English Dub Review: SUPER HxEROS “HXEROS Rising!”

Overview (Spoiler’s Below)

Kirara has been taken prisoner by Kiseichuu, and the rest of the HxEROS team has to rescue her. Momoka suggests the team charge up their full H energy by conspiring with Maihime and Sora to hand over their panties to Retto, much to his disinterest. As the crew follows their HxEROS gear (which I guess function as trackers now as well as energy storing weapons or whatever?) to the Kiseichuu nest, the tight quarters of public transportation give friction the chance to succeed where Momoka’s plan failed, allowing the team to arrive to the battle supercharged. Meanwhile, Kirara has escaped her restrictive bonds to instead emotionally (and physically) bond with a fellow prisoner, Chacha. As the rejected firstborn of the Queen, Chacha may be a Kiseichuu, but possesses some rather interesting mutations, and more importantly, a soft spot for humans (although, as she soon finds out, male humans can be rather hard!)

Our take

So, we’re getting to learn a little bit more about the Kiseichuu and it is insect information at its finest. Mimicry is defined by an ant Kiseichuu as a power they have to change form, rather than a nontoxic species evolving to look like a more dangerous one, but this cloaking ability comes into play again at the end of the episode so I’ll reluctantly let it slide.

I do draw an angry biology nerd line at the definition of “natural selection” though. It’s not a hive weeding out a misfit mutant. It’s the process of a species becoming more adapted to its environment, so it can survive and reproduce. Arguably, Chacha’s physical characteristics and proclivity towards human interaction makes her more likely than her evil buggy counterparts to pass on her genes, but again, this is me trying to apply science to an ecchi anime, so who knows.

Why do I keep getting baited into caring about the villains in what’s supposed to be a wacky sexual comedy? Partly because I spent my senior year of high school mutating red flour beetles for genetics research back when I still had career aspirations that didn’t involve writing anime reviews at 3am, but mostly because I’m still stupidly hoping this show will, at some point, make even a lick of sense.

But scientific inaccuracies aside, this episode has a handful of compelling moments, both from visual and character development standpoints. The flashback to the gorgeous CGI fireworks at a past Star Festival wraps up a memory of Kirara’s youthful expectations of what high school would be like if the Kiseichuu hadn’t interfered. Unfortunately, the scene also serves to further confuse the timeline of Retto and Kirara’s relationship, along with Kirara’s struggles to consistently utilize her powers. Retto had just informed her that her excessive H energy is a gift that she should use, but even while using her attraction to him to punch a bug into space, she still can’t quite bring herself to be as forward and honest about her feelings towards him as she was before her first fateful encounter with the Kiseichuu. Retto, for his part, is still racked with guilt for being unable to protect her, although it’s clear that she’s the far more powerful fighter in this duo. Although, while Kirara is frequently unable to access her power, Retto never fails to, uh, rise to the occasion.

This episode’s brief mention of shyness as a block for accessing H energy does bring up an interesting side note: is H energy exclusively created by sexual tension? If so, does satisfying one’s lust drain them of this energy, or simply leave them in need of a recharge? As per usual, it’s very unclear.

This episode wraps with the female HxEROS flaunting excessive underboob while they hunt for Retto, only to find him under Chacha, who’s shape shifted into a cat-eared version of Kirara (although they look about as similar as Kikyo and Kagome, which is to say, not very.) The Kiseichuu princess is performing an in-depth “examination” of Retto’s anatomy, but happily informs the rest of the team that they won’t be free of the bug alien blight until they take down her mother. Luckily, she volunteers to help them in that effort, although it may be mostly for her own pleasure.