The Cat-astrophic Premiere of Beheneko: The Elf-Girl's Cat is Secretly an S-Ranked Monster!

There was a moment at the premiere of Beheneko: The Elf-Girl's Cat is Secretly an S-Ranked Monster! (henceforth Beheneko) where a signed script was given away to a member of the audience. The host of the premiere, Star Butler from HIDIVE, wanted to give it away to the audience member with the most cats. Ultimately, it was given to someone who said they had 15 cats—all strays that they were making sure stayed fed. It was a sweet moment, hearing this audience member's story. And that, to me, was the highlight of Beheneko's premiere. Not necessarily because the story was that adorable (although it was), but because I just didn't care for the episode itself.

This series follows a nameless knight, who dies and is reincarnated as a behemoth. But as it turns out, a baby behemoth is indistinguishable from a house cat. An adventuring elf girl who must surely have the back pain to end all back pain finds him, and takes in the “cat.” The behemoth/cat enjoys his new life, and ends up getting pretty attached to the elf girl. This series follows their new daily life together.

This first episode is very clearly not trying to do anything deep here. The story is paper thin, the attempts at comedy aren't particularly funny, the dialogue is bland, the characters have no discernible personalities to speak of, and the world is little more than a generic RPG setting that by now you've probably seen in at least a dozen other anime. Instead, Beheneko seems content to simply be a horny series about an elf girl breasting boobily, and her pet behemoth/cat. There's even nipples at one point during the premiere (although I'm unsure if the streaming release is going to be similarly uncensored). But the catch with this first episode is that the elf girl seems weirdly not-unhorny for the behemoth/cat, and it gives the whole episode an uncomfortable vibe that's hard to shake. I suspect that this addition was one of the aforementioned failed attempts at comedy, albeit an exceptionally awkward one. But I don't feel particularly inclined to stick around and finding out for sure.