Hen Zemi

"When you fart in a bathtub, by cupping your hands together you can hold the fart underwater for a while, then you can bring it to the surface, and it has that indescribable smell... I discovered it as a child and it's remained sort of a secret habit." —Nanako

Nanako: Komugi-kun, where's your girlfriend? 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.

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.

Curiously, despite the lewd themes of the show, it is quite tame when it comes to visual Fan Service.

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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
• 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.
  • In a more meta sense, the series itself is possibly a bit too much even for the internet. To wit, it is the only Spring 2011 Anime without a fleshed out trope page.
• Gross-Out Show: Interestingly, most of the gross-out is purely verbal.
• Hentai: Used by name.
• I Drank What: In Episode 10. It turns out that the content of the bottles used in various indirect kisses were... enriched... with various bodily fluids.
• Indirect Kiss: Central topic of episode 10.
• The Jimmy Hart Version: Of the Emperial March from Star Wars in Episode 11.
• Lovable Sex Maniac: Miyako. It is assumed 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.
• Netorare: One of Komugi's various Fetishes..
• 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.
• Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: Used in combination with Idiosyncratic Episode Naming; episode titles are worded as if they were thesis pages.
• Sick Episode: Episode 6