When I watched Inyouchuu 2, I felt bad for reingiolt but proud of Shin Ringetsu -- for totally blowing Inyouchuu 2 out of the water (in my book) and firmly retaining the title I boldly lent it one month ago of "Best H-Anime of 2008" (or Best of the Year, BOTY).
Inyouchuu 2 didn't do anything wrong, per se. There was nothing too grotesque about it. Nothing insulting. It wasn't boring. It wasn't ugly. Instead, Inyouchuu 2's failure, its sin, is not doing enough right.
Inyouchuu 2 didn't do anything wrong, per se. There was nothing too grotesque about it. Nothing insulting. It wasn't boring. It wasn't ugly. Instead, Inyouchuu 2's failure, its sin, is not doing enough right.
- for the infamous Inyouchuu series, this anime was waaaaaaaaaaaay too vanilla! There were almost no tentacles -- even the hypnotic seduction was more frequent than the tentacles themselves! Much of the focus on the tentacles (in every scene where they appeared) was on anal penetration. Something which most of us take as a given when it comes to tentacles, something which could only be expected to titillate a hentai newb whose most hardcore previous experience has been checking out drawings of half-undressed women.
- But I was disappointed (as a fan of the genre) even by Inyouchuu 2's lacklustre use of seduction, of breaking a girl's mind and converting her from an unwilling sex partner (i.e. a r*** victim) to a horny slut who begs for more. Fans were left to fill in a lot of the blanks, left to over-analyze subtle clues in the characters' dialogue or in their faces. Moments which only lasted for one second or for only half a second. The true promise of seduction was not really introduced until the very final moments of the episode (i.e. the last 2 or 3 minutes). Disappointing to say the least.
- While the animation was not bad, it was not great either. :\ For me, much of the fun in watching Inyouchuu 2 came from the camera's attention to the main girl's breasts. They were really well-drawn and were really very sexy. But the camera did little to excite me either downstairs (vaginally) or upstairs (orally). Whenever it focused on people's faces, it was not particularly erotic. Which is a shame -- because in a psychological corruption anime like Inyouchuu, it is the girls' faces which should provide the viewer with the most arousal. The look of despondency in their eyes transformed to wanting, to pleasure. The transformation of their gritted teeth to drooling, moaning, open-mouthed smiles. The change in their voice from gruff resentment and reticence to soft, feminine giggles and purrs. Inyouchuu 2 should have delivered all of this and it didn't. (For a good example of an anime which did, see the Ikusa Otome Valkyrie remake.)
- The plot, I said before, was interesting ... but frankly it wasn't all that great, either. It was decent. Simply decent. Didn't hold a candle to the plot of Shin Ringetsu. I hate to say it, but even the plot of lesser animes like Space Pirate Sara were more intriguing than Inyouchuu 2's. You've got a guy and a girl trapped in the boy's nightmare world. There, a "nightmare" version of the boy r***s the girl and gets the boy to introduce another girl to the nightmare world. The boy and first girl had formed a plan to sacrifice the girl so that the boy could escape or possibly destroy his Nightmare, but in the end he is betrayed by her and is destroyed by his nighmare himself, the girl explaining that she can't let him end the nightmare because the nightmare brings her so much pleasure. Kinda cool, yes.
But not really exciting or epic. :\ - I should have mentioned this in the first bullet, but another (vanilla) problem with this anime was the lack of love for other fetishes. Most of the focus was on three fetishes: anal, tentacles, and seduction / psychological corruption. I enjoy all three of those, but unfortunately all three were scant. We've already discussed this. Now what I'd like to discuss is the regrettable fact that the anime had pretty much NOTHING ELSE. No pregnancy. No lactation. No egg-laying. No breast expansion. No body swap. No gender change. (I'm not complaining about these next two ;p , but) no futanari and no loli. It was a pretty bland showing. I mean, that doesn't have to make it bad! I'm sure a lot of hentai newbs will absolutely love Inyouchuu 2 precisely because it is kinky enough (tentacles, anal, seduction) without grossing them out or being too kinky (as was Bible Black, one of the very first hentai animes I ever saw). But the point is, this is not what Inyouchuu fans expected. Inyouchuu fans are the hardcore tentacle r*** fetishists. This anime was meant for them, and I feel it let them down. :\