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Voice
Cast: Maaya Uchida as Chisato Hagiwara;
Yūma Uchida as Yōhei Hamaji; Kenta Matsumoto as Nakajima; Saki Yamakita as Maki
Hayami; Shizuka Itou as Manami Miyoshi; Yurika Kubo as Mai Shinozaki
Viewed
in Japanese with English Subtitles
i also want to read:
Hantsu X Trash is not
really defendable. It is neither a full work, as these are three episodes (two
over twelve minutes, the third over fourteen) are part of a trend of creating
tie-in anime that comes with the manga, the first bundled with the 8th
volume of the manga on October 6th 20151, the second
bundled with the 10th volume of the manga in June 6th
20162, and the third and final one bundled with the 11th
volume of the manga on November 4th 20163. Together, they
are not politically correct a sex comedy about the high school male water polo
team who is more interested in the female water team, though maybe it is my
cynical nature, but considering some of the far more tasteless and sexist
content I have unfortunately come across, the less of two evils argument is
here. It is still indefensible, as jokes include spying on the female team
bathing, which is sexual harassment in real life, but somehow pales next to
worse content.
It feels like a
throwback, the source manga published originally in Weekly Young Magazine, a young men’s publication which published
the likes of the original Akira magazine,
but also in the 2010s with this published titles with names like Does a Hot Elf Live Next Door to You?
(2019–2021) by Meguru Ueno, sex
still something which sells as in the past and still now, only with this one
feeling like it has inherited clichés that came from decades earlier. Episode
One introduces Yōhei Hamaji, a poor guy doomed like many male protagonists in
these sex comedies to have constant head trauma, a young man who has one clear
love, his senpai Chisato Hagiwara4, one of the committed members of
her team, even if like the other men in his team, he is also one with a
fixation on breasts, as those making these shorts clearly were. Hoods Entertainment made their bread and
butter on titles like this, whether explicit in content or implied. From them
are the likes of The Qwaser of Stigmata
(2010), infamously the animated show about breast milk powering one’s super
abilities, or Mysterious Girlfriend X
(2012), a truly bizarre series for me to experience in that, for all its
sex comedy, it is actually a sweet romance between a guy and an unconventional
introvert of a girl, which however involves her saliva having addictive
qualities to it. They are an animation studio who has no qualms in the
slightest to even unconventional fetishes let alone lewdness, this in
comparison tame even if it does not help defend the content either.
These are part
of the modern OVA movement, the straight-to-video era into the 2010s involving
for more tie-in extra episodes or specials for existing shows, or tie-ins to
manga we never get over in the West, rather than adaptations or unique titles
we were still getting into the 2000s but have dwindled out. A lot, as here, are
also entirely for the sake of animating nudity, these three episodes not even
lewd ecchi, neither hentai, but devoted entirely to bared animated breasts. TV
series are censored for television, they sell their physical releases for this
content being uncensored, in this case only the sense this was a far obscure
work which someone felt was not able to sell for a full television series. What
is also is, even if of a different culture, is the equivalent of the American
high school sex comedy into the 2000s, like Road Trip (2000), tame works baring their brief scenes of nudity,
and with all the potential issues of sexism and their tones to consider upon
actually watching them.
Episode One warns
of this in the content, though as I will get to, this is following the trope
that, whilst still objectifying the women, the men are punished painfully for
comedic effect, which has always been a curious side to Japanese anime and
manga in their sex comedy in that they constantly undercut their male
characters, in work targeting men in their gazes, in being completely immature
figures. Even what could be seen as a gay panic running gag undercuts itself in
presentation, where Yōhei keeps imagining erotic fantasies of Hagi-chan, whilst
recuperating in the nurse’s room, only to keep envisioning Nakajima, a team
member looks in his late thirties with sunglasses permanently on, because of
the strange tone to it. The main joke for that first episode, whilst Hagi-Chan
is the woman he loves, Yōhei is someone clearly who has both an obsession with
large breasts, and that due to the tone of this joke, far from homophobic it
comes off like he is denying his bisexuality. If not latent desire to buff his
team leader’s nipples, his super ego denying his sexual desire is a really
unconventional, a mind which envisions Chisato being seduced by one of her
teammates Shinozaki, someone who is very physical with her friends, and in a
more complex show than the fragments we got would have been compelling, even if
tasteless, for imagining the sexual id of a guy who is confused in a lot of
ways about his sexuality even if there is one girl he loves dearly. That is as
much trying to stretch out a sex gag which most would roll their eyes by
excusing it through a layer of amateur interpretation, but that becomes the
most interesting thing, even if by accident, how much of this does become a
curious gag anime about the strangeness of the male libido, even if the work is
not great.
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This is still an
anime about the male water polo team being perverts, even with episode three
having them trying to spy on the female team so Yōhei learn the nipple colour
of the woman he loves, words I cannot believe (or defend) recording as
dialogue. This follows however clichés common in anime, including that this
always leads to the men being punished as already mentioned, one going too far
in his delirium seeing one girl naked he even gets a baseball bat up a painful
area. It is a strange paradox of getting away with behavior in real life with
these fictional characters which would not be (rightly) justifiable, more
problematic by the time these episodes were being released, with explicit
nudity here shown to the viewer, only to punish the male characters for their
libido. The female teacher for both teams is neither helping in breaking
teaching ethics too. In Episode Two, she even made a promise to let the male
team touch her breasts if they won a match, three seconds only each, and has a
desire for Yōhei beyond the boundaries of teacher-student relationships, only
with the issue that he loves Chisato and wants to keep his virginity except for
her undercutting this.
None of this has
aged well as, least in the English speaking world, content like this is
considered more and more taboo even if this title is from the 2010s and was an
obscure title which is not commonly available. Most would rightly not want to
watch this, which comes up just past the thirty minute mark only, but it is
here too though, so I do not come off as a hypocrite, where I admit I did
laugh. Every time it was entirely when a clear theme was up front as the joke,
of how every male character here is as thick as a brick, even Yōhei, whose
obsession entirely to breasts is to the point they all believe touching them is
enough for an orgasm for a woman, which is comical and in an actual
relationship would been the most embarrassing reality check they all could
have. It is the kind of premise which, for all the content here with is clichés
from previous anime and not aging well, still hits close to home as a joke at
mocking the male heterosexual libido. More so, as I have seen titles which have
casual edged into sexual violence and far more misogynistic content, this feels
more antiquated and with this Super Ego slant to how the joke always punished
the male characters, even if the plots here are not defendable and yet reward
with their explicitly topless nudity, Here there is a scene of all the swim
team on the floor just from touching their teacher’s breasts, or that she has
beaten them all up for not following the three second rule, the exaggeration
here of these male character coming off as something itself ridiculous to laugh
at, that image in itself the encapsulation of what is clearly the joke but also
unintentionally the theme, even a neurosis, running through this.
It is sexist?
Yes, though this crude OVA accidentally nods to this paradoxical tug of war between
titillation and punishment which is interesting if perverted. A story is also
here if there ever was a sense of trying to tell one out of this, the romance
between a sex fixated Yōhei who yet wishes to be a good person for Chisato, a
romantic triangle set up in the finale episode with another girl on the water
polo team with a crush on him. Not many of the cast are set up beyond this,
though the premise of a sap like Yōhei trying to balance between water polo and
his libido is a premise that could be good, as most could, is focused and were
trying for more than clearly here. That this is not really a water polo genre
story, and likely is not in the source manga, is itself disappointing because,
as a genre hybrid, a sports show combined with absurd sex comedy and romance
would work, or least be something really original.
What you get
here, just over thirty minutes, could have been a pilot if released separately
into three parts. Its content, even if I found aspects funny, does come with my
own guilt that, absolutely, and that episode two does at times look rough. It
is fascinating though, as a lot of shows still had this tone of sex comedy,
even the badly aged content, over the decades before into the modern day, this
one fixated as much on the stupidity of its male leads as much as clearly exist
to sell its titillation. I cannot help but contrast this too, back to the
concern of the lesser of two evils argument, in mind to other anime I have seen
which have more problematic content, where this is still not the place I wish
sex comedies were in, but with far worse out there. I think of the first season
of High School DxD (2012), which I
once watched to cover for a cult film blog I wrote for anime rated for eighteen
year olds in the British Isles, where alongside one of the female characters
(at least one) being uncomfortably young looking, there was an extensive Pokemon parody within one episode with
tentacles that I could have done without. I think of the shock of an obscure
series like Sakura Diaries (1997)
when I returned to it; for the most part a sweet natured toned sex comedy even
if about cousins, it abruptly (including its ADV Films English dub) enters some horrifying misogyny and the male
lead nearly considering raping his cousin, only to brush that aside for the
rest of the premise. No, the gag of spying on the female water polo team
bathing is not justifiable as a joke, but it is antiquated like an American Pie film inexplicably
appearing in the cinemas in the 2020s, rather than just uncomfortable to sit
through.
Instead this
evokes Colorful (1999), a
micro-series anime. Whilst the question of whether its content is defendable
means revisiting it, its humour was less sex humour, vignettes about men trying
to see women in their underwear, or the garments under their clothes, but the
jokes entirely about how ridiculous these men were, and the punch lines making
them look like egits. Whether that has aged well or not is to debate, but you
look to these works which are as much the joke is a guilt reflex of the
creators, and they are fascinating even if Hantsu
x Trash is very conventional even in the genre. In the perfect world, these
types of sex comedies would not involve this type of sexual harassment humour –
where even Hood Entertainment with Mysterious Girlfriend X, with its
fetish some will find off-putting, managing to have at its center a pair who
really liked each other and embraced this quirk of the relationship. Yet that
is the only sin of Hantsu x Trash, a
slight production, one which will likely be forgotten as an actual anime
production, but managing to produce far more here on paper than what these
thirty plus minutes should have produced because there is stuff here of note it
accidentally spells out. That, and because one wishes there was an erotic water
polo sex comedy out there which was more wholesome and progressive with this
tone even if still breast fixated.
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======
1) Hantsu x Trash Manga Bundles Original Anime
DVD, written by Karen Ressler
and published by Anime News Network
on August 23rd 2015.
2) Hantsu x Trash Risque Water Polo Manga
Bundles 2nd Original Anime DVD, written by Karen Ressler and
published by Anime New Network on
April 24th 2016.
3) Risque Water Polo Manga Hantsu x Trash
Bundles 3rd Original Anime DVD, written by Rafael Antonio Pineda and published by Anime News Network on September 9th 2016.
4) Maaya
Uchida and Yūma Uchida, the voice
actors for these lead characters, are siblings, which is somewhat an odd
casting choice as romantic leads. That is not a slight against either of them,
Maaya the older sister, both prolific in their careers, just an odd choice
which I hope they found funny in hindsight to what happens in the show.