Reviews by Fernando Leonel Alba

The ecchi genre exists since the beginning of full-length anime series with its first show coming out back in 1963 and that fact alone seems to be enough for its fans to justify everything about it. Overused to death clichés, terrible pacing, no characterization whatsoever and constant cocktease? It doesn’t matter, that’s what the genre was always about and you CAN’T judge it for that. Lots of derivative and repetitive shows coming out at the same time? It was always like that so SHUT UP.

Well no, it wasn’t and here are four points to prove that:

1-The amount of ecchi shows coming out weren’t as much as they started to make since the early 00’s. If you look at the ecchi list on the site called My Anime List and display them for its started date, you will see shows from the 60’s and 90’s on the last page, which means they weren’t as much as today. Granted, there are ecchi shows from those decades not tagged as such, but even if you include those, the amount just isn’t nowhere near as much as today.

2-The focus of early ecchi were about slapstick comedies full of red humor while ecchi shows today are way too close to being porn that you just end up asking yourself why don’t they just make porn with those budgets? Well because they couldn’t show it on tv and then sell the Blu-rays versions without the censorship, that’s why.

3- The characters weren’t just walking fetishes that only want to jump on some beta male’s dick in early ecchi. Compare Honey Kisaragi or the female characters from Rumiko Takahashi’s stories with the characters from High School DxD or Sekirei and you’ll clearly notice the difference between them.

4- No, I’m not saying that there weren’t SOME shows like the ones that come out today back in the day, but even those should be judged with another mindset for two reasons: One: they were the first ones doing that so the concept was somewhat new and refreshing and; Two: they never aimed at being more than silly comedies, unlike ecchi from today that are about epic wars between mystical creatures, deities or inhuman species or, even worse, high school students, as if they are fighting shonen buried under done to death jokes and sleazy moments. What? That there were war dramas in space that showed some boobs already on the 80’s you say? Yes but never that much and never in the middle of serious moments expecting you to take them seriously like High School DxD. What? There were also shounen like A-Ko that were all about fighting and nudity you say? Yes, but they weren’t trying to be anything more than that, and, again, they were the first ones.

Well that was a long introduction and I didn’t even started to talk about the title I’m reviewing but it was all to make a point, which is 1+2= Paradise being one of those ecchi shows that I talk about in the aforementioned point #4. Is a retarded story about a beta male that out of nowhere has to live with two retarded big-boobed twins that the only thing they do is trying to seduce him and nothing more. And even this show does it better because the male main character (mc from here onwards) has an excuse to be afraid of women (an unbelievable, retarded and fucked up one, that is) and the girls don’t really just appear out of nowhere in his life because it is revealed that it was his father’s intention from the beginning and the girls knew him since they were children. Yup, that’s it; it went for the overused childhood friends cliché but, again, it was one of the firsts doing it.

The same thing can be said about its comical situations, they are the same overused jokes of today but for its time they were somewhat refreshing and I also have to point out how these jokes are used in a different manner, more extreme and over the top, but without feeling as if they belonged in a porn movie, they aren’t just guy walks in the bathroom and see girl naked, she then screams and slaps him, no; here the girl purposely goes to the bathroom with the guy, gets undressed and tries to seduce him, and they end being tied up together and almost get drowned in the most ridiculous way while the mc tries to fight against his trauma in order to save their lives.

So, if I excused all the bullshit in this show regarding its premise, humor and characters (at least for the mc) why do I give it a low rating? Because, believe or not, it betrays its premise and lacks continuity. In the second ova the protagonist stands the twins and they go to school together, not afraid of women all of sudden? Well no, he is still afraid of women. In the second ova a super popular school girl appears and wants every male to submit to her, mc included, something that Ranma ½ and Magic Kaito were doing before in manga format. He obviously rejects her due to his phobia but he’s ok with the twins for some reason and no, it is not any form of development because the change is too sudden and not even consistent and permanent since he still does not like being surrounded by the twins despite being already capable of live and go to school with them. Decide how you want to portray your mc already! Also, this turned into a generic school comedy now? Not even the art style looks remotely the same as the one from the first ova, it makes it feel like a completely different thing. Oh, and it lacks an ending, obviously.

So yeah, despite being a much better erocomedy than most of the bullshit pretentious soft-porn of today it’s still a generic ecchi that betrays its premise, doesn’t have much of a story and yet changes completely without having a proper conclusion with shitty characters. Oh, and since it came out during the economic crisis that Japan was going through in 1990, it looks terrible. Sound department ranges from passable to awful as well.

1001 Nights is a movie that came out in 1999 and should not be confused with the first hentai film ever that came out thirty years before it. It is loosely based on the famous collection composed of different tales of the same name.

It is necessary to clarify that this movie is essentially a musical film in the likes of Disney’s Fantasia, so its main focus is to present great visuals and music instead of a good story. In fact this movie was thought as an interpretation of an orchestration and nothing more so the visuals and music flows together spectacularly. Speaking of those elements, they consists of classical music and a mix between 2-D and 3-D art, more specifically, colored pencil drawings and early CGI; they somehow managed to make it right, it looks gorgeous.

As for the story…well, it barely has one (if even). If you’ve read the original tales you can find references to some of them thrown in it but if you haven’t all you will see is erotic sequences with a most trippy art style that equals(or even tops) the sex scene from Mind Game. You could think of it as a couple dealing with the internal demons of their relationship…or just them wanted to make love but all of a sudden are being chased by an angry demon in a really intense adventure.

Anyway, this movie is a great example of art in its pure form both visually and musically and one of the most unique pieces in anime and that alone makes it worth watching despite not having much of a plot, or any.

2/7/23 update: After watching the likes of Pale Cocoon, Angel's Egg, Cat Soup, Junk Head and Mad God, I decided to stop giving a pass to movies like these that are just visuals, sound, and a setting, if your movie has nothing to say, its plot is very loose, and there are no characters in it, then it doesn't get a base score from me. Bye