Helter Skelter: Hakudaku no Mura

Helter Skelter Hakudaku no Mura is a hentai based off of the visual novel of the same name written by Guilty who has done many other titles. It took them about 5 years to fully release all the episodes, which could mean that the project would be a flop(i.e. Duke Nuke em and Aliens Colonial Marine) but it turned out well. Right off the bat, I don’t think anyone had even heard of the game it was based on except those in the HongFire community. Likewise, I’ve never even played the VN before so I didn’t know what to expect coming into the hentai and tobe honest, I didn’t even know it was about rape, yet I thought it may have been one of the better hentai’s I’ve watched. Not many hentai’s can draw you into the plot and actually give an atmosphere of darkness and despair as well as this one can. Of course, there are some which can really make you feel sick to your stomach, but none seem to be quite as good at making this darkness into something entertaining. While it follows a conventional plot and doesn’t stray too far away from the conventional rape idea of women trying to have sex to save others from being raped themselves it goes beyond itself in a couple of ways. Let’s look at a couple of these. First we have the characters and scenario choices. While I disliked the V.A. of the mother and thought Yuki and Haruka had so-so V.A s, whoever voiced Miyu needs a bit of respect. Her scene at 8:50 with non stop sound effects was done with total immersion and I can imagine how much of a pain it was to get this right in recording. All of her parts were acted flawlessly. Of all the characters in this, Miyu made this hentai what it was.Another character is the mascot, Hakudaku(chucky), who deserves mentioning just for what he is. I don’t think any character symbolizes the despair of our heroines as well as he does. Whoever drew him deserves a raise. The choice to have volumes 3 and 4 follow a different scenario was a bold one that I thought went well. Continuations can be boring and hard to pull off so the decision to make this hentai follow a different scenario was an interesting one that was done well. Next, the sound effects also made the hentai what it is. There were certain times where the director just brought out the sex atmosphere with the squishy sound effects really making it feel like it wasn’t an anime, but real life. Which could be quite disturbing with the amount of immersion they tried to put in, but somehow they pull it off and not make it seem like a grotesque rape where women loose their mind and values to a horrible oppressing force, but something appealing to the standard hentai audience. Yuki’s rape scene at 12:00 of volume 2 had some truly great S.E.’s that made it more attractive than the animation. Well, maybe that’s a bit of a stretch, but my point stands. The animation. In some cases it’s hard to tell how good the animation really is since the video quality was only a mere 480p. Perhaps there was no 720p release or EroBeat decided they would only do a low quality release, whatever. I could still tell that some serious work had been put into making everything run smoothly and all the sex was entertaining and arousing(well the fourth volume has some exceptions). The characters were also drawn pretty well. Sometimes in hentai you can just ignore a bit of anatomy, but this one didn’t skimp on details. lastly the soundtrack… Now… there are only two song in the soundtrack that’s actually worth mentioning as something undeserving of a hentai, but they’re such a catchy tune that always reminds me of my childhood game Age of Empires 2: Age of Kings(that one song in the soundtrack). At 4:55 a song starts playing calmly but definitely signifying somethings about to go down. It seems like a simple little track, but the entrance at 6:20… the timing that they placed that instruments entrance at is amazingly appropriate. Lastly, the credits of volume 3 have a song with a similar instrument I just love. Some scenes were made great by the sound track. I’ve got a good deal of respect to whoever wrote these tracks. Some other honorable mentions would be the soundtrack cueing at 5:15 and the one after at 6:00 of the first volume when Miyu overhears the elders plans to rape her and gets caught. It’s a good dark atmospheric piece. 9:25 of volume 2 also has a good rock/jazz feel to it with piano, drum and bass that fits with the atmosphere pretty well. This could have been a 9/10 but volume 4 ruined the immersion. In basically all respects, the quality of this episode tanked. It was still good, but the plot was not up to par, the animation took shortcuts and the scenario was no longer believable. It was sometimes a bit of a drag to watch through all of this. The ending wasn’t bad though. Either way, I still recommend this hentai since it stands well above the rest. Story: 8 Art: 8 Sound: 9 Character: 7 Enjoyment: 9 Overall: 8/10