Hentai Ouji to Warawanai Neko. (变态王子与不笑猫PSP) Review

I don’t have much of a high opinion of most of what’s on the Japanese light novel market. Forget plot—just the basic flow of the prose is a huge problem. The ones that are actually tolerable to read are few and far between; most sit at a middle-schooler’s level of storytelling: blunt, simple developments, boring-as-hell girls throwing themselves at the protagonist, and a bunch of vague posturing about “allies of justice.” Honestly, not many of them feel fresh. In that respect I prefer Chinese works.

Of course, that’s understandable. Light novels as a product rose up hand in hand with their illustrations, so there’s a saying for the ones with bad writing and good art:

“You’re buying the illustrations, and the toilet paper comes free.”

The most disgusting thing isn’t someone ugly—it’s someone ugly who thinks they’re good-looking. The most idiotic thing isn’t someone who looks like an idiot—it’s an idiot who keeps strutting around like a big shot.

That’s more or less how I see most light novels too, but there are exceptions. The “Hentai” Prince and the Stony Cat is one.

The setup in The “Hentai” Prince and the Stony Cat is actually kind of interesting. Later on, though, the direction and some of the forced bits are full of bugs and implausibilities. Fortunately most of those implausibilities live in the range of “who would ever act like that” and “how can this guy be this dumb,” not “holy shit, are you making this up?” They’re character flaws, and flaws at that level can be hand-waved.

That said, this work doesn’t really need hand-waving, because in writing style, narrative approach, and plot development, The “Hentai” Prince and the Stony Cat never steps out of middle-schooler territory. That’s not an insult—it just means that among middle-schooler-tier light novels, it’s a good one.

See, the thing doesn’t even try to raise its own prestige. If anything, the ones that go around saving the Earth and fighting the entire universe look more idiotic, don’t they?

Anyway, from what I know, if you set aside the people jerking off to Kantoku’s illustrations, most readers who are devoted to The “Hentai” Prince and the Stony Cat have a somewhat innocent streak. They don’t want to believe the world is dark. They go find some little Baidu Tieba board, get all kissy-kissy with each other, wallow in their own little circle, look up at the blue sky and white clouds every day, and grin like fools at the story of Tsukiko and Azusa that could obviously never happen in real life.

Some people ask: isn’t someone who stays immersed in that kind of moronic dream and refuses to wake up an idiot? A chuuni?

No, no. That’s not being an idiot, and it’s not being chuuni. That’s being naive. A true chuuni is aggressive, like a sea urchin.

A real chuuni in the middle of his phase would have long since trampled this flimsy plot into the ground and torn it apart. He’d open his mouth and spout catchphrases from Tieba big-shots and ACG gurus, going on about bunko rankings and otaku theory. It looks like valid criticism, but it’s all borrowed from other people. Ask him what he himself thinks of the work and he’ll hem and haw, afraid to say. Only after climbing through some anime master’s brick-by-brick thread and figuring out which way the wind blows does he plant his flag and start flaming. After two sentences of criticism he puts on the attitude of “whatever, I’m a filthy otaku, I’m antisocial, I’m already at the bottom of society, what are you gonna do about it.”

In an era where pure-hearted kids are getting rarer and chuuni posers are getting more common, having a work that filters people by personality is not easy, you know?

So the PSP version of The “Hentai” Prince and the Stony Cat, positioned as a fan game for pure-hearted kids, is naturally worth a try.

The game’s timeline is set after the anime, meaning there’s no need to re-explain the Stony Cat legend or Emily’s appearance. The art isn’t Kantoku’s original style—it uses the TV anime designs. Or rather, the whole game was handled by the TV anime team; from the OP and ED to the voice work, it’s drenched in TV anime style. The story starts with slice-of-life dialogue, runs to the school festival, and after the festival you pick a route based on your choices and go to that character’s ending.

Unlike The Pet Girl of Sakurasou, this is a proper visual novel. It just has no H scenes, and… the choices come in a ridiculous variety.

There are timed choices during 3D sprite conversations, choices between saying what you really mean and putting on a front, location choices during breaks about who to go see, and quick-reaction choices about whether to say something. None of that is a problem. According to the guide, some choices are landmines and some give bonus points. Which route you end up on depends on each heroine’s affection score, and some landmines lock you out of a route the moment you pick them…

I have to pick a side here: I’m Team Azusa. The game has routes for basically every heroine worth looking at in the source, including Azusa’s two friends, but I only planned to do Azusa’s. At first I was confident—I had experience with other visual novels—so I made my own choices the first time, went straight to an END, and was told it was the best-friend Panta route…

……………………

So I had to look up a guide, and the guide’s route was really… weird… Fortunately, following it got me into the individual route just fine. The individual route is very short: after the school festival the two get closer, then there’s a confession, then they date, then it’s over…

It’s a fan game, after all. The individual routes aren’t going to be the length of a normal visual novel’s. Giving you an ending that shows you an Another Route of the story is enough, since the source material doesn’t even have an ending yet.

But looking back on the whole route, something feels off.

In the source material’s setup, the protagonist is supposed to be a guy with no filter, and Azusa is supposed to like this guy who keeps saying perverted things while being horribly embarrassed and annoyed by him. That’s exactly what produced the source’s rare good scenes—see the beginning of episode 2 of the anime.

But in this Azusa route, Yokodera Youto’s dialogue choices become very smooth and slick. Azusa wants to wear a maid outfit, and he says maids are for warming people’s hearts, not for exposure. Azusa says she’ll grant Youto’s wish, and he says he doesn’t have any wishes, he just wants Azusa to be happy—instead of playing various kinds of play. Azusa says she needs to lose weight, and he gently says there’s no need—instead of calling her flat.

Wait… is this still the Hentai Prince? Where did the pervert go? Isn’t this just a nice new man?

Looking at the final CG of Youto—who doesn’t look like the Hentai Prince at all—kissing Azusa, I think I get it. The source is what it is, and Azusa is probably still going to be the losing dog. If you insist on making an Another Route, don’t expect the earlier story to line up with the source. This isn’t a multi-route visual novel; it’s a single-route light novel. So to create a difference, they had to sand down the original Hentai Prince into a smooth-talking young pretty boy, and at that point the story has already shredded the source.

Put bluntly, Another Route is just another way to ruin the source material. Watch it for the fun of it, clap your hands together and say “gochisousama deshita,” and then go back to whatever you were doing…