You and RainbowSe7en both use "perverted" in ways that make me think you're really looking for a different word. These days "perverted", when speaking of sexuality, is used rarely.

e.g. "reaching over a perverted hand" ... doesn't really work in current English, it implies that the hand is distorted or physically monstrous. My assumption is that you mean something like "full of sexual desire". "passionate" may be the best word in this case, because it's a word for sexual desire that doesn't clash with "cautiously, solemnly."

But in your post title, when you write "is (canonically) a pervert", that seems to be a different use of "pervert", like you mean "has a kink" (in this case for long hair).

Or are you making a joke?

I'm not saying this to make you feel bad or ashamed in any way. Your translations are a wonderful fannish resource, and you are clearly very skilled and thoughtful. But literary translation into a language that is not your first has an extremely high degree of difficulty, so I'm hoping this helps you.

I'm also curious because the novel obviously comes from a different set of sexual assumptions than I'm used to, and I'm trying to figure out what they are.