The Helpful Fox Senko-san 11
Sewayaki Kitsune no Senko-san 11
世話やきキツネの仙狐さん episode 11

Spoiler Summary/Synopsis

Nakano has another bad day at the office, so Senko-san uses a noren (a short, entry curtain with text on it) to make the residence seem like a Japanese restaurant. Senko-san has prepared a number of dishes, and has a lot of sake as well. Nakano samples the many sake varieties and other adult beverages Senko-san has. In addition, he eats to his fill. He starts unloading his issues to Senko-san. Nakano then apologizes for this, but she encourages him to tell her anything he desires.

Later, Nakano gets in trouble for not taking paid time off. He plans to do something with Senko-san, but a call from his mother causes him to return to his hometown. He leaves his smart phone with Senko-san, keeping his work flip-phone with him. Once home, he finds his father had injured himself, but is going to be fine.

Meanwhile, Senko-san packs her things and leaves. Nakano goes for a walk and comes to the kitsune shrine, where he remembers that Senko-san was there when he was a kid. He tries to call his smart phone, but no one answers as Senko-san has abandoned the phone.

Thoughts/Review

Ugh. I hate it when anime adaptations decide to go off on their own, especially when they want to make some idiotic, melodramatic ending that culminates in an “all’s well that ends well.” Sadly, The Helpful Fox Senko-san 11 is just such an episode, and one of the many reasons I don’t like it.

Changes to the Source Manga

If is wasn’t clear with all of this “Kuroto” BS that FUNimation was ramming down our pie-holes, The Helpful Fox Senko-san 11 goes off to establish its own anime ending. And since this episode only used chapter 17 as source material, there were obviously a ton of changes on the whole.

That said, for chapter 17 specifically, things were modified in such a way so as to make the story go off in this tediously melodramatic path. But the one change I did like is that we get to see the scale of how much sake and such Senko-san had. The manga merely mentioned this, but didn’t show it.

Melodrama ‘Cause Trope Rules Insist!

It is pretty much a cliche that for some anime adaptations where the anime wants to make its own ending, a melodramatic push into the final moments has to be made, after which things then turn out well. I hate these kinds of stories. They are boring to me and only designed to try to evoke sad emotions.

In the case of The Helpful Fox Senko-san, none of this makes any sense. There’s zero reason for Senko-san to just leave Nakano. OK, so he returned home. Big, freaking whoop. That means that Senko-san has to return to whatever realm she, Sora, and Shiro live in? Utter rubbish!

Nonetheless, this is the exact, stupid plot that the production team decided to go with in The Helpful Fox Senko-san 11. And I’m none to happy about this plot development.

FUNimation’s Subtitles Suck

It already sucks bad enough that the subtitles don’t retrain the Japanese honorifics (but weirdly enough, the series’ title does). But what irks me the most is that as I expected, FUNimation’s adaptation would get a pass on their incorrect use of the name Kuroto when it came to addressing Nakano. I don’t know why FUNimation’s subtitles couldn’t use “dear” as a translation for her term of endearment, Onushi.

Anyway, The Helpful Fox Senko-san 11 has the anime only use the name Kuroto for the 2nd and 3rd times. Of course for FUNimation’s subtitles, this is the 50-billionth time. 😑

But what’s really bizarre about FUNimation’s subtitles is that while they refuse to use Japanese honorifics, and incorrectly use the name Kuroto were it shouldn’t be used, they frequently retained Japanese words. When it comes to cultural items, Japanese foods, or names (even nicknames), I don’t have a problem leaving Japanese words in the subtitles. And I didn’t have any problem here. But if you are going to retain Japanese words, why do the other whacked stuff with the subtitles?

Final Thoughts and Conclusion

In the end, The Helpful Fox Senko-san 11 opts to go for an anime-only ending route (since the manga is going on), which means boring, tedious, cliched moments of forced melodrama.