It is said that ADV has created a new imprint called "Happy Carrot" for hentai titles. Happy carrot? The mind boggles. What was done to the carrot to make it happy, pray tell?

Anyhoo, it is also said that they have announced (maybe) a title for April that they'll call "Karma Saiyuki". Supposedly it was an OVA in Japan in 2007 called "Iyashite Agerun Saiyuki", about which ANN has the bare minimum info possible.

It does have a link to the Japanese home page for the show, which was a 40 minute one-off. I got curious.

The site is painfully slow. Whether it's because lots of American fanbois joined me in hitting it since the announcement, or just because the studio is low budget and doesn't have much of a web server pipe, I couldn't say. But the main three girls are drawn cute, and the few frame grabs they included from the animation seem at least somewhat higher quality than was common in the few ecchi titles I've bought.

Unfortunately, if the frame grabs are to be believed, there's rape and roping and ball gags. Pity.

NOT SAFE FOR WORK below the fold

First are some publicity posters:

The show is yet another take on "Journey to the West", I gather. The brown-haired one in the foreground is this show's version of Son Goku; and you can see that she's got the magic pole-arm. Her hair is brown, and there was a picture of a monkey with that same color fur, and I don't know if it's also her. Her name is Mayuko.

Yay! Maid costumes!
Yay! Boobs!

Yay! Maid costumes, boobs, and akanbe! (Three of my four favorite things. The fourth? Panties, of course!)

Here are three of the frame grabs they posted:

Why can't the Japanese make porn that doesn't involve rape? Sheesh.

Sex sells, and if this is the only way ADV thinks they can stay in business, I can't begrudge them the attempt. And it looks as if they got one that doesn't have rock-bottom animation. If it really does come out, I'll buy it. But it'll probably be just like all the other few hentai titles I've bought: I'll watch a few minutes of it, scan through the whole thing, and then put it on the shelf and never look at it again.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in General Anime at 01:01 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
Post contains 362 words, total size 3 kb.

1 And they were doing so well up until that last shot.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at January 31, 2009 08:16 PM (PiXy!)

2 That's how I felt about it, too.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at January 31, 2009 08:35 PM (+rSRq)

3 I never have figured out why there is so much rape stuff in the smut anime.  There is nowhere near as much...by a longshot...in the manga.
Go figure.

Posted by: Toren at January 31, 2009 09:38 PM (u+3B2)

4

There do exist H titles that don't contain rape or anything else like that, but damn, you really have to hunt to find them.

There was one I bought for which I had high hopes, because it was about a pair of newlyweds who were having trouble getting spice into their lives, and its claim to fame was that everything in it was consensual. It was a two-parter, and I bought the first part when it came out -- and found it just as boring as all the other H DVDs I've gotten. Oh, well.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at January 31, 2009 10:36 PM (+rSRq)

5 Pretty much the same for me. Hentai got boring real quick. Mediocre at best art, not much characterization, and etc. I guess if you are good at writing and art you don't need to bother with the nipple clamps. I've found that I prefer variety on the chest. If all the girls have the same size development it's kind of boring for some reason.

Posted by: toadold at February 01, 2009 05:26 AM (zcbXo)

6 Japanese porn in general seems excessively fetish-oriented, with a significant percentage of it involving women who aren't enjoying the activities. Even when there are no ropes or rapes, the sex is for him (singular or plural), and if she enjoys it, well, that's a bonus for the slut. This is a complete turn-off for me.

I have seen manga that actually include mutually satisfying sexual relationships between equals (Miko Moe, for instance, where the most lopsided action is a senpai giving eagerly-awaited lessons), but the people making anime and live-action DVDs seem to have abandoned that market in their effort to cater to the jaded fans. A friend who lived in Japan for several years in the 90s said that all the porn videos she and her husband found to rent were tame romantic stuff, and was surprised to hear how much it's changed.

-j

Posted by: J Greely at February 01, 2009 08:34 AM (2XtN5)

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