Synopsis

Musashi returns to his home after many years away to visit his grandmother, only to find that he has some old friends there as well. However, for some reason he can't remember these 4 girls...but they remember him, as he soon discovers.

Fields	USA Info	Japanese Info	Image
Title	Koihime		K-O-I-H-I-M-E Volumes 1 & 2 Box Set From Amazon.com
Alternative	恋姫
Dates	2001	September 22, 2000 - November 24, 2000
Company	Nutech Digital	KSS, Pink Pineapple
Creator	elf
Director	Shin-ichi Masaki
Genre	Romantic Hentai Fantasy
Related	The Elven Bride, End of Summer

Originally published on "Where No Anime Goes Unpunished."

This anime is actually based on a hentai dating sim by Elf. Not scared off yet? Good. I'd hate for you to miss this one.

Yes, hentai games are often pretty shoddy at best. Most of the time all they really are is a question and answer routine that directs one to the digital girl they want to fuck, quite often brutally and with pictures that the squeamish at heart really shouldn't look at. In fact, I direct you to Something Awful's Hentai Game Reviews whereby you can get your fill of just how bad these games can really get. Mind you, watching Lowtax's suffering is a pleasure all on its own, mostly because of the eloquent way he writes out the depth of his suffering...but you'll see if you decide to go.

Honestly, the Koihime game I couldn't tell you too much about, and neither could Lowtax, as he hasn't reviewed it yet. I'm not here to talk about the game, however.

I'm here to talk about the anime.

This is probably the best hentai title I've ever seen. Hell, this one ranks up there with one of the best animes I've seen, though it has a couple of major drawbacks which reduce its score, but I'll talk about those in a bit.

Let's start with the voice work. I'm not too sure who did Anzu and Mayuki's voice acting, though they did a fantastic job, both as voice actors and during the sex scenes, but NuTech has added a new feature to the voice acting for their hentai titles. They went and got some professionals, in this case, they got Kobe Tai (who does the voice of Nami) and Houston (who does the voice of Suzaku).

Houston...I've got mixed feelings about her voice acting. She's a precise voice match for Shayla Shayla on El Hazard. If ever there was a need for Shayla to have a sex scene in any future iterations of El Hazard, this is their girl. Her biggest problem though, is that she needs to emote a bit more. She didn't even fake her sex scene as well as the other two girls who weren't professional porn actresses (mind you, later I'll probably find out that they were, in fact, porn actresses, just not famous ones). I hate to say it, I got more out of Sherry Lynn's portrayal of the Devil in "Sins of the Flesh" when she was using Sasami's voice (as I huddle under my desk shuddering, "I was once a man...yessssss..." but that's another review altogether) in her sex scenes than I did with Houston's VA work in this anime. She's the weak link here, but it's not so bad that it proves to be annoying. In fact, I think, with a bit of work, she could be a damn fine VA...definitely something to look at if she were to perform Shayla should the current VA not be up to it.

Kobe Tai though...damn, I'd give this girl a job in the industry were I in a position to do so. Her voice work is soft, caring, and gentle, much like the character she was picked to play, and she puts quite a bit of heart into the character. Nami is a Kasumi-like character who has a hidden passion in her that is a wonderful thing to behold when Kobe gets into those scenes. Kobe Tai does such an admirable job in both the regular acting and the sex scenes, I'd say she completely blasts many of the VAs that work in the current anime industry out of the water.

Anzu's character was the archetypical cheerful spunky girl that oddly gets pretty violent when things don't go exactly how she figured they would. She's not selfish by any stretch of the imagination, but she tends to express her displeasure with her 'big brother' Musashi when he doesn't remember her by racking him pretty damn hard...both times. The Voice Actress picked for Anzu does a great job with this sort of character and is insanely good at keeping this sort of personality when Anzu goes to get Musashi to do with her what he did with Nami.

Mayuki...you don't see too much of her to be honest. She's soft spoken and one would think she'd be quite shy. I must admit, the VA did some good work with her as well. It was interesting to see such a character express desire and even delight in it when such desire was being fulfilled. Oddly it was also this character that convinced the others to let Musashi go at the end of the first Koihime, but that's getting a bit ahead of myself.

Musashi's VA sounds like the US version of Kintaro Oe from "Golden Boy." I wouldn't be at all surprised if it was his VA. Those of you familiar with the US version are no doubt aware that Kintaro's American VA surpasses the already excellent Japanese one in every single conceivable way, making it nearly unique among dubs. If it is him, he carries over the acting excellence to this anime. If it's not, this man is certainly damn good at what he does.

The extra voices are fairly well done, but nothing to write home about. About the only thing I would have a complaint about is they didn't need to have the Water Dragon King so overmodulated that you could barely tell what he was saying...Unicron he was not.

Unfortunately, Koihime 2 is fansub only at the time of writing this, so as far as VA work goes, it's fairly decent and doesn't sound forced, but then the Japanese don't seem to have the same problems finding good VAs for hentai work that we do over here.

The music is...surreal. It's a traditional Japanese mix which flows into the nearly dreamlike way this anime is presented quite well. I wouldn't mind a soundtrack of it, but I've found that finding hentai soundtracks is like asking Hasbro and Takara to treat the Transformers with some respect. I doubt it could ever be done, but hope persists. On that note, if anyone can find for me the "Futari Ecchi" soundtrack I would be most appreciative.

The animation is top notch. Which is...odd to say the least for a hentai anime. I'd give it about OVA quality, perhaps a bit lower at some points, but still quite nice. The sex scenes are completely uncensored, so you appreciate the artistry inherent in them as well...or simply get your rocks off if that's your thing.

And now for the story.

If you're looking for forced rape, tentacle fiends, and every evil harsh act of sex known to man, go watch La Blue Girl. You won't find it here.

What you will find are nifty and vibrant characters who are alive and feel for each other in a story that can get into the "Legend" type of telling. It's about a human boy, who, through his young life, lived in a land where the faeries (or demons as, in my not so humble opinion, they mistranslate) are real and live apart from the world of men. His childhood friends were four girls...the four princesses of the four tribes of faeries that lived in this place who grew to love him dearly. As he grew older, the leaders of these tribes sent him away...only to have their daughters slowly...cautiously, bring him back to them. Make no mistake they knew EXACTLY what they were doing and what they wanted to do with him when they brought him back. They also knew of the limited amount of time they'd have...as much as they knew they were going to fight to keep him there. Heh, their parents were a little vehement in their denial of this man...however, they didn't count on the shear POWER of one of their daughters...though in the end even she decided to let him go at the end of the first series.

I always thought him walking away wondering what happened to him back home was a kind of gross injustice. The kind that happens all the time...quite tragic. I joked with the Platinum Dragon, that I wrote the first one, but he wrote the second one.

Because in the second one, I guess they thought there were things left undone...and that it was indeed an injustice that was done to both him and the girls.

Heh, the girls watched him often it was shown, but it was Suzaku who tried brining him back to them if I understood the translation correctly...which is funny as she's the shrine not-so-maiden tough girl who tended to beat on him a lot; turns out she was the one who missed him the most.

Problem is that an exiled faery tribe of Kitsune were going to use this boy to either harm or return from exile (the translation wasn't too clear on that one) and sort of intercepted him on his way back home.

Musashi escapes from this dream world the Kitsune fashion for him with a handy assist from Mayuki and Anzu; who then proceeds to challenge each of the rulers of the faerie tribes so that he might win the right to stay with the girls and keep this sort of thing from happening again.

This leads into some severe beatings on his part, showing that there's something a bit different about the boy, as most humans would be deader than a doornail after getting the punishment he got. In one instance this also leads into what is by far the funniest goddamn 3-way I've ever seen in anime.

And as for their wedding...I would like to feel sorry for Musashi. I'd like to...but I DON'T! BWHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!

All in all a happy fuzzy warm ending to this story vice the first's tragic ending.

There are a number of points I think could have used some looking at. First off, the first series had 2 girls per ep. Honestly, we needed 1 ep per girl...enough to get to know her even further. This was obviously a budgetary constraint. It's too bad too, ‘cause they did a pretty good job with what they did have...imagine if they'd had further time? This problem is inherent in the second series as well. Not so much for the girls, but they could have really fleshed out the Kitsune problem a whole helluva lot more than they did so I wasn't left scratching my head at several points. Again, this was definately a budgetary constraint, and it really shows. It's too bad too, ‘cause I think they could have done a great job with this anime...instead of just a good one. Last I think whoever added the little lines of things like, "My hips...they're moving on their own!" during the lovemaking scenes needs to be shot with rock salt 'til they die. That sort of thing is cheesy in regular pornography, and is even more stupid in these scenes with obviously virginal girls who, while not exactly human, should be beyond words with the way they began enjoying themselves later on in the course of it.

Still, these are problems that can be ignored as the strengths of this anime are so damn overwhelming in many ways as to drown its obvious weaknesses.

If you're not into the hentai aspects of this series, I'd say you were missing out, but you can certainly fast forward through them and you'd not miss much of the rather amazing story that you'll be watching.

Let's just hope that NuTech has the artistic integrity to get all their original VAs if they ever get part 2 out here, because they had a kick ass crew this time around.

By the way, if anyone knows the full cast list, don't hesitate to email us or post it on the message board.