Midara, 2nd ed.

By Yumisuke Kotoyoshi
Released in the US by Icarus Publishing


Slugline: All of these poor women are going to have back problems, or will need industrial bras once the sagging starts...

First off, this is PORN. For the people who got to this review via keyword search, there is no actual porn in this review, so you may leave. There are links below to buy the title, but please respect the 18+ barriers. This also means I am reviewing it as porn title which has different standards.

There are two multi-part stories in this volume whose protagonists are featured on the cover. Megumi is a Lara Croft wannabe who travels the world exploring ruins. However, the creatures and the other nasties in said ruins just can't leave her alone. In the other, Saeko is a cop who often ends up the prisoner of the exploitative criminals that she is trying to capture and has to be rescued by her partner, the smart yet cute one of their two women team. The rest of the volume is filled up with one-off stories.

The women here are not completely helpless, which is a step up from most hentai. The women manage to be exploited and the exploiter at the same time for the two main story arcs, which I am sure says something very ironic in feminist theory. The story that I enjoyed the most was one of the one shots that finished out the volume, Sleep Talking, in which two old friends end up being a couple, or do they? The women here are used for their bodies but they ultimately turn the tables on the men by use of their brains, and the women substitutes who literally lack their own mind (such as robots) are unable to turn the tables. So I guess that is an interesting subtext, so on its own terms it mostly succeeds. But I still had to deduct points for the tentacle scene...



Midara, 2nd ed. is also available from Right Stuf, Intl., an online retailer specializing in anime and manga.

-Ferdinand

Swing Out Sisters

Presented by Taro Shinonome
Published in the US by Icarus Publishing


Slugline: I have never been so happy to have been an only child.

This, like all of Icarus’s other works, is PORN. I will not be giving details here, but the links below to buy said work have 18+ blockers on them, so respect that. Click here for a list of our other Icarus reviews.

Yuuta has a problem. He lives with his sisters, Chiyoko the oldest sister takes care of him and his other sister, Chinatsu. Chiyoko is older and is more, umm mature, whereas Chinatsu is younger and more bossy. Yuuta, on the other hand, is a complete mush, and falls into a sexual relationship. Chinatsu upon learning this demands her own relationship with Yuuta, and when Chiyoko find out, well, this is a porn book, what do you think happens? There is also a backup story of a pirate brother and sister who are brought together by a water spirit through an interesting use of futanari (if you don't know what that is, and want to know, well, click here, but don't say we didn't warn you.)

Oh, incest. What would hentai be without it? I am lucky that I am only child, because this immediately pushes this out to fantasy land for me without any effort. My major thing with porn is that there at least be an illusion of consent, and it is here. My problem was that it took me a while to tell the sisters apart (the difference between them being brown and black hair? Not very helpful in a black and white book.) in the scenes where one sister’s, umm, superior assets where not visible. The first story seems out of sequence from the others, so it was more difficult to piece together the plotline, what little there was, than it had to be. The pages seemed a little bit too busy with sound FX, but other than that, this was a fairly good read for a porn manga.

Swing Out Sisters is available from Right Stuf, Intl., an online retailer specializing in anime and manga.

-Ferdinand

Flashbang!

By Yoshitatsu Kiichigono
Released in the U.S. by Icarus Publishing



Slugline: Remember that dream you had about going to school naked? It just got worse!

Like all Icarus titles, this is PORN.

PORN!

So for the remainder of the people who are still reading this, or who haven't figured out how to set up the parental controls, I try to review porn books on their own merits. That is: how well they deliver the porn, not in how well the story flows, or the art, or, well, the usual criteria (though if it does manage it, I am more likely to give it a better rating). I do have a problem with non-consensual stories, and I realize that yes, it is fiction, but I am just not wired to find that sort of stuff appealing.

This came close, because this entire volume was about humiliation and exhibitionism, with many of the forms of humiliation being because of exhibitionism. Fortunately, force wasn't really used here (other than one or two stories) so I wasn't working against an ick factor here. There isn't a central story either, just vignettes where people are forced to publicly strip, have sex, and the other aspects of humiliation/exhibitionism sex. Most of the other usual tropes of hentai are there, but muted to focus on the exhibitionist fetish which seems to the point of this volume (for instance, there is just ONE cross dressing guy.)

The art sometimes verges on the cute side, so sometimes it is hard to take the stuff going on very seriously. Since the characters don't seem to be taking themselves all that seriously, it gives you the emotional distance necessary for these characters to remain just pictures on a page, so that even the humiliation has a distance to it. But the volume is all about the exhibitionism fetish, so if that is not your cup of tea -- since quite frankly I can't think of anything that couldn't be interpreted as a clever double entendre -- your appreciation of the volume will be probably be directly proportional to your appreciation of exhibitionism.

Flash Bang! is available from Right Stuf, Intl., an online retailer specializing in anime and manga.

- Ferdinand

Council of Carnality Unlimited

By Yanagi Yuki
Published in the U.S. by Icarus Comics



Slugline: Look, it's a porn manga where the characters like each other! How bizarre!

Council of Carnality Unlimited is an odd bird among porn manga. The people who have the sex for the most part actually like each other. Heck, one couple even uses the l-o-v-e word and admits the sex afterwards is they best they ever had. Obviously this was created some sick deviant. There is an attempt at a plot, more like a series of relationships between the characters in the book, so that the whole book shares the same cast. Even the bits of non-consensual/bondage acts are light in comparison to other titles, and characters involved are emotionally distraught at the time and apologize afterwards. Like I said, in comparison to other titles, this is a font of neo-Puritan morals.

Now, so you don't think I have gone all mushy, this is still a porn title, so believable plots, well-drawn characters and women who are not contortionists are notably absent. But aside from that, this is a title that doesn't make me want to scrub my brain afterwards. You have to take your victories (and three star ratings) where you can, in porn.

Council of Carnality Unlimited is available from Right Stuf, Intl., an online retailer specializing in anime and manga.

- Ferdinand

Anyway I Want It…

By Kei Matsuzawa
Published in the U.S. by Icarus Publishing



Slugline: For boys and girls who like to boss each other around

Like everything else Icarus releases, this is porn. Not romance, not fluffy hearts and flowers and shamrocks, but porn. So don’t come back complaining to me if after reading this you realize that the characters' emotional arcs don’t ring true.

This is a collection of non-connected shorts that range the gamut from incest to student/teacher relationships, and even a few about school couples who are in their relationships willingly. There is an aspect in the stories of pushing the other into the sex act, but cases of blackmail and true unwillingness are thankfully few in this volume. (That is one of my pet peeves about erotic/porn manga: very little of it seems to fall into the consensual realm, and while this is just fiction, I ask for at least a vague semblance of reality.) "Flower Girl", "Awkward Feelings" and "Six Years" were the best stories in it, especially in the first two which had some attempt at characters, women who went after what they wanted, and a sense of humor about the situation.

The art is exaggerated in all the standard ways that one will find in this sort of manga: all the women are contortionists and double jointed, apparently, but the art is competent and there is a nice touch that the men’s faces are detailed and shown, rather than in shadow or made ambiguous, so it actually feels like a story rather than leaving the guys blank slates for the readers to project themselves into.

Any Way I Want It is available from Right Stuf, Intl., an online retailer specializing in anime and manga.

-Ferdinand