Angel Core 1 Review

Reviewed by astroknight  on  6/24/2006

The Little Details

Running Time: 27 min.

Production Date: None given

Director: None credited

Cast: Animated

The Short Story

Initial Expectations: I know nothing about this one, but for some reason felt drawn to check it out. I'm guessing it's a little fallout from my enjoyment of Ghost in the Shell and animated girls with guns here.

Initial Reaction: It's dark and didn't do a lot for me.

Who Should Watch It : Anybody wanting darker porn that looks for a way to excuse pedophilia

Who Should Avoid It: Anybody wanting comfortable animated sex, humor, or action

The Technical Stuff

Audio /Video Quality: The technical aspects are pretty well done. The only audio is in Japanese, which is translated with some okay subtitles. The video is smooth and nicely done.

Music: The music is very well blended with the rest of the audio.

Menus: The main menu is nicely done, and has an animation style that gave a great first impression. The chapter menu is pretty basic, and lets you choose a scene based on a small clip of each scene and a chapter number.

The Feature

One war over, and another is ready to start. In this time, the United Empire tries to conquer the world. By bringing together science and magic, they've isolated the “Angel Core” from those descended from Angels and combined it with technologically advanced weapons. Not all angels are happy about that, but others, such as Salsa, start to fall for their captors and cause them to doubt their mission.

Scene 1 – Salsa and Commander Ralph

When Salsa, a small brunette who acts like a little barely teenage girl but is built like a woman, is brought to the colonel, she tells him how forward she's looking to him doing naughty things to her. They head into the next room where she bounces on the bed and bends over for him to finger her. It doesn't take Salsa long to cum, and soon after she turns around to lick his cock. She turns back around so he can fuck her from behind and grab her huge titties before he pops in her pussy.

This scene leaves me with very mixed feelings. On one side I do really like that the sex is consensual, and Salsa is drawn with a great rack. At the same time, Salsa is given the personality of a girl who might have reached puberty which made the scene more than a little disturbing. The sex isn't too graphic, and although you you do see Ralph fingering Salsa you never see his cock enter her. This is a mildly disturbing scene.

Scene 2 – Orgy

A so called man of God watches over a military orgy as the officers fuck a group of girls. They take care of both pussies and asses, and even double team some of the girls. The girls thank them for their spunk, and let them take them in any position they want. Finally, the orgy ends as a battle begins.

This is another fairly disturbing scene. The girls all appear willing, but once again all appear extremely young. There's a wide variety of sex here, and it's treated with everything from passionate acceptance to fear. I guess it fits into the overall story okay, but it didn't do anything to turn me on.

Angel Core 1 didn't do a lot for me. I'll admit that part of me was curious about the storyline about angels and an upcoming war, but the story quickly moved away from that and went for sex that just seemed creepy to me with its borderline pedophilia. There's a lot of darkness to the feature, and while only one person interested me at all she was barely given any time. It's enough to make me somewhat curious and somewhat want to see more of the series, but at the same time I could easily walk away and never look back. My biggest problem with the release is its length. One half hour episode just doesn't cut it in today's world of DVDs, and there's no way I could justify paying over five bucks for this one because of it. Heck, I can barely even justify renting it with this short of a feature. Angel Core 1 has some interesting ideas, but it chooses to focus on the creepy things outside of that idea rather than making what could be one heck of an interesting and hot series.

The Extra Stuff

Bios are included for Commander Ralph, Celeste, and Monomma from the movie complete with a few drawings of each. They'd be nice bios except that they don't quite work. I guess Celeste is supposed to be Salsa, but the character bios are enough to actually explain the feature better than it often does. The photo gallery lasts about three and a half minutes, with about five seconds per very nice looking full screen photo. There's a nice mix of clips from the movie as well as character sketches, but unfortunately many of the naughty parts are blurred. Trailers are included for Daiakuji 1, Daiakuji 2, Daiakuji 3, Moral Hazard, and Ninja 1 as well as boxcovers for many other titles. There's also weblinks, the ability to go straight to the sex, and bonus footage.

The bonus footage appears to be a full cartoon similar to Angels in the Court 1 revolving around a volleyball team. It's a great idea for an extra, but sadly flops here due to a lack of care. The episode is completely in Japanese, with no English audio or subtitles. This really held it back for me, and made it look like it was just thrown onto the DVD without much care. I was really excited to see something like this included as an extra, but that excitement was quickly killed by a lack of care.

The Down -n- Dirty Sex Stuff

Themes: Anime, orgy, anal, and DP

Raincoat Factor: Medium

Condom Usage: None needed

The Bottom Line:

Currently, many of Hot Storm's DVDs can be found online for between about $14 and $25 with a few stores offering them near the low end. There's no way I can recommend anybody spend that kind of money on this release. It might work for some people, but with a feature that only lasts a half hour this one seems like a ripoff. Yes, the technical aspects are pretty good and there is a little effort put into the extras, but at the same time the extra feature doesn't even show enough care to translate the audio into the same languages as the main feature. With a few tweaks and a few more episodes this could have been a pretty good release, but as is I can't recommend it too highly.

Note to Hot Storm: If you're going to include extras, please translate them into the same languages as the main feature. Also, a single effort is going to lose you a lot of potential customers. You have a decent start here, however, so now please fix things for your upcoming releases!

If you have any questions or comments, please e-mail me .

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