposure to various fetishes begins to take its toll.
- Panty Thief: Nanako finds Komugi stealing panties in the first manga chapter, he explains that it's for an assignment for the Hen Zemi class, and he's not really stealing them for fun, but rather as Schmuck Bait so he can study thieves that come to steal them from him. He then asks if he can have her's. (She obliges, which ends up saving her bacon.) The Stinger at the end of the chapter reveals that not only was that a complete lie, he has a self-imposed quota of 20 pairs a month.
- Phenotype Stereotype: Makiko is from England and, of course, blond and blue-eyed.
- Puni Plush: Makes the extremely squicky things discussed even worse.
- Really Gets Around: Myako, she likes being humiliated, extremely so by any man, coupled with Komugi’s cuckold fetish, she has had sex with many different men, often on Komugi’s request.
- Refuge in Audacity / Refuge in Vulgarity: The series in general, but Komugi in particular does this with a casual shamelessness, earning him the title of 'Perverted Knight' from the professor.
- Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: Used in combination with Idiosyncratic Episode Naming; episode titles are worded as if they were thesis pages.
- Sick Episode: Episode 6.
- Shout-Out: In episode 11 of the anime, Kenji Meshiya imagines himself as Guts from Berserk while wearing Black Swordsman armor and the Dragon Slayer, with the Beast of Darkness in the background. "Berserker!"
- Tamer and Chaster: Some consider the anime already too much for their tastes, yet it is actually tamer than the manga, where even more unusual fetishes are discussed and shown. The manga also shows sex happening on-panel, unlike the anime.
