Hana to Hebi The Animation

Watching Flower & Snake I am sad to say I kept saying to myself "this woman deserves what is coming to her". I despise when people just let bad things happen to them without trying to fight back. Fortunately (or maybe unfortunately) by the end I started to feel bad for Shizuko, but honestly I still didn't like or care about her. This film is full of all kinds of people who are just unpleasant and rotten to the core, there really is no hero or good guy to be found anywhere, and its hard to enjoy a series that has no ... one to root for or care about.

Flower & Snake is a tense hentai series that focuses on bondage, rape, torture, humiliation and control. If there is a sadistic side to you then you may find this hentai appealing, but if you are like me and prefer the lighter side of hentai then this is one you should probably stay away from it. This is about the breaking of the human mind and spirit and the evil of man. There are no parts of joy or humor, no hint of hope, nothing but darkness and despair. When the final credits rolled I was just happy that is was over, and that is kind of sad. Then again, there are plenty of people out there that seem to enjoy this kind of dark and miserable story.

This is a 2006 hentai, but it felt like it could have come out of the mid 90's. Just like the story, the animation style was dark, with a moody color pallet and lots of shadow. Since the film has been licensed for sale in the US it does come uncensored and with an English dub as well as the original Japanese audio. I generally do not like dubs as the voices rarely fit, but I have to say that this dub was very passable for the most part and only suffered from bad porn-star acting on occasion.

As for the story, well it had enough substance overall, as long as you can suspend your beliefs long enough to accept what is happening. Once you got over the major plot points it pretty much broke down to a pure submission story. The major characters were fairly well rounded out, but sadly none had any positive points to their names. I think the best part of this hentai was the fact that even though it was heavy in S&M themes, that it at least spared the audience from the horror of scat scenes or surgical torture.

In conclusion, I wish I could find more to like about this hentai, I really do, but it was just too dark for my tastes… I guess I am a sucker for happier endings. If you have a demon living inside of your soul then I am sure that you will find this to your liking… I think that the goth crowd will get a kick out of it.