Anime Vice Anime/Manga News

It's 9-9-9 day, and while for many that means either the release date for the film 9 or perhaps a day to celebrate Galaxy Express 999, for some reason here at Vice headquarters it's become a day to be nostalgic about the '90s. I blame the resulting article on two factors: one, John and I were just watching the 1994 animated film Darkside Blues (based on the Hideyuki Kikuchi manga), and because I almost (but didn't quite!) get to show the '99 hentai Words Worth at my hentai panel at KumoriCon.

What follows are nine of the greatest hentai titles of the 1990s-- and in a couple of cases, some of the greatest hentai ever. These are in alphabetical order, not order of awesomest to least-awesome. So sit back, pull out a pack of tissues, and enjoy. (Just kidding-- none of the videos or pictures are outright pornographic, although the headline should be enough to caution anyone at work!)

1+2 = Paradise (1990)
You may not be familiar with this title, based on Junko Kamimura's manga of the same name and animated in 1990. The story revolves around a young man, one Yuusuke Yamamoto, who falls for two different girls. But the more interesting piece of info on this series is its cast: Kappei Yamaguchi, better known as male Ranma and InuYasha himself, plays the lead, while Chieko Honda-- better known as Utena's Kozue Kaoru --plays the heroine, Rika Nakamura. Yamaguchi was actually still playing Ranma while working on this show, if that tells you anything about how much seiyuu get paid.

Countdown Sex Bombs (Unknown '90s)
A lot of people are familiar with the Countdown Sex Bombs manga, which was published by Eros Comix in the US in 1997-- but it looks to me like very few people are familiar with the OVA based on the manga, since I can't find any info about it online. I know that the OVA exists, though, because when I was a teenager with a credit card, I bought the VHS tape myself. (I think I might still have it hidden away in a box in the dark depths of my closet...) Like the manga, the two OVA episodes feature unconnected stories. I don't remember what the second one offers, but the first episode is also the first story of the manga: a gold-digging widow meets a dick girl on a train and they have sex, then they go back to the widow's home and have sex with her stepson. That's oversimplified, but there are some really great stories in CSB.

Dragon Pink (1994)
Based on classic Dungeons & Dragons-style role-playing games, Dragon Pink revolve around Pink, a catgirl slave who gets bought by a lecherous 'hero' whose name is Santa (no, he isn't fat, and he doesn't wear red, nor is he giving anyone any presents). They go on various sidequests, some of which involve cursed panties, Pink being used as bait, and frequent sexcapades. It's a rollicking good time, and notable for having an actual plot to go with all the sex scenes and jokes...albeit not a super-imaginative one.
 
 

F³: Frantic, Frustrated & Female (1994)
This is quite the classic: Hiroe is a high school girl who starts getting it on with her boyfriend and discovers, to her consternation, that she can't reach climax-- and begins exploring at home with toys to try and make it happen. Her sister-- err, sorry, not her sister, but the slightly older woman that she lives with who she's in no way related to --Mayaka discovers her attempts at self-love and offers to help, from physical assistance to hypnotism and more. Eventually the girls' mother...err...landlady gets in on the act, as well as Hiroe's classmates, until they all converge into a giant orgy. Then things get weird. I won't go into further detail, but this hentai is a must for anyone who doesn't want any of those dirty rotten men to get in the way of their smut.

Golden Boy (1995)
While not a hentai in the most classic sense, Golden Boy does feature plenty of nudity and orgasms, so how can we pass this classic up? The sex adventure comedy features a young man named Kintaro who, in each episode, stumbles upon an attractive woman and wants to bang her-- and to actually help her out however she needs it. Sometimes she starts out hating him, sometimes she actively seeks him out, but she always falls for Kintaro in the end. You can kind of imagine Golden Boy as what it would be like if Urusei Yatsura's Ataru Moriboshi lived in his perfect world.

La Blue Girl (1992)
For many, La Blue Girl was their first taste of hentai and/or tentacle porn. An unusually complex story, LBG features a clan of ninjas that keep our world safe from shikima, a race of particularly perverse demons who want to come around and bang all our womens (and maybe some of our men, too). Enter Miko Mido, a member of the aforementioned clan, who uses "injutsu" (or sexcraft ninja techniques) to fight off the shikima. Also enter: a lot of tentacles! The show is also famous because the British Board of Film Classification refused to give La Blue Girl the license it needed to be sold on video in the UK. And now, a very special La Blue Girl clip. (Don't say I didn't warn you...though it's still not pornographic!)
 

The Rapeman (1994)
This hentai holds a very special place in my heart-- though to most people, the basic premise of the plot is pretty offensive. The idea is that the main character is a gym teacher by day, and a "superhero" by night called The Rapeman. The Rapeman's special power is the ability to turn women who are truly awful people into nicer ones...by raping them. Pretty awful, huh? But the trick here is that people take the plot seriously; the original Japanese manga was actually created by a woman (Keiko Aisaki) and intended to be a dark comedy, doubtless commentary on the mindset that a bitchy woman just needs a good banging. For all that, it's also pretty funny-- as long as you're willing to take it as a joke instead of at face value.

Urotsukidoji: Legend of the Overfiend (1987-1995)
Along similar fetish lines as La Blue Girl, Urotsukidouji-- by Toshio Maeda --features a lot of non-human sex, primarily through Tatsuo Nagumo, the human who will become the Demon of Destruction and give birth to offspring that destroy humans...or something like that. It's actually a remarkably long and complicated plot, also like La Blue Girl-- but longer. The manga is six volumes, and the OVA wound up being 16 (over a period of eight years). This was, along with LBG again, one of the earlier hentai titles to really have an impact in the US, at least according to my understanding.
 
 

Words Worth (1999)
This popular hentai anime is based on an ero-RPG and revolves around a young swordsman named Astral, who is (unsurprisingly) surrounded by hot women. One of the main ones is Nina, a catgirl who has a crush on Astral and is probably the most popular in the series, although the real heroine is the formidable officer Sharon. Words Worth is also famous in part for being banned in Canada (they're considered "obscene").
 
 
 
So I hope you enjoyed this little stroll down porno-memory lane!