Hen

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
Not a feather to be found on our oddly-proportioned heroines.

Chizuru Yoshida is a high-school girl with an improbably large bosom and a very active, very heterosexual sex life. However when a new (and female) student, Azumi Yamada, awakens some unfamiliar feelings in Chizuru's heart, our heroine is forced to reconsider her sexuality.

Hen was created by Hiroya Oku, better known as the mangaka of Gantz. It was adapted into a live-action drama in 1996, and also into a 2-episode OVA in 1997. The OVA was released by Central Park Media under the title Strange Love.


Tropes used in Hen include:
  • A-Cup Angst: The unnamed girl in Chapter 60 clearly feels very hurt to be compared with the endowed Chizuru.
  • Abusive Dad: In Haruo's story, Chizuru's father first gaslighted her for years to make her believe she was a boy only because he desired to have a son, and then tried to rape her after she developed breasts.
  • Affectionate Nickname: Chapter 49. Contrary to Yoshida's expectations, the students that call her "lesbian-chan" actually support her relationship with Azumi.
  • All Just a Dream: Most of Chapter 52 involves a dream-turned-nightmare where Chizuru is accompanying the filming of Ryuichi's movie and him and Azumi end up kissing in the mouth.
  • Alpha Bitch: Chizuru starts as one.
    • Lovable Alpha Bitch: Quickly turns into this soon after she stops trying to deny her feelings for Azumi, and by the end of the manga almost all of her more loathsome qualities have almost entirely faded.
  • Adorkable: Azumi and Ryuichi.
  • Anguished Declaration of Love: Chizuru to Azumi. Also, Azumi and Ryuichi give each other simultaneous declarations.
  • Author Avatar: Oku[context?]
  • Bait and Switch Lesbians: Nearly succumbs to this, but is averted at the last moment.
  • The Beard: In Chapter 67, Chizuru agrees to be one to the guy who saved her during an earthquake and happens to be gay. It works thanks to the fact the press and the people around the building do not seem to know she is a lesbian.
  • Betty and Veronica: Azumi and Chizuru are this to Ryuichi. Subverted when the Betty and the Veronica end up with each other rather than the guy.
  • Children Are Innocent: Chizuru ends up letting the boy who raped her go since he was just trying to provoke jealously on his crush.
  • Non Sequitur Scene: An extremely disturbing rape scene where Chizuru is raped by an 11 year old boy. This event is never referenced again, and Chizuru seems to have no memory it even happened immediately afterward.
  • Brother-Sister Incest: Suzuki and Saena
  • Catapult Nightmare: Ryuichi, though it's more of a Catapult Wet Dream.
  • The Chikan: Chizuru gets groped by one.
  • Clingy Jealous Girl: Chizuru[context?]
  • Closet Key: Azumi is Chizuru's.
  • The Danza: Oku[context?]
  • Date Rape Averted: Sugita's brother nearly rapes Chizuru when she's drugged unconscious, but he's foiled when she wakes up in the nick of time because she smells Azumi's perfume on the floor above.
  • Distracted by the Sexy: Chizuru's huge tracts of land frequently have this effect on the male characters.
  • Dojikko: Azumi[context?]
  • Double Standard Rape (Female on Male): Played quite straight when Chizuru gets Ryuichi drunk and rapes him while he's passed out.
  • Dude Looks Like a Lady: Sato looks so feminine that Suzuki doubts his very gender and repeatdly tries to argue he is a girl and also therefore Suzuki is not gay.
  • Ecchi: The series thrives on partial or total nudity, with every plot ends up referring sex on some way, even if indirectly (kisses).
  • Erotic Dream: Chizuru has some extremely Freudian, extremely disturbing ones about Azumi. Azumi later has some much less disturbing ones about Chizuru.
  • Erotic Eating: Sato eats a popsicle this way in Chapter 71.
  • Even the Girls Want Her: Azumi. Chizuru falls in love with her and is more than willing to make an exception for her despite being straight.
  • Fan Nickname: "Titzilla" for Chizuru. Also "Elvis" for Suzuki and "Mouse-chan" for Azumi.
  • Femme Fatale: Chizuru[context?]
  • Gainaxing: It's a manga, and yet the female characters still manage quite a lot of bouncing.
  • Gaslighting: By chapter 56, Haruo's story involves Chizuru's father gaslighted her during years just to covince her she was a boy.
  • Girl-On-Girl Is Hot: When Ryuichi's film script is reworked to include a kiss between Chizuru and Azumi, the drama club boys heartily approve.
  • Girls Love: Sort of. It has a lot more heterosexual sex scenes than your average Girls Love manga.
  • Going Commando: Yoshida leaves Izumi's house without wearing panties in Chapter 48.
  • Gonk: Oku and the 11-year-old boy.
  • Gratuitous Rape: The subplot where the 11-year-old boy rapes Chizuru comes out of nowhere, has no lasting effect on the characters involved, and adds exactly zilch to the overall story.
  • Harsh Word Impact[context?]
  • I Was Just Joking: Chizuru does this a lot, sometimes to the point of audience confusion.
  • If It's You It's Okay: Azumi is the only girl that Chizuru is attracted to.
  • Kick the Dog: Chizuru is prone to this early on while still in Alpha Bitch mode, being incredibly callous and condescending to people. Her tendency to do this drops off to nii by the end of the story.
  • Ladykiller in Love: Chizuru is a female example.
  • Love Confession: In Chapter 55, Chizuru and Ryuichi do a simultaneous, and sucessful, one just before he departs for America.
  • Love Triangle: Between Chizuru, Azumi, and Ryuichi. Later it expands into a Love Dodecahedron involving Azumi, Chizuru, Suzuki, Sato, Azumi's school friend, Suzuki's sister, and Oku.
  • Marshmallow Hell: Again, Chizuru is usually the one providing the, er, marshmallows.
  • Meganekko: Sugita[context?]
  • Ms. Fanservice: Chizuru, who is drooled over in universe by basically everything male remotely interested in sex.
  • Naive Newcomer: Azumi[context?]
  • No Bisexuals: Chizuru gets confused because on the one hand, she loves Azumi (so she must be a lesbian), but on the other hand, she likes having sex with boys (so she must be straight). It never occurs to her that she might be bisexual, or that she is even aware of the concept of bisexuality.
  • Nobody Poops: Averted; there are a couple of scenes showing Chizuru on the toilet.
  • Noodle People: As shown in the page illustration, the character designs are very thin and long-limbed.
  • Nosebleed: Chizuru has one after she sees Azumi naked.
  • Older Than She Looks: In-universe, Azumi unintentionally fools her interlocutor in chapter 67 that she is in fifth grade of elementary school.
  • One Head Taller: Chizuru and Azumi.
  • Panty Shot: Usually Chizuru, who also provides other forms of fanservice throughout the story.
  • Parental Incest:
    • Played with in Chapter 53. Chizuru has fantasies of Azumi, her love interest, being her mother, with the act of breast feeding between mother and daughter being portrayed very erotically.
    • In chapter 56, Haruo's story involves Chizuru's father trying to rape her after she went through puberty.
  • Potty Failure: Chapter 58. An unnamed boy falsely confesses to his mother he still wets his bed at age 11 to dissuade her of checking his room, where Chizuru is sleeping.
  • Precocious Crush: In Chapter 58, at least in-universe. Chizuru meets up a boy who has an obvious interest in her. She finds it cute, but the boy looks bizarre.
  • Primal Scene: Played with. In Chapter 53, Chizuru's dream-turned-into-nightmare is of Azumi being her mother and she walking on her and Ryuichi having sex.
  • Put on a Bus: Ryuichi ends up announcing his departure to America at the beginning of Chapter 52, departing by Chapter 55.
  • Reality Ensues: Chapter 59. If they're trained to the same level and both are healthy, men always are stronger than women. In other words, making a bet based on arm wrestling to a eleven year old boy when you're lean and sedentary high school girl is asking to lose.
  • Really Gets Around: Chizuru, who will sleep with practically anyone male early on in the story.
  • Red String of Fate: Referenced in the plot of Ryuichi's movie.
  • Replacement Love Interest: Sugita is this for Chizuru, when she's on the rebound after her disastrous public confession to Azumi.
  • Sacred First Kiss: Discussed in Chapter 51. Chizuru thinks Azumi's first kiss is very important, and that it can't happen as just a part of a staged production.
  • School Play: Actually a student film, but it serves the same narrative purpose.
  • Schoolgirl Lesbians
  • Shotacon: In inversion of this trope, Chizuru gets raped by an 11-year-old boy.
  • Shower Scene: Chizuru gets a few, and the two girls get one together.
  • Slap Slap Kiss: Chizuru concludes in Chapter 60 that the boy who she had spent the last night with have a mutual crush with the unnamed girl he tries to provoke jealously in by using Chizuru's breasts.
  • Skinship Grope: Chizuru is a frequent target. She herself does it to Azumi and Saena.
  • The Tease: Chizuru, due to her hedonist tendencies, though the more her feelings for Azumi grow, this trait of hers fades away.
  • Unknown Character: Azumi's dad plays it straight up until Chapter 57 when Chizuru meets him at random while leaving her house. Before, the audience could only infer his existence by Azumi's mother being a full-on housewife who is never called a widow or seen getting financial help from anyone.
  • Unreliable Narrator: Chapter 56's plot involves Haruo telling a backstory for Azumi, after already confessing his family is full of liars. By the end of the chapter, Azumi is confused as the audience if he was saying the truth or not.
  • Yandere: Sugita[context?].
  • Your Cheating Heart: Chapter 57. The random car driver that Chizuru tries to sleep with has a very angry girlfriend walking towards him just as Chizuru comes around. Before she appears, he seems very interested in having sex with Chizuru.