Suika

I highly doubt I will ever have the pleasure of watching a hentai as excellent as Suika ever again. Suika consists of three short, dramatic, variably supernatural, and somewhat melancholy stories with small amounts of sex. In terms of quality, these stories are a cut above pretty much everything else I've seen in hentai, and the sex is not too shabby either. The sex is not terribly explicit, but it is definitely well-drawn and had a decent budget put into it. Were it not for these sex scenes, it could probably pass for a collection of short, non-explicit OVAs, and it wouldbe fairly well-respected, at least for 25-minute shorts. As it stands, Suika probably won't garner the respect it deserves, since it is neither the most erotic of hentai, nor the anime with the greatest narrative elegance. It is, however, probably the HENTAI with the greatest narrative elegance, and I have to give credit where credit is due. Anyways, let's break it down: Story (9/10): Suika consists of three short, melancholy stories with a touch of the supernatural. These tend to be varying amounts of low-key and dramatic, and are the main portion of each episode, i.e. Suika is NOT primarily about sex. It's mainly about young lovers getting through harrowing situations, usually by getting together. In my opinion, episode 2 is the best, followed by episode 1, and then episode 3 (I like to call it the lolicon episode, and that doesn't float my boat spectacularly well, if you know what I mean: sexual innuendo totally intended). Episode 3 also seemed very rushed, probably because building a romance from scratch is nigh-impossible to do in one episode. Anyways, if you pay decent attention, you can see how all three episodes tie together. Suika is surprisingly gripping. Also, it can be surprisingly depressing. Or hopeful. Anyways, this diversity of emotion is a sign of good storytelling, I think. Art (8/10): The art is great, albeit rather generic in overall style (if it ain't broke, don't fix it, perhaps). While the animation itself is not as stunningly fluid as some recent productions, it gets by, and the sex itself is solidly animated, with a minimum of looping. Speaking of sex, it is very, very vanilla: no kinks, which can be good, bad, or neutral, depending on personal tastes. Vanilla is fine with me. The overall artwork is sharp; the colors are bright; and the background scenery is pretty detailed and colorful. Character designs are modest (which I personally like), and all the main players look good (both male and female). Also, there are no outrageous hair colors to be found (if you don't count albino as outrageous), so if you don't like living in a pink bishoujo ghetto, this is one of your best stops on the railroad to sexville. Sound (9/10): The background music of Suika is generally very pleasant, light-classical pieces, mainly solo piano. This kind of BGM really successfully enhances the mood. I have little to say about the voice acting, other than that it's the typical, solid, Japanese performance according to my native-English ears. The sound effects are typical but understated, like most of Suika. It fits well with the content, especially since the sex is rather (refreshingly?) vanilla. Oh, one thing, though: DEAR GOD THE CICADAS! Character (9/10): Suika, unlike many hentai, actually has these. There is no one you want to punch out, except those who get punched out (you'll see what I mean, especially the literal interpretation in episode 2). The male protagonists have actual hints of personality and lives beyond being glorified sex toys, and the women are pretty lively, and in some cases surprisingly lovable. All the characters have pretty understandable motivations, which makes the story flow much more smoothly than is often the case in hentai, even flowing nicely into sex scenes for the most part (the exception pretty much being episode 3). OVERALL (9/10): This is the closest I've seen to a masterpiece so far (I've seen about 70 hentai in all at this point), so I do say I enjoyed Suika rather much. Were it not for the fact that episode 3 fell a bit short (I find lolicon to be a bit on the creepy side when played this straight), I would call this a hentai masterpiece. I was pretty much hooked from beginning to end. The storytelling was fantastic and the sex was nice; what more can I ask for in a hentai? It does help, however, that I like this sort of innocent, softcore-ish fare as much as I like hardcore hentai titles, but for different reasons. If you're looking primarily for awesome sex scenes, this is not the place to look. I'd go check out After Class Lesson, Body Transfer, Stringendo, or anything by PoRO (I recommend Lucky Draw Triangle, as it is the least RAGE-inducing of their works that I've seen).