Housepets, formally known as students with uncooperative tendencies, are students who have fallen into the bottom 100 contributors of donations to the Student Council at Hyakkaou Private Academy, thus losing their general rights as independent humans at the school.
Overview[]
The Student Council announces rankings on a regular basis and has heavily tied it to the state of gambling at the academy, covertly using the systems to control individuals with power through the amassing and centralizing of debts. They are also responsible for enforcing debt payments across students to further solidify the system. To further exploit, coordinate, and manipulate the Housepet situation themselves, the council often schedules events such as Indian Poker, Grand Tournament, and the Bloom Festival.
Housepet tags on a table
When a student becomes a Housepet, they are required to wear tags that signify the status to others. These students are often referred to as "Doggy" or "Kitty" ("Fido" or "Mittens" in the dub). Once a Housepet are subject to abuses, taunts, and are required to follow the demands of other non-pet students. Some of these requests range from mild chores to extreme scenarios such as sexual gratification and emotional abuse.
Each Housepet is given a single chance to challenge any other student in a match, known as an Official Match, often in large bets that are last attempts at escaping their outcomes. Many times these are played against the Student Council themselves as a way to gain not just recovery from debt, but also standing among the student body.
Aside from Official Matches, another method a house pet could use to escape from their low status is the “Special Student Council Payment System”, where by paying one million yen, a house pet can instantly be free from their status. However due to the unwillingness of most students to gamble with them, house pets themselves are unable to acquire such money.
Notable Events[]
When the series begins, Mary attempts to lure Yumeko into playing Vote Rock-Paper-Scissors as an attempt to wrangle her as a Housepet.
Jun after becoming a housepet for several months
The game of Indian Poker was set up specifically to create a gamble between Yumeko and Jun Kiwatari: Sayaka Igarashi mentions that the outcome is a win-win, as Jun has a powerful family who would be tied to the Council or a loss for Yumeko would further bury their problem with her.
Later on, towards the end of the election Yumeko arrives with the housepets who use the Special Student Council Payment System to free themselves of their housepet status. As Yumeko had intentionally gambled away all her 1,013 votes to all the housepets, as Sayaka was buying each vote for ¥100,000,000. Yumeko decided to use this as an opportunity to destroy the status quo in Hyakkaou Private Academy, effectively removing the housepets all together to force Kirari’s hand.
However, after the events of the The Elections of a new student council, the Housepet system was noted to have gone into decline and is now almost practically non-existant. Due to Sayaka Igarashi using the 300 Billion Yen and offering 100 million yen a vote, the Housepets were able to easily acquire the funds to make a payment for the “Special Student Council Payment System”, where by paying one million yen, a housepet can instantly be free from their status. Thanks to the immense wealth they acquired , students with low gambling skills can now easily remove their housepet status’s anytime they desire and thus distrupting the system of oppression created by Housepet system. Furtheremore, Karen Mozu, a previous housepet, has taken advantage of the new wealth possessed by the housepets in the Academy in order to create the Fido-Mittens Mutual Aid Society, a group dedicated to helping housepets escape their situations by loaning housepets the needed money to pay the Special Student Council System instantly and aims to remove the system entirely.
Notable Housepets[]
See also: Housepets Category
Trivia[]
- A class's president is almost always a Housepet as the role is something no student actually wants.
- Students often don't expect others to rise out of Housepet status, but if they do the students who mistreated them sometimes are wary of them as it is rare for this to happen. An example of this, is when Mary had freed herself from her housepet status and her “friends” were terrified at what she would do to them as they had mistreated her for the duration of her housepet status.
- Rei Batsubami points out that the students don't have to abuse the house pets; even Mary refused to continue associating with her friends after they didn't support her.
- As shown, Kirari Momobami based the housepet system on the system used by her family, The Hundred Devouring Families. In the clan, the members settle almost all disputes via gambling and members can bet anything, including their “humanity”. Should a clan member bet their humanity and lose it, this clan member is exiled from the clan, their original name is erased and they are immediatley placed into the “Batsubami Family”, which are in truth the family of the clan’s losers and are even branded in their backhands of their new “family” to symbolize their status. They are no longer even considered or treated as a human by its members, becoming nothing more than “property” to its official clan members and are treated as nothing more than servants by them. Unlike housepets however, exiled clan members are no longer even allowed to gamble amongst the clan to regain their status, unlike house pets who are at least afforded the right to challenge others in official matches that the challenged cannot refuse and are still able to participate in gambles around the school to try and buy back their status. This exile even extends to their descendants, as shown where Rei Batsubami was from a family who was exiled generations ago.
- As of Chapter 95, all the housepets have been seemingly removed from Hyakkaou Private Academy as Yumeko after learning that Sayaka had been buying the votes for ¥100,000,000 each, decided to take advantage of this. She intentionally gambled away all 1,013 of her votes to rid the academy of the housepets, destroying the aquarium that Kirari was so proud of.