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Entertainment factors: Fight scenes, insane choreography, subtle social themes, Japanese culture, hand-drawn animation.

Genres: Action, historical, drama.

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Studio Bones animated Sword Of The Stranger (2007) to feature the most spectacular hand-drawn sword fighting scenes ever. With a high budget and big studio talent behind it, this movie is violently wonderful.

The main and side characters depict the social hierarchy of medieval Japan: child, bandit, peddler, soldier, priest, lord, etc. Watching their interactions, you get a good sense of who stands below the other. Some try moving upwards in class, others simply die in the crossfire.

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You can watch this movie as just another cool action flick. But, when a story is this tight and spans only an hour and 40 minutes, it has the side-effect of including intentional and unintentional subtexts. There is much intrigue to defer from the movie’s historical setting and cynical vision of human nature.


The focus is certainly on the spectacle. Unlike the ultra realistic fights in Nitroplus’ Hanachirasu, the battles in Sword Of The Stranger last long glorious minutes. It’s a feast for the eyes.

The movie is old. Your best bet at watching it is to type its name in a search engine and going from there.

Entertainment factors: Gripping story, battle scenes, romance, emotional ride, serious themes, dying characters.
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Similar to Attack On Titan, this anime does not paint a rosy picture of humanity, ie. showing scenes of bullying and animal torture in multiple episodes. Shinichi comes in contact with not only the monstrous parasites, but street gangs, politicians and a serial killer. The dark side of man is well-represented in Parasyte the Maxim.

Despite the violence and gore, the anime is deeply heart-warming and very, very human. People around Shinichi keep dying and it scars him to a point of total numbness. His isolation and relationship troubles parallel the feelings of those ... reeling from harrowing personal losses. Even after Shinichi’s dark experiences and the parasite in his body begin changing him into a selfish, uncaring person, he never stops struggling with his need to help people. He is brave, cowardly, selfish and altruistic. His conflicting character is so very human and a serious literary feat from Iwaaki Hitoshi, author of the original manga.

The deathtoll in the series builds up quickly. It’s actually bizarre that the constant killing doesn’t become too uncomfortable to watch. I’m personally very sensitive to violence, often deriving anxiety from it, but Parasyte The Maxim did not provoke this reaction in me. The show remains both thought-provoking and entertaining from start to finish and I can only recommend you watch it.

The animation style is more realistic than on most anime - even Deathnote was more artsy than Parasyte. The character designs are refreshing, not abiding to any recent anime clichés. Voice acting is natural, all voices fit their respective characters. The soundtrack has both lighter tunes and darker, horror-enhancing electronic beats.

Not a minute spent watching Parasyte is a waste. Due to its heavy subject matters, and the grace with which it handles them, Parasyte The Maxim is one of the most relevant anime in recent history.

Fetishes: School girls, submissive males, active females, fellatio, creampie, cum play, cum eating, public places, panties, legal teens, dating.

Style of sex: Consensual hardcore.

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Seto Yuuki is a peculiar hentai author, often depicting sexually experienced teenaged girls initiating encounters with guys of their choosing. Whereas the bulk of Japanese hentai seems obsessed with virgins, Seto Yuuki prefers the more active, sluttier types.

Seto Yuuki’s specialty is creative cum play. His girls are confident lovers of semen ingestion. Though the anime adaptations of his work don’t feature the crazy condom plays from the manga, ie. the girls eating the loads from the condom after finishing, that’s not to say ... they don’t eat it. They do it raw, straight from the source, to the very last drop.

The three-episode hentai consists of several short stories involving different girls. My favorite story focuses on Mizuho, an eccentric, shameless girl with an oral fixation. She’s invited her new boyfriend in her home. They start kissing and licking, and soon Mizuho unwraps the boy’s pants and begins fellating him passionately. She nabs his load in her mouth and pours the semen in a glass. She announces her plans to fill the glass fully, and that’s when Mizuho’s father comes home. Through trickery and stealth, the two teenagers take secret moments behind the father’s back, each time with the male audience surrogate unloading in Mizuho’s mouth. Her high sexual experience comes off strong in every scene, giving her an aura of maturity and mystique. The guy is scared and timid, and though he receives many orgasms, they’re all controlled by Mizuho and her machinations.

The stories and girls vary in their personalities, but all are equally focused on the creative uses of semen and boy-domination. As much as the guys try to stay in pace, it’s the girls who decide the flow of the sex. Only seldom has consensual sex been depicted this extremely in hentai.

The animation budget seems higher than for the average hentai, though never reaching Kangoku Senkan levels of visual perfection. Voice acting is sweet and sexy, and the classical tunes sound soothing.

Even if sexually experienced girls and cum play aren’t your thing, watch this title. It’s so good, it might just convert you.

KissXSis, as an experience, is reminiscent of spending a night at a strip club. Alluring sights and sensations surround you, and the many feelings you go through, they leave you delightfully thirsty. It’s like having a girl grind her butt on your crotch, feeling that sweet softness through your pants. If she’s skinny, you might feel the sharper edges of her bone structure, and if she’s big, the accommodating embrace of cellulite. Either way, your senses are bombarded with hints of an incoming, pleasurable payoff. If, however, you watch this show for porn, you will have to boot another video: the anime never crosses the ... line into hentai territory - at least without clothes on.

Make no mistake, KissXSis is thoroughly pornographic. Even without genitals touching or tits flashing, the romantic tease the show subjects you to is relentlessly titillating. The twin sisters are confident and intelligent, they’re young women with a firm fixation on what they want: the love of their non-related brother, Keita, who was married into the family through his father. They want Keita’s hand in marriage and compete over him.

The mother of the twins, and the father of the brother are beyond liberal, actively urging the sisters to marry the brother. The attitude of the parents is extreme to the point of parody, and it’s not very realistic, but they enable the premise to function. Even as there’s no actual incest happening, the anime plays with the character dynamic as if there was.

Honestly, not every episode is worth watching. The external plot outside the emotional is about Keita studying for university entrance exams. It’s not very interesting, and some episodes offer literally no enjoyment of any category. However, the episodes that nail it, they go for the fucking throat. I personally haven’t seen or read any erotic works that could deliver as sensual a sexual experience as KissXSis. I’m almost positive that the show is designed for prolonged masturbation sessions, possibly toy assisted.

While no genitals ever touch in KissXSis, there’s still much sex to enjoy. Several episodes have seduction scenes, the sisters dressing up, stealing kisses, even practicing for a threesome! My absolute favorite episode centered around kissing, and it concluded in a long, sensual scene involving chocolate lipstick and hugging.

The sisters are not the only characters romantically interested in the male audience surrogate. An otaku milf teacher joins the cast early on, accompanied by her shameless younger sister. There’s also a running gag about this timid girl and her piss always finding its way on Keita’s face.

I truly suggest you watch KissXSis. It’s the most stimulating ecchi tease one can find in today’s market, outside of actually dating.

Fella Pure: Stories of the Mitarai Family, caters to oral sex fanatics. Keiko is the student council president of her school, highly respected by her fellow students. In their eyes, she’s absolutely perfect: smart, beautiful, a diligent student - a true role model. However, Keiko has a well-kept secret: she eats her borther’s dick daily and drinks his cum with fervor. It’s a thoroughly erotic 30 minutes with awesome animation, with juicy incest to top off the depravity.

Fella Pure stands out among other hentai as a simple, well-executed fetish title. The story successfully drills your senses with well-crafted, descriptive dialogue that gets your blood running. ... For example, Keiko explains in detail how semen tastes and why she loves drinking it. When she kisses her brother, or swallows his loads, she blushes and leaks all manner of secretions, seemingly overwhelmed with pleasure. Watching her face, you can truly believe she’s got an oral fixation. As if the first scene isn’t hot enough, the subsequent gloryhole sequence pulls no stops in delivery. Jizz and piss fly all over the room as brother and sister sate their desire for each other!

In my honest opinion, this hentai leaves nothing left to desire for. The situations turn wild very quickly while still remaining realistic enough as to not test your immersion. The sex is wet, messy, over-the-top and extremely satisfying. The feelings of arousal that the characters experience are conveyed systematically and in a gripping manner, and the voice actors do an amazing job delivering their lewd sighs and descriptive lines.

No western release of this OVA is available for purchase, but thankfully EROBEAT took the time and fansubbed the first episode. You can view or download Fella Pure from various sites.

To this day my writing is influenced by Fullmetal Alchemist. I read the manga about ten years ago, but I still remember most of the characters by name. The author's vision and its execution were not without flaws, but the overall end result was sheer brilliance. The themes of loss, sacrifice and transformation are seamlessly integrated into the plot and character backstories.

What makes this story exceptional is how universal its subject matters are. Everybody goes through growing pains, but in the case of the Elric brothers Edward and Alphonse, their transition into adulthood is nothing short of hardcore. The boys lost their mother, who they ... literally tried resurrecting, but in addition to failing miserably with the alchemical ritual, Edward lost two limbs and Alphonse his entire body. Turns out, despite the sheer magical potential of alchemy, it can't be used to bring people back to life.

There's a good reason why Fullmetal Alchemist has few peers. A story like this is impossible to create unless you've survived fucked up shit, possess the social support and intelligence to make sense of it and have the skills as a storyteller to convey those experiences. The author clearly thinks ill of shortcuts to personal growth (miracle cures, religion, etc.), evidenced by the first episode alone.

It seems obvious to point out the inspiration to this series is human darkness - even ethnic genocide makes it into the plot. It's astonishing how deep Fullmetal Alchemist goes with its harrowing concepts, yet rarely feels depressing. The characters talk about their emotions, then keep pushing forward, make new allies and grow as people. To be fair though, they don't actually get many chances to lament their misery, because the intense plot constantly whips them forward.

The main mysteries involving the plot are discovered shortly into the series, but the bad guys quickly clean house and cover everything up. This killing creates an incredible tension that sets the pace for the entire rest of the series. Not only that, but on many occasions the episode's cliffhanger is just brutal, reminiscent of Attack on Titan. Friendly advice: DON'T watch this series before bed, make the time to binge it!

The cast of characters is varied in genders, ages and body types. Their designs are focused and simplistic, though not without depth. Unlike how females are often drawn in anime, in Fullmetal Alchemist they look nice, but not overtly sexualized. There's also just about no fanservice. Even some of the evil characters are surprisingly humane, which indicates the author's ability for deep empathy. That's a real feat, considering the eyes she has for true darkness.

One of the best Pink Pineapple productions I´ve seen to date. Stretta The Animation is a two-episode collection of sexy mini-stories set in the world of Stringendo and Accelerando. Several familiar characters from the two series are revisited, like the deceptively innocent-looking Mikuru and Kirishima the exhibitionist. The visuals are above average for hentai: lines are seemingly drawn by skilled, steady hands and though the motions are stiff at times, the animation is sufficient to successfully deliver on the director´s vision.

The locations of Stretta make the encounters more interesting, because they add an additional dynamic to the scenes. These locations include a maid cafe, photo ... booth, office cubical and a school gym storage. My favorite is the photo booth scene with the hot blonde Kirishima. Watching that scene makes me realize there's something very special about being photographed or videotaped during sex; it feels like having an audience.

The girls in Stretta are aggressive. They may look cute and pure, but in bed, they´re dirty little butches. Every encounter with these girls is clever and erotic. Before genitals ever meet, you´ve already seen enough soaked panties and blushing smiles to make you itch for the climax. The sexual tension is built up quickly, but without skipping ahead. The girls talk with the guys, they undress or dress up, they get horny and start improvising. In several scenes the girls lick the boys' pants until they're dripping wet and only then do they swallow their shafts. The scenes escalate when the girls get hornier - the guys have trouble keeping up with them, but with a little pressuring from their partners, they pull through and deliver them sweet vaginal creampies (sometimes mouthfuls). The power dynamic keeps switching up, sometimes during a scene and it's always tasteful, never rapy - I mention this, because some hentai titles go full-on rape-mode impromptu, which for anyone unfamiliar with common hentai tropes will likely find off-putting. In Stretta, the sex is consensual and mostly female-led from start to finish.

Hentai adaptations for visual novels suffer because of their severe time limitations. Visual novels have a notably relaxed atmosphere, like you’re never rushed by the plot to move forward. Since the gameplay is anything but fast-paced, the stories are designed to accommodate. You will discover this lax atmosphere in the anime adaptations of Steins;Gate and Walkure Romanze, for example. Starless, despite being a phenomenal eroge, does not translate well into video format – at least not without a vast budget and a visionary director. The original game is nothing but a vast collection of sex scenes, so there’s not enough time to provide the original ... experience point-to-point. With some creative decisions, you could come close, but the studio that produced the animated Starless failed to find their focus. The end result feels incomplete. The slide into deeper echelons of depravity is missing, there’s no escalation of perversion – the whole point of the original game got lost in translation. As a lover of quality erotica, I feel miserable that I have to talk bad about this title.

There are many factors that ruin the animated Starless. Because hentai is a very visual entertainment form and visuals are expensive, a detailed artstyle, like the one in Starless, strains the budget immensely. There is just no way to produce this story without spending a small fortune - something has to give, something has to compensate. In my opinion the studio should have picked only a couple of really good scenes and blown their everything into those. Ten minutes of awesome would’ve been better than twenty minutes of lameness. The way hentai studios usually compensate their lack of a budget is by getting creative with the scenes. That is why I find it baffling that the animated Starless is near completely vanilla. A few exceptions aside, the scenes feature fellatio and male on female intercourse and that’s it. The original game is famous exactly for its creativity, so in that context, it’s an even greater sin to deviate this far from the source material. There is no upside to this decision - if there is, I do not see it.

When I think about the issues of the animated Starless, I can’t help but think that maybe it’s perhaps too perverted to change mediums. Not only are there too many scenes to show, but many of them are so depraved that most countries’ legislation would force cuts into the content. I have to think that one of the reasons why visual novels seem to showcase some of the craziest porn I’ve ever seen in my life is because the medium isn’t very popular. You can do crazy shit when you´re underground.

Sukitte ii na yo (eng. Say ”I love you”) had potential to be a blissful romantic drama - for the most part, it is. It nails many aspects of a good story which make up for its flawed plot. The best part of this show is the cast of characters: they are solid, varied and interesting. All of them have their upsides, downsides, flaws and rivalries.

Even without an external plot, the emotional plot alone carries this show far. The animation is really sick too: The lines are sharp and everything from backgrounds to people is finely detailed. Both the guys and the girls are attractive ... to the eye but not overtly sexy. I can't emphasize enough how much I liked the art – oh, and the music! Both the intro and the end theme are amazing and I loved hearing them every time.

The only problem with this show is its lack of a plot. Especially unnerving is how watered down the love triangles are. Every crisis is resolved way too easily, some of them almost instantly and without any actual developments. The good thing is, by the time you start feeling disappointed, you've already reached the ending. The strong points for this series are the characters who have tons of personality and historic background.

The show deals with plenty of social themes, mostly focused on the brutal side of social life, such as bullying, eating disorders, self-esteem issues, etc. These themes could've used far more in-depth exploration. I have not read the manga, but I get the feeling like most of my problems with this series are related to the hiccups which materialize when you adapt hundreds of pages of manga into 20-minute episodes.

I love romantic fiction, but I also have a very personal beef with it. I know there are young people out there who build their ideas about relationships from fiction. The story of Romeo and Juliet is the perfect example of how retarded and self-destructive young love can be. I'm not saying people can't enjoy fantasies, but they need to recognize pandering bullshit. "Sukitte ii na yo" is smart because it avoids one of the grave sins of romantic fiction: Instead of falsely implying that lack of social skills makes you hot, the story actually digs into the theme of disparity in social stature and its effect on a relationship. The author clearly has an idea what she's doing and it´s too bad the story doesn't reach the heights it could have.

I really hope that some day there will be a second season for "Sukitte ii na yo", because I definitely feel thirsty for more.

Reaching You is smarter than it looks. It's a story disguised as a low-budget shoujo romance anime, but its script is cleverly crafted in the spirit of David Lynch's Mulholland Drive. The narrative plays out typical to the T, featuring a socially awkward female as the main character that somehow becomes entangled with the school's most popular guy.

The main girl is named Sawako. Although the story makes you feel like you're watching Sawako live out her high school years, in reality she's actually dead - and no, that's not a spoiler.

The story makes it very clear early on that everything that's happening around Sawako ... is inside her own head, or more specifically, her soul. Despite Sawako's complete inability to understand people and their emotions, everyone in her school starts to gradually treat her like a saint. Her new-found friends are completely obsessed with her and whenever they're apart, they talk about Sawako incessantly. At first you may pass their dialogue as completely normal, but when these scenes keep repeating, the positive emotions begin waning. As you start paying closer attention, the heartwarming scenes begin to feel awkward, like the author is trying to drill a message into your lazy brain.

Reaching You's story takes place in a high school. Sawako doesn't have a single friend there. People actively call her Sadako instead of Sawako, it's a joke based on her creepy resemblance to the ghost from Ring, the famous Japanese horror movie. The first scene of the series is in a bathroom, a classic stage for horror. Later in the season we return to this place to find clues on how Sawako actually died. Despite this and other blatantly anvilicious clues, one could still be easily swayed to think Reaching You is just a cheaply produced romance anime - one would be wrong.

The strongest indication of the author's intent is the abundantly utilized bubble-effect. I dub this effect "emo bubbles", because the bubble backgrounds appear every time when Sawako feels strong positive emotions. Though "emo bubbles" are a common cost-cutting trick in romantic anime (artists can skip painting backgrounds when there's bubbles), their frequency in Reaching You is extraordinary. Instead of making the viewer feel happy and connected to Sawako's character on her important moments, the constant usage of the bubble effect actually starts to feel grating. One particular episode featured over thirty bubble effects, and during some of its scenes you would see this effect every second shot. This is when I started feeling unexpectedly uneasy in the stomach, like my subconscious self was noticing something was off. It was only after watching near the entire first season that I realized what was happening: Reaching You is designed to feel uncomfortable on purpose. The authors intentionally try to strike a stark, yet subtle contrast which challenges most people's perception of reality. The bubbles are symbolic of the metaphorical bubble Sawako is living inside, they indicate the delusions her ghostly being is experiencing during her crossing to the afterlife.

There's a scene in the middle episodes of season 1 where Sawako is cornered by a group of gangster girls. Once again, she's alone in the restroom against a hoard of bitches. Miraculously, she is saved by her friends without any violence, but the emotional release fails to materialize. At first I thought this crucial scene, this big turning point in Sawako's life, was dragged out needlessly, as it took an entire episode to finish the climax - with the minutes rolling and close to nothing happening, the climax didn't happen for me. This scene took so much more time than necessary and it felt so watered down in the end that there was no payoff. Even the dialogue felt odd and hollow, like there was no drama, like there was no struggle. In fact, not a single punch was thrown, even though the emotional dynamic in the scene seemed built on the anticipation of violence erupting. Sawako defies her bullies who completely outnumber her, yet nobody gets hurt, not even when the cavalry arrives.

With all the hints on the table, it's not even a challenge to decipher the meta narrative: Sawako died in this restroom. Everything that happens in the scene is the exact reverse; the big crowd waiting outside the toilet, Sawako's love interest showing up to reconcile with her, her friends coming to the rescue - they're Sawako's dream of what should've happened, but didn't.

I would've passed this off as just a mediocre romance anime, were it not for the symbolic "emo bubbles" tipping me off about the story within the story. Instead of making me feel warm and fuzzy, like a good romance anime usually does, Reaching You made me feel anxious, pained and emotionally hollow. I can absolutely respect the series' artistic merits, even though I couldn't bring myself to enjoy it.