The Curious Case of SUPER HXEROS

SUPER HXEROS: To Ecchi or Not To Ecchi

      With this new season of anime we welcomed in a new batch of shows. There's returning shows like Oregairu, A Certain Scientific Railgun, Fire Force, and Re:Zero, as well as new shows like The God of High School, Rent-a-Girlfriend, and Uzaki-san Wants to Hang Out. Among those new shows is SUPER HXEROS.

The show is currently five weeks into its series and it has been the most curious show to me. Not because the animation is great. Not because the characters are revolutionary. And not because the story is engaging or fascinating. The thing that has caught my attention about this weird show is the censorship.

Ecchi shows have always been a genre that are an "acquired taste" when it comes to the anime community. Some don't like it because it seems immature while others don't like it because of the predictability of certain tropes that characters experience. These days, ecchi shows are watched more for their meme material on the internet than for their story-telling or characters. But the root attraction that comes with getting into an ecchi show is the "sexiness" and how far a series can go in pushing that.

One of the draws when it comes to an ecchi series is the "sexiness" that comes with the characters and the situations that they end up finding themselves in. Most of the time this is aided by some sort of cleavage or a panty show of a girl. This is especially necessary when your series doesn't have the best writing or the funniest dialogue in it. For example, an ecchi series like Monster Musume was able to create a cult following partially because of the funny humor and likable characters. When your series is void of that, the sexiness of characters can definitely prop up a less thought provoking series. And that's the main issue here.

And now that brings me to the enigma that is Dokyuu Hentai HxEros or SUPER HXEROS for short.

If you have not seen even the first episode of this show yet, I'll break it down to save you the time. Basically there are these aliens that invade Earth that have the goal of absorbing the "H Energy" (basically sex energy) from all the people of Earth making it so that they lose all desires. Because of this, they create a type of Earth Defense Force (think Power Rangers) that harnesses this H Energy to fight back against the aliens. H Energy, in this case, being erotic energy that they store up from doing erotic things and have erotic thoughts. That's the gist of it.

And with that comes the main issue. The over the top censorship!

Usually in an ecchi series they would not try and shy away from the occasional panty shot or semi-nude scene. SUPER HXEROS on the other hand tries it's best to stay away from that. For a show that is about superheroes who harness the power of sex, they seem pretty adamant on trying to make this "kid friendly". If they chose to specifically censor only the full nudity then there wouldn't be as big of an issue. They use their own unique censorship of that in the for of conveniently placed stars. This type of censorship is normal among ecchi series so it is not too distracting and easy to get over.

The true issue becomes when the show decides that the slight nudity that typically shows up in your average ecchi anime is "too much". Through out this show there is rampant censorship. Even slight stuff like a girl in her bra is enough to warrant a giant streak of white that covers half the screen. Stuff like that may be all well and good for some other series that would want to focus more on the comedy aspects or story of their series, but for a show that is specifically about people using sexual energy and blowing their own clothes off every time they use their powers, it's WAY too much.

Scenes like this are everywhere in this show and that bodes the question: "What is this show trying to be?" There is a very distinct contrast in what the story and world building is trying to do and what the censorship is trying to block. It is essentially an ecchi show that is trying not to be ecchi. If you are an ecchi show trying not to be ecchi then you lose the viewers who are ecchi fans. The blatant censorship of slight nudity isn't going to make non-ecchi fans look at this series and want to watch it because they have already looked at the ads and trailers and have realized that it is not for them.

And because of that we have to ask another question: "Who are you making this for?"

It may seem as though I am bashing the show (maybe just a little) but I do think that this show could have had some potential if it wasn't for crazy amount of censorship that plagued it. It is somewhat funny and has a pretty good cast of voice actors and actresses in it. It just seems this show lacks an identity when it comes to who their target audience is and it leaves this show floundering around not knowing what it wants to be. I don't believe it is too late to turn it around since ecchi shows are know for being able to gain large amounts of support based on if a scene goes viral on the internet, unfortunately I don't think that this censorship will be toned down anytime this season.

Thank you for reading!

If you are interested in knowing what anime I am currently watching and what manga I am currently reading, please check out this link: https://anilist.co/user/codyashi/